London
CNN
—

Netflix

(NFLX) has expanded its crackdown on password sharing to Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain.

Users in those countries will now have to pay to give people who don’t live in them access to their account, after similar rules previously applied tried in Latin America last year.

Under the new rules, subscribers to Netflix’s Standard or Premium plans can pay for use by up to two people outside of their household her account. The cost of adding a new person is 7.99 Canadian dollars ($5.96), 7.99 New Zealand dollars ($5.09) and €3.99 ($4.30) and €5.99 ( $6.45) in Portugal and Spain.

Netflix began rolling out the change in Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras last year. Plans are to roll out the new rules “more generally” before March, it said in a letter to shareholders last month.

The streaming giant that has suffered badly subscriber losses Last year, he said in a blog post on Wednesday that sharing passwords was draining his revenue and therefore limiting his ability to invest in new content.

It is estimated that more than 100 million households worldwide share an account.

“Over the past year we’ve explored various approaches to address this issue in Latin America, and we’re now poised to roll them out more broadly in the coming months, starting today in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain,” Netflix said in the post.

The company that turned a blind eye password release for several years, there has been “confusion” among users about “when and how” they could share their accounts.

As part of the latest changes, users across the four countries are being asked to set a “primary location” that ensures everyone in a household watches TV from the same account. A new Manage Access and Devices page makes it easier for members to control who has access.

According to Netflix, users can still access their accounts from their tablets or phones, or from new TVs when they travel.

In its letter to shareholders, Netflix said that based on its experience in Latin America, it expects a portion of its users to cancel their subscriptions once the changes are rolled out, but predicts that the total number of users will grow over time.

Netflix shares have plummeted more than 50% over the past year on streaming concerns subscription fatigue and increasing competition from companies like Disney

(DIS) and Apple

(AAPL).

But the stock is up 24% year-to-date, boosted by the falling value of the U.S. dollar. Netflix generated more than half of its revenue outside the United States in 2022. So when the dollar depreciates, its international sales and earnings increase once converted back into the currency.

— Paul La Monica contributed to the coverage.