Codex for Students (2026): $100 Free OpenAI Codex Credits

Verified university students in the US and Canada can get $100 of OpenAI Codex usage for free. OpenAI's Codex for Students offer adds 2,500 ChatGPT credits (worth $100) to a personal ChatGPT account after SheerID confirms you are a student. It works on Free, Go, Plus and Pro plans, the credits last 12 months, and no end date for the offer has been published.

What you get

OpenAI says the credits extend Codex usage beyond your plan's included limits. In practice, you use your plan's normal Codex allowance first, and the student credits keep you going when you hit a limit instead of making you wait for the window to reset or buy credits.

What the credits don't cover

• The OpenAI API. The credits sit in ChatGPT, not in an API (platform) account. If you sign in to the Codex CLI with only an API key, that usage is billed at API rates and the student credits don't apply. See OpenAI API pricing.
• A ChatGPT subscription. The credits don't pay for Plus or Pro. If you want Plus as well, US students can get it free through the ChatGPT Plus student offer until October 31, 2026.
• A team or school workspace. The credits go to the personal account you used for verification.

Who qualifies

OpenAI's terms set three conditions. You must be a current student at a degree-granting university in the United States or Canada. You must live in the US or Canada when you claim. And you must pass SheerID verification. The offer is described as being for university students, so high-school students are not covered.

• Graduate students at degree-granting universities fit the wording, since OpenAI refers to university students without limiting it to undergraduates.
• International students studying at a US or Canadian university appear to qualify, because the terms test where you study and live, not your citizenship. OpenAI does not address this case directly.
• Students abroad (for example, on an exchange semester outside North America) may not meet the residency condition at the time of claiming.
• Students outside the US and Canada are not eligible. OpenAI hasn't announced other countries.

How to claim, step by step

1. Sign in to ChatGPT with your personal account. A Free account is enough. You don't need to create a separate Codex account.
2. Open chatgpt.com/codex/offers/students and start the claim.
3. Verify with SheerID using your university email. SheerID may confirm your enrollment straight away or ask for more proof.
4. Wait for the credits. After verification succeeds, OpenAI adds the credits to your account automatically.
5. Check your balance at chatgpt.com/codex/settings/usage. It should show 2,500 credits.

The 12-month clock starts on the grant date, not when you first use Codex. If you don't plan to code for months, wait to claim, as long as you will still be a student and OpenAI is still running the offer.

If verification or the credits don't appear

• Check you're signed in to the right account. The credits go to the ChatGPT account you were signed in to when you verified, which may not be the one you use day to day.
• Finish any SheerID document request. If SheerID can't confirm you instantly, the claim isn't complete until it reviews your proof of enrollment.
• Look at the usage page, not the subscription page. The credits appear as a balance at chatgpt.com/codex/settings/usage and don't change your plan name.

How far 2,500 credits go

Codex credits are charged per million tokens, and the rate depends on the model. These are OpenAI's published rates:

Because 2,500 credits equal $100, one credit is worth $0.04. Coding agents re-read your code a lot, so cached input usually makes up a large share of the tokens. Here is a worked example of a long session that sends 1M fresh input tokens and 4M cached input tokens, and produces 200,000 output tokens:

• GPT-6 Luna: (1 x 2.5) + (4 x 0.25) + (0.2 x 12.5) = 2.5 + 1 + 2.5 = 6 credits. 2,500 credits cover about 416 sessions like this.
• GPT-6.1 Sol: (1 x 50) + (4 x 2.5) + (0.2 x 250) = 50 + 10 + 50 = 110 credits. 2,500 credits cover about 22 sessions.
• GPT-6 Astra: (1 x 250) + (4 x 25) + (0.2 x 1,250) = 250 + 100 + 250 = 600 credits. 2,500 credits cover about 4 sessions.

The token counts are only an illustration. Real sessions vary a lot. OpenAI also says Fast mode uses 2x the Standard rate for credits, and Ultrafast 6x, so leave speed modes off unless you need them. Your usage page shows what you have actually spent.

Which ChatGPT plan to pair it with

OpenAI says the credits work on all four plans, but it doesn't spell out whether credits unlock Codex surfaces or models that your plan doesn't include. The safe reading is that credits add usage, not features. If you are on Free and want the CLI, the IDE extension or GPT-6.1 Sol, Plus is the entry plan. For US students, the four free months of Plus and these credits together give a full Codex setup at no cost until the Plus offer ends. Full plan details are on OpenAI Codex pricing.

Good ways to use the credits

• Course projects and assignments, where your course allows AI tools. Check your syllabus first.
• Portfolio projects: OpenAI's announcement mentions students building course registration agents, community platforms, study tools and startup prototypes.
• Code review: on Plus, Codex cloud integrations include automatic code review on your repositories.
• Learning a new codebase: ask Codex to explain a project before changing it. Explanation tasks are mostly input tokens, which cost far less than output.
• Default to GPT-6 Luna for routine tasks and keep GPT-6.1 Sol for harder problems. Luna is 20 times cheaper per token.

When the credits run out or expire

The student credits are a one-off grant, and OpenAI's terms don't describe any charge when they are used up or reach their 12-month expiry. You fall back to the Codex allowance included in your ChatGPT plan. From there, OpenAI's pricing page lists these options:

• Wait for your limit to reset. Plus limits are measured in five-hour windows, and weekly limits may also apply.
• Buy more credits. Plus and Pro users can buy extra credits without upgrading their plan.
• Use an API key for local work. All users can run extra local Codex chats with an API key at standard API rates. Cloud features are not available this way.
• Upgrade. Pro plans currently have no five-hour limit.

OpenAI also says that if you hit a limit in the middle of a task, the agent can keep working on that turn, subject to fair-use limits. Any credits left after 12 months are no longer usable and the published terms don't mention any extension.

Offer history

OpenAI announced Codex for Students in July 2026. An official announcement reposted on the OpenAI Developer Community on July 18, 2026 described it as $100 in Codex credits for verified university students in the United States and Canada. OpenAI also lists the program under Community programs on its developer site. No end date has been published. It is a separate offer from the 2026 Back to School deal, which gives US students four free months of ChatGPT Plus.

Alternatives for student coders

These can be combined, since they come from different companies. For a broader list of free options, see Is Codex free? and how to get free AI credits.

Common mistakes

• Expecting API credits. The credits only work with ChatGPT sign-in, not with an API key.
• Claiming too early. The credits expire 12 months after the grant date, used or not.
• Using expensive models by default. GPT-6 Astra uses 100 times more credits per input token than GPT-6 Luna.
• Using a shared or work account. The credits go to the personal account you verified with, and they can't be moved later.