Figma Education Plan (2026): Free Figma and Figma AI for Students

Short answer: yes, Figma is free for verified students and educators. The Education plan gives you Figma Design, FigJam and the rest of the Professional tier at no cost. If you are at a university, college or approved bootcamp, you also get Figma's AI tools, including Figma Make, with 3,000 AI credits a month. High school and K-12 users get the design tools but not the AI features. Access lasts a fixed period, one year for most students, and you renew by reapplying.

What you get with the Figma Education plan

Figma's education page says Figma and FigJam are "100% free for students, educators and schools" with "no freemium or hidden upgrades, ever." Self-serve students and educators get the Professional tier. K-12 districts that apply through a school agreement get the Enterprise tier. Figma's pricing FAQ describes the Education plan as giving access to all Professional team features for free.

The paid equivalent explains why this offer matters. On Figma's pricing page, a Professional Full seat costs $16 a month and includes 3,000 AI credits a month. A Dev seat costs $12 and a Collab seat $3, each with 500 AI credits. For one year, a Full seat would cost 12 × $16 = $192. That is roughly what a higher-ed student gets free, before tax, and it assumes you would otherwise pay monthly.

What the Education plan doesn't include

• AI for younger students. High school and K-12 users have no access to Figma Make, the agent in Figma Design or other AI tools.
• Some AI features. Visual search inside the editor isn't available on Education accounts, although visual search for Community resources is.
• Full Figma Sites. Eligible users can publish one Site file they created, and custom domains aren't available.
• Organization or Enterprise features for self-serve users. Individual students get Professional. Enterprise is only for K-12 schools and districts that apply through the school route.
• Unlimited AI. Credits are capped each month. When you hit the cap, AI actions stop until the reset or until you move to a plan with more credits.

Who qualifies

Figma's help center sets three basic conditions. You must be a current student or educator, you must be old enough to consent on your own in your country, and you must apply with a school-issued email. Non-teaching school staff don't qualify. Eligible organizations include universities and colleges, high schools, select online courses and bootcamps, and design and coding academies. Figma excludes self-directed learning, startups, edtech companies and non-profits.

Edge cases worth knowing

• Students under the age of consent. They can't sign up themselves. Their school or district applies through the K-12 route at figma.com/education/k-12 and signs Figma's terms for schools, which unlocks the Enterprise tier. The domain administrator sets the access length.
• Bootcamps and online courses. Students don't apply. The administrator applies to join Figma's trusted partner list and then verifies students directly. The program needs a structured, mentor-led curriculum, at least 10 students per cohort, a public website showing the curriculum and instructors, and non-commercial use.
• Homeschool students and educators. Figma's help center tells them to contact Figma Support with proof of status.
• Unrecognized school domains. Figma provides a review form for domains its system doesn't recognize.
• Country availability. Figma says the program is only available in select regions. It doesn't publish a list. On the Figma Community forum, support staff have said that applicants in Russia aren't eligible, that SheerID verification no longer serves Tunisia, and that Finland is approved. For any other country, email education@figma.com.

How to apply, step by step

You need a Figma account before you apply, and the account's email should be your school address. Figma can't move education status between accounts, so verify the account you plan to keep.

Higher education students and educators

1. Log in to Figma with your school-issued email. Personal addresses such as Gmail are rejected automatically.
2. Go to figma.com/education/apply and select Higher Ed as the institution type. Your email domain must match your school's domain.
3. Fill in the verification form from SheerID, Figma's verification partner, with your school and personal details. If SheerID asks for a document, upload one that proves current enrollment. Course syllabi are not accepted.
4. Wait for SheerID's email. Figma says it usually arrives within a few days. If verification fails, contact SheerID support instead of resubmitting again and again.
5. Create a free Education team from the file browser or at figma.com/files/create-team and complete the upgrade. To upgrade a team you already have, click the Free badge next to its name and choose the Education plan.

High school students and educators

1. Log in with your school email and go to figma.com/education/apply.
2. Select High school as the institution type.
3. Agree to the terms and choose your role: Student, Educator or Administrator. Answer any subject or usage questions.
4. Confirm that you are a current student or educator, then submit.

Don't use a VPN while you verify. Don't change your account email after you are verified, because Figma's help center says that revokes your education status. Invited teammates who need edit access must verify their own education status within seven days.

How long it lasts and how to renew

Education access isn't permanent. Figma's help center gives these periods:

Figma's pricing FAQ gives a shorter summary: two years for K-12 and higher education, six months for bootcamps. The two official pages disagree on the student period, so check the expiry date Figma shows for your own team. Either way, renewal isn't automatic. If you are still a student or educator when the period ends, you must reapply through the same application process.

What happens to your files when it expires

• Team members who aren't owners drop to view-only. They can still move files to other teams they belong to.
• Owners of teams with three or fewer files move to the free Starter plan. They keep access but lose Professional features.
• Owners of teams with four or more files are moved to Starter and the team is locked. You can still download or move files. To unlock it, reverify, upgrade to a paid plan or reduce the team to three files.
• If the team owner doesn't reverify, the whole team is downgraded, even for members who did reverify. Members can move or duplicate their own files to Drafts or another team.

Figma's Starter plan allows unlimited files in Drafts, but co-editing is limited to 3 files with 3 pages each. Starter users get 150 AI credits a day, up to 500 a month. Plan your graduation date: export work you want for your portfolio, or move it into a team you'll pay for, before your education access ends.

How Figma AI credits work on the Education plan

Figma uses one credit pool that is shared across all Figma AI features and products. Eligible Education users get 3,000 credits a month. According to Figma's pricing FAQ, credits are used when you ask the agent to create or edit Specs files, or to add or change code layers. The cost depends on how complex the task is. Building Specs without AI is free. Figma Make is free during beta when you ship to your codebase. The FAQ also says code-layer editing is free on paid plans until November 4, 2026, after which all code-layer tasks use credits. Paid teams can buy extra credits. The Education help article only says that you must wait for the reset or move to a plan with more credits.

Getting the most out of it

• Portfolio work: Figma Design and Sites let you build case studies. You can publish one Site file, so save it for your best piece.
• Class projects and critiques: FigJam boards and templates from figma.com/@education are useful for group brainstorming, user-journey maps and peer review.
• Prototyping with AI: higher-ed users can use Figma Make to turn a prompt into a clickable prototype or small working app. Credits are capped, so draft your prompt carefully before you run it.
• Design-to-code: Dev Mode and the MCP server let you connect Figma files to coding tools. For AI help with the code itself, see GitHub Copilot for students. Cursor closed its free student year to new sign-ups in June 2026 (see our Cursor student discount page).
• Learning: Figma runs live training sessions every two weeks and has a YouTube tutorial playlist. Schools can request free professional development sessions at education@figma.com.

How it compares with other student offers

Figma's offer is one of the most generous design deals for students because it's free with no card required. Other student tools often cover AI building and coding instead of design, and some are discounts rather than free plans. Lovable's student discount halves the price of an AI app builder but isn't free. The GitHub Student Developer Pack bundles many developer tools. Notion's Education plan covers notes and project planning. JetBrains covers professional IDEs. Our guide to getting free AI credits lists more ways to stack free tools while you study.

Common mistakes

• Verifying the wrong account. Figma can't move education status to another account. You can move folders or teams instead. If the status was applied to the wrong account, Figma has a correction form, and fixes can take up to a week.
• Using a personal email. Applications from non-school emails are rejected automatically.
• Expecting AI in high school. The AI toolkit is only for higher education and bootcamp users.
• Mixing paid and education seats. Figma's help center says free education members and paid non-education members can't share the same Professional team.
• Forgetting to reapply. Access ends on a fixed date. If you are still eligible, reverify before then so the team isn't locked.

Privacy and school deployments

For schools, Figma says the only personal data required is an email address and a name. Data is hosted in the United States, and Figma will delete personal data within 30 days of a request, apart from archive or backup copies. Google Workspace for Education admins can deploy licenses from the Google Admin Console through a beta licensing system, and there is a FigJam add-on for Google Classroom. Microsoft Education admins can deploy licenses and use SAML SSO to provision every student and educator on their domain.