LinkedIn Live in 2026: Who Can Go Live and How to Start a Broadcast

LinkedIn Live is live video on LinkedIn, broadcast from a personal profile or a company page. Not everyone gets access: you need more than 150 followers and/or connections, recent original posts and no violations of the community policies. There is no "Go live" button inside LinkedIn itself, so you stream through partner services such as Restream and StreamYard, or through OBS over RTMP. Since June 22, 2026, every broadcast must be tied to a LinkedIn Events event created in advance. The ceiling is 1080p, 30 frames per second, 6 Mbps and 4 hours per broadcast. LinkedIn is not available from Russia: Roskomnadzor has blocked the site since November 17, 2016.

LinkedIn and Russia: what to know before setting up

Let's start with the main restriction for Russian-speaking readers. On August 4, 2016, the Tagansky District Court in Moscow granted Roskomnadzor's claim against LinkedIn for violating the personal data law: the company did not confirm that it stores Russians' data on servers in Russia. On November 10, the Moscow City Court upheld the ruling, and on November 17, 2016, internet providers began blocking linkedin.com. In January 2017, the LinkedIn apps were removed from the Russian App Store and Google Play. Talks about unblocking in spring 2017 came to nothing, and as of October 2026 there is no information that the block has been lifted.

The practical conclusion is this. If you live and work in Russia, LinkedIn Live is not a suitable platform for promotion: a Russian audience will not reach it, and the service is officially unavailable to you. The topic is relevant if you are based in another country, run a business for a foreign market, or your company has a page and employees outside Russia. In LinkedIn's official access criteria for LinkedIn Live, only mainland China is excluded by country; there are no restrictions for Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia or Georgia.

Who can go live: the official requirements

LinkedIn reviews access to live video separately for a personal profile and for a company page. The criteria are the same:

• An audience of more than 150 people. Followers and/or connections both count.
• Fresh original content. You need to have recently posted something of your own: text posts, photos, videos or articles. It has to be original content, not just reposts.
• A clean record. The profile, the page and its administrators must have no violations of the Professional Community Policies.
• Location. LinkedIn Live is not available to members and pages from mainland China.

There is no separate application form with an "I want to stream" field. The check starts when you connect LinkedIn to a partner service: when you add the channel, Restream or StreamYard sends the request automatically. If you do not have access, the service shows an error saying the account has not been approved. LinkedIn does not publicly say how long the review takes or how soon you can try again after a refusal, so go by the response in your service.

One more detail: a profile and a page are separate. A member goes live under their own name, a page admin goes live as the company. You cannot send a broadcast from a personal profile to a page or the other way round, and access is confirmed separately for each. To broadcast as a company, you need the page administrator role.

LinkedIn Events and Live: why you can't go live without an event anymore

LinkedIn Events is an event page with a date, time, description and a list of attendees. Previously an event was optional: you could go live straight into the feed. In the LinkedIn Live Overview help page, the company announced that from June 22, 2026 all broadcasts must be scheduled in advance. You can still go live on short notice, but you have to create the event first, even just a few minutes before the start.

How it works in practice:

1. Create the event: on the LinkedIn home page choose "Event", pick the online format and the LinkedIn Live type, and set the date, time, title and cover image. Many partner services create the event for you when you schedule a broadcast with them.
2. Invite people. Notifications about the start go to those who marked themselves as attending the event, not to all followers, so invitations and an announcement in the feed really affect your viewer count.
3. You can go live in a window from 15 minutes before to 2 hours after the scheduled time. If you miss the window, the post will show the broadcast as canceled.
4. When it ends, the recording stays in the feed of the profile or page, marked as a past broadcast.

The title, cover image and time of the event cannot be changed after creation; only the description can be edited. So check everything before you press the button. It is easier to test from a company page: it has a test event option. A personal profile cannot run closed tests, so any trial broadcast will be public.

What to stream with: LinkedIn partners and OBS over RTMP

LinkedIn has no built-in studio for broadcasting from a webcam, so you need an external tool. There are two ways.

Partner services

For beginners, LinkedIn recommends its preferred partners: Restream, StreamYard, Socialive and Switcher Studio. For Zoom, the help center has a separate guide on how to run a webinar into a LinkedIn event. The advantage of partners is that they apply for access themselves, create the event and work from the browser: you can invite a guest by link, show viewer comments on screen and add a logo without configuring an encoder.

OBS and other encoders

OBS Studio is not on the partner list, but it works through a custom stream (Custom stream, RTMP). LinkedIn explicitly names OBS, Elemental and Zoom as examples of compatible software. The procedure is as follows:

1. On a computer, in a browser, schedule a broadcast through the custom stream section and choose the profile or page.
2. In stream management, click the prepare-to-go-live option, choose the nearest server region and get the server URL and the stream key. The details appear one hour before the scheduled start.
3. In OBS, open "Settings" → "Stream", choose the "Custom" service and paste the URL and key. For more on where to get the addresses and how RTMP differs from RTMPS, see our article on RTMP servers for Twitch, YouTube and other platforms.
4. Start the stream in OBS, wait for the picture to appear in the LinkedIn preview and only then press "Go live" on the LinkedIn side.
5. End in reverse order: first the broadcast in LinkedIn, then the stream in OBS.

Keep the stream key secret: with it, anyone can broadcast into your event.

Technical stream parameters

LinkedIn publishes its encoder requirements in the LinkedIn Live Video Encoder Settings help page and in the developer documentation. Summary:

Parameter	Value
Resolution	up to 1080p, 720p recommended
Aspect ratio	16:9, vertical and square formats are not supported
Frame rate	up to 30 frames per second
Keyframe	every 2 seconds
Video bitrate	up to 6 Mbps, about 3.5 Mbps recommended
Audio	AAC, up to 128 kbps, 48 kHz
Video codec	H.264
Duration	up to 4 hours per broadcast
Protocol and ports	RTMP (TCP 1935, 1936) or RTMPS (TCP 2935, 2936), RTMPS preferred

The main difference from gaming platforms is 30 frames instead of 60. If you are used to streaming on Twitch at 1080p60, create a separate OBS profile at 30 fps for LinkedIn, otherwise the platform will recompress the stream or it will drop. For a talking format with a camera and slides, 720p30 at 3-4 Mbps looks clean and does not require fast internet. How to choose the numbers for your channel and hardware is covered in the article how to choose a bitrate for streaming.

If no frames reach the LinkedIn server for 120 seconds, the broadcast ends on a timeout, so a wired connection is better for long streams.

Who needs this

LinkedIn is a business network, where your live audience will not be viewers from gaming categories but colleagues, clients and employers. The format pays off in three cases.

• B2B companies. Product presentations, case breakdowns, a demo of a new feature with answers to questions in the chat. The event collects registrations in advance, and the recording then works as a webinar in the company feed.
• Experts and consultants. Weekly broadcasts on your topic, interviews with guests, breakdowns of industry news. Regularity works best: the same day and time, a clear topic for each episode.
• Hiring and employer brand. An online open day, a broadcast with a team lead about how work in the team is organized, a recruiter answering candidates' questions. People look for jobs on LinkedIn, so this audience is already warm.

A gaming streamer rarely needs LinkedIn Live. The exception is if you do something at the intersection of games and careers: game development, esports as a business, working in the game industry, teaching. Then you can add LinkedIn as one more destination for multistreaming.

Multistreaming with Twitch and YouTube

You can send one broadcast to LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitch at once through Restream, StreamYard or another multistreaming service. It is worth knowing the limitations in advance:

• LinkedIn accepts only one of its own destinations at a time. You cannot broadcast to a profile and a company page, or to two pages, at the same time.
• LinkedIn still requires an event, even if the other platforms start without a schedule. Partner services create it for you.
• The strictest platform sets the limits. If you want 60 frames on Twitch and YouTube but LinkedIn allows 30, you will need a service that transcodes the stream for each destination, or a common compromise of 30 frames.
• Free plans are limited: Restream offers two platforms at once for free, while at StreamYard multistreaming is part of the paid plans.
• Since October 2023, Twitch has allowed simultaneous broadcasting to other platforms, as long as Twitch viewers get a picture that is no worse and you do not steer them elsewhere.

Detailed setup schemes, including ones without paid services, are in the article multistreaming to YouTube, Twitch and Kick.

The first broadcasts on any platform are the hardest because of the empty viewer counter. If you are also growing YouTube or Twitch, you can support your starting online through our service: build your own viewer plan in the viewer control panel or pick services for YouTube promotion.

Frequently asked questions

Can I go live on LinkedIn from my phone?

LinkedIn has no built-in broadcasting from a phone camera. You need a third-party tool: partners' mobile apps, such as Switcher Studio, or a computer with a browser-based service or OBS. A custom RTMP stream is set up from a browser on a computer.

How many followers do I need for LinkedIn Live?

More than 150 followers and/or connections. You also need recent original posts and no violations of the community policies. Meeting the conditions does not guarantee access: LinkedIn evaluates each profile and page.

How long can a LinkedIn broadcast last?

Up to 4 hours per broadcast. If you need longer, split the broadcast into two events.

Can I stream to LinkedIn from Russia?

No. LinkedIn has been blocked in Russia since November 17, 2016 under a court ruling over violation of the personal data law, and the site and apps are officially unavailable. The platform makes sense if you work from another country or for a foreign audience.

Do I need to create an event if I just want to go live right now?

Yes. Since June 22, 2026, every broadcast must be scheduled as an event. You can create it a few minutes before the start, and partner services often do it automatically.

Does LinkedIn support 60 frames per second?

No, the maximum is 30 frames per second at up to 1080p and a bitrate of up to 6 Mbps. For multistreaming with gaming platforms, keep this in mind when choosing settings.