Picture Credit: Starz
It’s time to weigh anchor and prepare for departure. All four seasons of the hit Starz pirate drama Black Sails are currently scheduled to leave Netflix in the United States on April 17th, 2026, marking a surprisingly short-lived stay for the series.
As we’ve reported previously, Netflix has been aggressively licensing third-party content over the last couple of years to bolster its library. Black Sails was one of the crown jewels of that strategy when it arrived back on April 17th. However, it appears the “Golden Age of Piracy” on Netflix was more of a fleeting sunset than a long-term residency.
As we first revealed when covering the upcoming removals throughout April 2026, we’re expecting the series to leave in full. A removal date is expected to appear on the title’s landing page starting on March 17th, around a month before it leaves. It confirms that the series will have spent only two years on the platform before departing. As we first reported, the series was licensed in early 2024, but its release date on Netflix was delayed for unknown reasons, and it eventually dropped on April 17th, 2024.
Only the United States picked up the show, and after its addition, it spent 9 days in the top 10s there. The Netflix Engagement Reports certainly suggest that it’s a natural time for the series to drop away from the service, given that viewership has collapsed since its addition.
Here are the 2024 and 2025 viewership numbers for Black Sails, broken down by season:
Season 1
- 2024: 28.9M Hours (3.8M Views)
- 2025: 6.9M Hours (900k Views)
Season 2
- 2024: 20.0M Hours (2.2M Views)
- 2025: 5.2M Hours (600k Views)
Season 3
- 2024: 16.3M Hours (1.8M Views)
- 2025: 4.3M Hours (500k Views)
Season 4
- 2024: 15.6M Hours (1.6M Views)
- 2025: 4.1M Hours (400k Views)
What is Black Sails about?
For those who haven’t yet taken the plunge, Black Sails serves as a gritty, high-stakes prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel Treasure Island.[1] Set roughly 20 years before the events of the book, it follows the feared Captain Flint (played by Toby Stephens) as he fights for the survival of New Providence Island—a literal pirate’s paradise—against the encroaching British Empire.
The series is widely praised for its incredible production design, Bear McCreary’s iconic score, and a cast that includes future stars like Tom Hopper (The Umbrella Academy), Luke Arnold, and Jessica Parker Kennedy. It’s often compared to Game of Thrones for its political intrigue, just substituted with ships and sea shanties.
Why is Black Sails leaving Netflix so soon?
Licensing is, as always, a fickle beast. When Netflix picks up shows from companies like Lionsgate (which owns Starz), they are essentially “renting” the content for a fixed window. While many licensing deals usually last for two to five years, we have seen an increasing number of “short-term” windows—often just 12 to 18 months—specifically for high-profile library titles. Heck, some of the recent Warner Bros. Television pickups has been as short as 6-months.
We saw a similar “one-and-done” situation with several HBO titles that landed on Netflix last year, and it looks like Black Sails falls into that same category. Unless a last-minute renewal is struck (which does happen, albeit rarely), the series will head back to being exclusive to its home at Starz.
Where can you watch Black Sails next?
Once the clock strikes midnight on April 17th, your best bet for watching the series will be the Starz app or through the Starz add-on channel on Hulu or Prime Video.
If you’re currently mid-binge, you have a little over a month to finish all 38 episodes. It’s a tight window, but for a show this good, it’s worth the “speed-watch.”
Will you be finishing your Black Sails binge before it leaves in April? Let us know in the comments below!
