Can students earn money online on tier 4 visas?

Hello,

Say that I'm in the UK studying on a Tier 4 visa. I understand that I have upto 20 hours a week work permit. What about the money that I earn from YouTube? Say that I set up a YouTube channel and collect money from Adsense, is that fine? What if i am using services like Patreon where others can donate money to me per video I make or per month, what about that?

It seems to me like a grey area. It is difficult to quantify the number of hours put in to make a video. How would it work then? I'm guessing that I'd have to pay the income tax anyway. Which is a reasonable demand. However, not sure if working like this falls within the 20 hours rule.

There is a simple answer to your question.... If you generate income by the means you are suggesting and it is in your sole name then by default you are self employed. Any legal entity that you own or operate amounts to the same thing as well.

Student Tier 4 visa - not all student visas have the right to work, if it allows you to work it precludes setting up a business or being self employed.

So technically what you are suggesting would be a breach of your visa conditions.

That actually makes sense. What about donations to the channel? Would that fall under the same category? Say, people love my videos where I build stuff. They want to fund these projects and watch more videos of me doing this. So they all donate some money. Would that be illegal too?

Donations are still income and would still need to be declared, which means you are still working.

The UK Council for International Student Affairs now has a detailed blog post that looks at where monetized YouTube channels and other money-making activities fit (or more often do not fit) into the Tier 4 working conditions:

Blog: A working definition