Spotify Lossless: 24-bit FLAC and Real Limits

Spotify lossless audio settings showing 24-bit 44.1 kHz FLAC quality

Spotify spent years promising a HiFi tier and then did something more disruptive: in September 2025 it shipped lossless audio inside every Premium plan at no extra charge. No "Platinum" upsell, no separate subscription, no price rise attached to it. The catch is not commercial, it is physical. A 24-bit FLAC file is only lossless if nothing downstream throws the extra data away.

What Spotify lossless actually is

FLAC at up to 24-bit / 44.1 kHz, which is the resolution of the original CD masters rather than a hi-res remaster. Bitrate runs to about 1,411 kbps, roughly four and a half times the 320 kbps Very High setting. Every Premium plan gets it: Individual, Duo, Family, Student. Free does not, and there is no way to buy it separately.

Spotify's own framing is deliberate. It calls this "lossless", not "hi-res", because there is no 96 kHz or 192 kHz catalogue behind it. Compared with Tidal or Qobuz, the ceiling is lower; compared with the 320 kbps you had before, it is genuinely bit-perfect against the master.

How to switch lossless on

Open Settings, then Audio quality.
Set Wi-Fi streaming and Download to Lossless.
Under Lossless, choose whether to prefer lossless on Wi-Fi only or also on mobile data.
Open a track and confirm the badge shows lossless rather than Very High. It is per device, so repeat on each one.

Downloads need to be removed and re-added after the change; existing files stay at whatever quality they were saved. Expect a downloaded album to grow from about 100 MB at Very High to roughly 500 MB at lossless.

The four links that decide whether you hear it

Source. The track has to exist as a lossless master. Most releases from 2000 onward do; older recordings and some independent uploads do not.
Playback path. The app must be doing the decoding. The web player cannot: it streams AAC 256 kbps and has no quality setting at all, which our web player guide explains.
Output. Wired headphones or speakers through a DAC that handles 24-bit. Phone speakers and most smart speakers resample or compress internally.
Bluetooth. This is where most lossless playback quietly dies.

SBC, the mandatory Bluetooth codec, is lossy and low-bitrate. AAC over Bluetooth is lossy. Even LDAC and aptX Adaptive, the best commonly available codecs, are lossy at every setting except LDAC's 990 kbps mode, and that mode drops out at range. Bluetooth therefore cannot deliver lossless end to end. It can deliver a very good approximation, and on most headphones the difference from 320 kbps is small.

The honest test

Play a well-mastered acoustic track you know intimately, once at 320 kbps and once at lossless, on wired headphones with no EQ. If you cannot pick which is which, your money is better spent on better headphones than on a higher tier. If you can, the difference usually shows up in cymbal decay, room reverb and vocal breath rather than in bass.

Does lossless use more data

Yes, substantially. An hour of lossless streaming runs 300 to 500 MB against roughly 150 MB at 320 kbps and 70 MB at 160 kbps. On a phone plan that matters, which is why Spotify lets you keep lossless on Wi-Fi only while mobile data stays at Very High. Downloads are the better answer for travel: save at lossless once, then play without a connection.

Where Spotify sits against the alternatives in 2026

Apple Music has included lossless since 2021 and goes to 24-bit/192 kHz with ALAC, but requires wired output or specific hardware for the top tier. Amazon Music Unlimited bundles lossless at $12.99, the same headline as Spotify Individual. Tidal leads on hi-res depth and costs more. Deezer's CD-quality tier sits in the same bracket. Spotify's advantage is not the specification, it is that lossless arrived without a price change and without splitting the catalogue between tiers.

For most listeners the practical ranking is: headphones first, then source quality, then codec. A $12.99 plan through good wired headphones beats a hi-res plan through Bluetooth earbuds every time.

Common problems

No lossless option in settings. Either the account is not Premium, the app is out of date, or the market has not received the rollout. Update first, then check the plan status in the account page.

Lossless keeps reverting to Very High. Spotify falls back when the connection cannot sustain 1,411 kbps. On Wi-Fi that usually means a weak 2.4 GHz link; move to 5 GHz or wire the device.

The badge shows lossless but it sounds the same. Check the output path: a Bluetooth connection, a system-wide equaliser or an OS resampler will all collapse the benefit before it reaches your ears.

Next: how much of the catalogue is spoken word rather than music, in our guide to podcasts and audiobooks on Spotify.