Steam’s Family Sharing feature lets you share your game library with up to five other Steam accounts and with no extra purchase being required. Here’s how to share a game on Steam as of 2026.
Video games can be expensive, especially if you like trying to keep up with new releases. Buying a new title every week adds up fast, and that’s true even when you’re sticking to cheaper indie games. Thankfully, Steam lets you share games with friends, albeit with a few restrictions, so that you can enjoy new releases without breaking the bank.
Steam Families lets you share games with up to five friends at a time. Once you’re part of each other’s Family group, everyone gets access to the games in your shared library. No need to buy separate copies or split the cost of a single account.
How do I share a game on Steam?
If you want to share a game on Steam, the process is really quite simple. All you have to do is invite friends from your profile settings.
- To get started, open Steam and head to your account settings.
- Find the Family Management section.
- Select “Create a Family,” and give the group a name, and confirm.
- From there, you can invite up to five other members to join your Steam Family.
Once everyone’s connected in this way, each member gets access to the others’ shareable games.
The biggest upgrade from the old system is that two people can now play different games from the shared pool at the same time, rather than one person locking everyone else out while they play.
Previously, friends could only play a game when the owner was offline, so this is a significant improvement for players. Though even after the latest update, two people still can’t play the same game unless more than a single copy exists.
A few limits do still apply. Everyone in the family group needs to live in the same country, and there’s a one-year cooldown before you can join a new family after leaving one. Developers can also opt individual games out of sharing on Steam, so not every game in a user’s library will necessarily show up for the rest of the family.
Is it safe to share a game on Steam?
It is completely safe to share a game on Steam with people you know, but users are strongly recommended to share their Steam games only with friends they fully trust. Group owners and people in the same Steam family group risk getting VAC banned if a member of that group is caught cheating.
VAC-protected games such as Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 carry a shared risk: even if you weren’t the one cheating, you could still end up being banned. If any of the six family members gets caught cheating or committing fraud, the whole family risks losing access. The best way to avoid this is to be selective about who you share your library with.
Beyond that, game sharing on Steam is generally quite safe. Users can also invite minors to take part via child accounts, giving parents the ability to set parental controls and restrict access to age-inappropriate content.
