How to Add or Change Podcast Category on Spotify?

Your podcast category is one of those small settings you probably choose once while setting up the show and then forget about. But if your podcast changes direction over time, or you realise you picked a category that never really described the show in the first place, it makes sense to go back and correct it.

The process itself is not difficult, but there is one thing that makes it slightly confusing: where you change your podcast category depends on where your show is hosted.

If your podcast is hosted directly with Spotify for Creators, you can manage its category from Spotify’s settings. If you use Buzzsprout, Transistor, Captivate, Libsyn, Podbean, or another external podcast host, your category normally comes from the metadata inside your podcast RSS feed, which means you should make the change at your hosting platform rather than trying to force it from Spotify. Spotify also says its editorial team can curate categories your show appears in, so what you see on Spotify is not always controlled by a single setting.

This guide covers both situations, along with what to check if you change the category and Spotify still appears to show the old one.

How Podcast Categories Work on Spotify

Before changing anything, it helps to understand where Spotify gets this information.

Spotify currently says a few things can determine which categories your podcast or show appears under:

• the <itunes:category> information inside your RSS feed;
• categories selected when a podcast is submitted through Spotify for Creators;
• categories curated by Spotify’s editorial team.

That first point is particularly important if another company hosts your podcast.

Your podcast RSS feed contains much more than your episodes. It can also carry information such as your show title, description, artwork, author, language, and category. When you change that information through your podcast host, the host updates the feed, and services such as Spotify can read the new metadata.

This also means that your podcast category is generally a show-level setting. You don’t normally assign one category to episode one, another category to episode two, and another to episode three simply because the subjects vary slightly.

If your overall podcast has genuinely changed direction, though, changing the show category makes sense.

---

How to Change Your Podcast Category if Spotify Hosts Your Show

If you created and host the podcast directly with Spotify for Creators, this is the easier situation.

Spotify’s current documentation says creators hosting their show with Spotify can update the category from Settings.

The basic process is:

1. Sign in to Spotify for Creators.
2. Select the show you want to edit if you manage more than one.
3. Open Settings.
4. Find the category settings for your show.
5. Choose the category that best describes your podcast.
6. Save your changes.

The interface can change over time, so I wouldn’t make this guide dependent on the exact position of a button or icon. What matters is that Spotify-hosted shows currently manage their category through the show’s Settings.

And yes, the platform is now called Spotify for Creators, not Spotify for Podcasters. If you still see the old name in screenshots, articles, or tutorials, those instructions may simply predate Spotify’s rebrand.

---

How to Change Your Podcast Category if You Use Buzzsprout, Libsyn, Podbean or Another Host

If Spotify doesn’t host your podcast, I would not start inside Spotify.

Go to the platform that actually hosts your show.

This could be Buzzsprout, Transistor, Captivate, Libsyn, Podbean, RSS.com, SoundCloud, or another podcast hosting provider. If you are still deciding whether your current host is suitable, Tiny Quip also has a guide covering alternatives to Spotify’s original Anchor podcast hosting, which we are also refreshing as part of this podcast series.

Once inside your hosting dashboard, select the podcast and look for the section containing the show’s general information. Depending on the host, this may be called:

Podcast Settings, Show Settings, Podcast Info, Details, Distribution, or something similar.

You are looking for the show’s Category field.

Choose the new category, save the change, and let the host update your RSS feed.

The reason this works is that Spotify reads the <itunes:category> information included in your podcast RSS feed as one of its category signals.

You should not need to create a new RSS feed simply because you changed your category. Your existing feed can carry the updated metadata.

And definitely don’t change the actual RSS URL for something this simple. If you really do need to migrate or replace a feed, I have a separate guide on how to change your podcast RSS feed on Spotify for Creators.

---

What Category Should You Choose for Your Podcast?

This sounds obvious, but I wouldn’t choose a category simply because you think it has a larger audience or looks easier to rank in.

Choose the category that most accurately represents the overall show.

Suppose your podcast occasionally talks about technology, but 80% of the episodes are interviews with entrepreneurs about building companies. A category around business or entrepreneurship is probably more representative than technology.

Likewise, a podcast about personal finance shouldn’t jump into a general business category simply because one episode discusses starting a company.

Think about what somebody subscribing to the show should reasonably expect from the majority of your episodes.

If your content has changed so much that your existing category no longer describes it, that’s a perfectly good reason to update the category.

If you are still developing the show itself, working on things such as writing a podcast script before recording can also help you see whether your planned episodes genuinely belong to one central theme or are spread across too many unrelated subjects.

---

Can You Choose More Than One Podcast Category?

This depends partly on the platform and hosting system you use.

The underlying iTunes-style RSS category system supports multiple category elements and subcategories. Apple Podcasts, for example, currently allows creators to choose a primary and secondary category, along with available subcategories, and says those choices can affect category pages, recommendations, and charts within Apple Podcasts.

Your podcast host may therefore let you choose more than one category or designate primary and secondary categories.

Spotify, however, does not simply promise to display every category from your host exactly as you entered it. Spotify says the categories in which a show appears can also be influenced by categories chosen during submission and its own editorial curation.

So I wouldn’t obsess over trying to squeeze your podcast into every remotely related category.

Choose the categories that genuinely represent the show and let the metadata do its job.

---

Does Changing Your Podcast Category Help You Get More Listeners?

Possibly with categorization and discovery, but I would be careful about promising more than that.

The older Tiny Quip article said that Spotify would use your category to first recommend an episode to a smaller group, measure things such as listening time and rewinds, and then show it to larger audiences until it reaches the charts.

That explanation was based more on an assumption about recommendation systems than anything Spotify had documented, so I would remove it.

Spotify does confirm that categories help determine where your show appears within Spotify, but Spotify does not say that changing a category automatically increases reach or gives the podcast an algorithmic boost. Spotify also explicitly notes that chart categories are different from podcast categories elsewhere in the app.

So, choose the correct category because it accurately describes the show and helps Spotify understand where it belongs, not because you expect changing from one category to another to suddenly generate thousands of listeners.

If you’re looking at monetization or audience growth more broadly, I have a separate guide on ways to make money from podcasts beyond traditional podcast ads.

---

Spotify Podcast Categories vs Spotify Podcast Charts

This is another distinction worth making because the two can easily be confused.

The category associated with your show is part of the metadata and classification surrounding the podcast.

Spotify’s Podcast Charts, however, are a separate system.

Spotify itself notes that chart categories are different from podcast categories elsewhere in the Spotify app.

So, if you change your podcast category, don’t assume that you will immediately appear under an identically named Spotify chart, or that changing categories is a shortcut into a less competitive chart.

They are related concepts, but they aren’t the same thing.

---

How Long Does It Take for a Podcast Category to Change on Spotify?

The old version of this article repeatedly suggested waiting 48 hours.

I wouldn’t give that as a fixed rule anymore because Spotify’s current category documentation does not promise a specific 48-hour update window.

If Spotify hosts your show, the category change happens within Spotify’s own system. If another company hosts the podcast, Spotify first needs to fetch the updated RSS metadata from that feed.

That can take some time, and different podcast services refresh feed information on different schedules.

So if you have only just changed the category, I wouldn’t immediately assume something has broken.

First, check whether the change was actually saved at the source.

---

Podcast Category Not Changing on Spotify? Try These Checks

If you changed your category but Spotify still shows something else, work through the problem from the source rather than clearing random caches immediately.

1. Check Where the Podcast Is Hosted

If Spotify for Creators hosts your show, make sure you changed the category in Spotify’s own Settings. In case, if another company hosts the show, make sure you changed the category there.

Editing the wrong platform is one of the easiest ways to spend half an hour wondering why nothing happened.

2. Check Whether the New Category Is in the RSS Feed

For an externally hosted podcast, open the RSS feed and look for the <itunes:category> information.

You don’t need to become an XML expert.

Use your browser’s Find function and search for:

itunes:category

If the old category is still in the feed, Spotify isn’t the problem yet. Your hosting provider has not updated the metadata you expect Spotify to read.

If the new category appears correctly, the host has done its part, and Spotify may simply not have refreshed the information yet.

For a deeper explanation of what is inside the feed, see my updated guide to the podcast RSS feed.

3. Check That You Actually Saved the Change

It sounds painfully obvious, but podcast dashboards often have several layers of settings and a Save or Update button sitting at the bottom.

Go back and confirm the category you selected is still there.

If it reverted to the old category, make the change again and save it properly.

4. Don’t Manually Republish the RSS Feed Without a Reason

The old Tiny Quip article recommended manually republishing or refreshing the RSS feed.

I wouldn’t make that a standard troubleshooting step.

Most managed podcast hosts update RSS automatically when you save show metadata. There normally isn’t anything for you to manually “publish” at the RSS level.

If the RSS feed already shows the correct category, repeatedly editing or republishing things is unlikely to make Spotify process it faster.

5. Don’t Start by Clearing Spotify’s Cache

The old guide also suggested clearing the Spotify app cache.

That can occasionally help with display issues, but it shouldn’t be the first explanation for a category mismatch.

The more useful question is whether Spotify has actually received the new metadata.

Check the source first.

Only troubleshoot the local app after you know the category has changed on Spotify’s side, but one particular device keeps showing old information.

6. Remember That Spotify Can Curate Categories Too

This is the slightly frustrating part.

Spotify explicitly says its editorial team can curate categories in which a podcast or show appears.

That means the category presentation you see inside Spotify may not always be a simple one-to-one copy of the field in your RSS feed.

If your RSS metadata is correct, enough time has passed for an update, and the show still appears somewhere unexpected, contact Spotify for Creators support rather than repeatedly changing the feed.

---

Do You Need to Change the Category for Individual Episodes?

No, not in the way the old article implied.

The category we are discussing here describes the podcast show.

Your individual episodes can obviously cover slightly different subjects within that show, and Spotify can understand episodes using much more information than the show’s category alone.

If one episode is about marketing and another is about sales, you don’t need to repeatedly switch the entire podcast between Marketing and Business categories before publishing each one.

Pick the category that best describes the show overall.

You can then make each episode more understandable through a clear episode title, description, and good content structure.

And if an old episode no longer belongs on the show at all, that is a different task; I have a separate guide on how to remove podcast episodes from Spotify.

---

Should You Change Your Podcast Category After Rebranding?

Only if the actual subject of the podcast changed.

Changing your podcast name, podcast cover art, description, or visual identity does not automatically mean the category also needs to change.

Suppose you rename a personal-finance show and redesign the artwork, but the episodes still cover personal finance. Keep the appropriate finance-related category.

On the other hand, if your old podcast was exclusively about cryptocurrency and the relaunched show now covers entrepreneurship, careers, investing, and business more broadly, reconsidering the category makes sense.

The category should follow the content, not simply the branding.

Frequently Asked Questions [FAQs]

Wrapping Up: Pick the Category That Actually Describes Your Podcast

Changing your podcast category on Spotify is simple once you know where that information is coming from.

If Spotify for Creators hosts the podcast, manage the category from the show’s Settings. If another company hosts it, make the change there so your podcast RSS feed contains the correct category information.

Then give Spotify time to pick up the change instead of repeatedly editing the feed, clearing caches, or creating a new RSS URL.

More importantly, don’t treat podcast categories like an SEO loophole where changing the label magically gives the show a larger audience. Choose the category that best explains what somebody is going to hear when they press play.

Good categorization helps put the podcast in the right context, but the show still needs something worth listening to once people find it. That starts with the actual episode, from writing a good podcast script to making sure your podcast microphone isn’t undoing all that effort with poor audio.