GitHub Copilot Pro is free for verified teachers and popular open-source maintainers

GitHub offers Copilot Pro for free to two groups: teachers verified through GitHub Education, and maintainers of popular open-source repositories. If you maintain a project with real traction, it is worth checking your settings, because you may already qualify.

What you get

• A Copilot Pro plan, normally $10 a month, at no cost while you qualify.
• $10 in base GitHub AI Credits each month plus a flex allotment of about $5, roughly $15 in total. Chat, agent mode, code review, Copilot CLI, and the cloud agent draw from these credits.
• Code completions and next edit suggestions do not use credits and stay unlimited.
• The same model lineup as paid Pro, including Claude, GPT, Gemini, and Grok models. Each model uses credits at a different rate.

Who qualifies

• Teachers verified through GitHub Education.
• Maintainers of popular open-source repositories. GitHub does not publish a fixed threshold; your Copilot settings page shows whether your account is eligible.
• GitHub re-checks eligibility every month, and you cannot cancel the plan while it is granted for free.

How to claim

1. Sign in to GitHub and open your Copilot settings.
2. If your account qualifies, activate the free Copilot Pro plan there, set your usage policies, and save.
3. Teachers need to complete teacher verification on GitHub Education first.

Full rules are in GitHub's docs, and you can compare plans on the Copilot pricing page.