Get $100 in Free Codex Credits as a Student: Who Qualifies, and the 12 Month Expiry

What is the $100 Codex student offer?

The offer is simple on the surface. OpenAI gives verified university students $100 in credits to use in Codex, its coding agent. Once the offer is applied, the credits show on the usage page as 2,500 credits. That works out to 4 cents per credit, which matches the way OpenAI values the grant: 2,500 credits equal $100. Codex itself is included in ChatGPT plans, from Free upward, but the amount of Codex you get depends on your plan. The student credits sit on top of your plan. They do not replace your plan, and they do not upgrade you to a paid plan. They extend what you can do in Codex after your included limits run out. That distinction matters, because a student on a Free plan does not suddenly get Pro limits. They get Free limits, plus $100 worth of Codex credits to spend. If you are a student who codes, this is one of the few student offers that is useful on a Free account. You do not need to pay for Plus or Pro first. You need a ChatGPT account on Free, Go, Plus, or Pro, a university enrolment that SheerID can verify, and residence in the US or Canada at the time you claim.

Who actually qualifies?

OpenAI's help page for this offer sets three conditions, and all three have to hold at the same time. First, you must be a current student enrolled at a degree granting university in the United States or Canada. Second, you must be residing in the United States or Canada at the time you claim. Third, your eligibility is subject to successful verification. The limit is one credit offer per student, so you cannot claim it twice, and you cannot share, transfer, or sell the credits. That wording rules out several common cases. A student at a non degree granting college, a student who graduated, or a student living outside the US and Canada when claiming does not fit the terms as written. A student in the UK, Europe, or Pakistan, for example, is not covered by this particular offer, even if they study at a university elsewhere. That is worth stating plainly, because student offer roundups often blur the country rules. This one is US and Canada only. Verification runs through SheerID, using your university email during the process. You can keep your personal ChatGPT account, even if its email address is different from your university email. The university email is used to prove student status, not to replace your account. If SheerID cannot verify you, the credits are not granted, and there is no workaround in the terms, such as uploading a different document in place of the check. Start the claim while you are still enrolled, not after you graduate.

How do you claim the credits, step by step?

The claim flow, as described on OpenAI's help page, has four steps. First, sign in to your personal ChatGPT account. Second, open the Codex for University Students page. Third, complete student verification through SheerID with your university email. Fourth, wait for the credits to be applied automatically to your ChatGPT account. You should then see 2,500 credits on the usage page. Do not expect a code. This offer does not use a promo code that you type in. If a site, a video, or a social post gives you a so-called Codex student code, treat it with suspicion, because the official flow is verification, not a code. The same warning applies to sellers offering to claim the credits for you. The offer is limited to one per student, it is tied to your verified status, and it cannot be transferred, so a third party claim is not a legitimate shortcut. After the credits land, check the usage page before you start a big job. Confirm that 2,500 credits are showing, and note the grant date, because the 12 month expiry runs from that date, not from the date you first spend a credit. A student who claims in November 2026 and forgets about the credits until late 2027 may find them already expired.

What does $100 in Codex credits actually buy?

The honest answer is that it depends on the model you use inside Codex, because credits are spent by tokens, not by task. OpenAI values the grant at 2,500 credits, and each credit is worth about 4 cents. How far that goes depends on how much text goes in and out of the model for each job. The useful comparison is between Codex models. As reported from OpenAI's pricing material, GPT-6.1 Sol costs far more credits per million tokens than GPT-6 Luna, roughly 20 times as much per token. That means the same 2,500 credits stretch much further on Luna than on Sol. A student who runs small fixes, tests, and refactors on Luna can get many more jobs out of the grant than a student who runs large, reasoning heavy jobs on Sol. One reported estimate puts a typical Sol task at 2 to 15 credits, which would work out to roughly 167 to 1,250 Sol tasks from 2,500 credits. Treat that as a rough range, not a promise, because a real task can be much larger than typical. A task that reads a whole repository, runs long tests, and rewrites several files will cost far more than a task that fixes one function. The practical habit is to start small, watch the usage page after your first few tasks, and learn your own cost per task before you commit the whole grant to one project. | Route to Codex | What you pay | What the student grant adds | Best for | | ChatGPT Free, plus the grant | $0 | 2,500 credits, worth $100, on top of Free limits | Trying Codex, small fixes, learning | | ChatGPT Go, plus the grant | $8 per month as listed for Go | 2,500 credits on top of Go limits | Regular light coding on a budget | | ChatGPT Plus, plus the grant | $20 per month | 2,500 credits on top of Plus limits, including web, CLI, and IDE use | Heavier student projects | | ChatGPT Pro, plus the grant | $100, $200, or $500 per month | 2,500 credits on top of Pro limits | Students already on Pro for other work | | No grant, Free only | $0 | Nothing extra | Testing whether Codex fits your workflow | Prices for Go, Plus, and Pro in this table are the plan prices as listed in OpenAI pricing coverage checked in October 2026. The grant itself costs nothing to claim, beyond meeting the eligibility rules.

What are the traps?

The first trap is the expiry. Credits expire 12 months after the grant date. Any unused credits after that time are no longer usable. That is generous compared with a monthly credit that vanishes at the end of each billing cycle, but it is still a hard deadline. Put a reminder in your calendar for 11 months after you claim, so you have a month left to spend what remains on real work, not on busywork invented to burn credits. The second trap is assuming the credits are API credits. They are not. OpenAI's own terms describe them as ChatGPT credits for use in Codex. They do not fund the separate OpenAI API, and they do not transfer to another account. If your goal is to build an API product, this grant does not fund it. If your goal is to use Codex itself, it does. The third trap is the renewal confusion. Nothing renews here. The grant is a one time credit, not a subscription, so there is no monthly charge to cancel for the grant itself. If you are on a paid ChatGPT plan, that plan still renews at its own price, and the grant does not change that. Keep the two things separate in your head: the grant is free and one time, your plan is whatever you already pay for. The fourth trap is timing. The separate ChatGPT Plus student offer, four free months of Plus, closed to new claims on 31 October 2026. Students who missed it sometimes assume every student offer is closed. This Codex credit offer is different, and no deadline was printed in the terms checked for this article. That does not mean it lasts forever. Student offers change, and the safe move is to check the official Codex for Students page and claim while you are eligible, rather than assuming it will still be there next semester.

How should a student spend the credits well?

Spend them on work that teaches you something or ships something. A good first use is a real project you already have, such as a coursework assignment, a portfolio app, or an open source fix you have been meaning to try. Run the small jobs first, check the cost, and then decide whether a bigger job is worth the credits. A bad use is to spend them on jobs you could do faster by hand, or on generating large amounts of code you do not read. Codex output still needs review, testing, and understanding, especially for coursework, where submitting code you do not understand is a risk in itself. Use the credits to speed up real work, not to skip learning the work. If you are choosing between plans, do not buy Pro just to use a free grant. Start on Free with the grant, see how much Codex you actually use, and only pay for a plan when your included limits, plus the grant, are clearly not enough. For many students, Free plus $100 in credits is more Codex than they will use in a semester. For readers weighing coding tools more broadly, our guides to the best AI productivity tools and how to make money with AI put Codex in context, and our look at local coding models by VRAM is useful if you want a free, offline coding option alongside Codex. Sources: OpenAI Help Center, Codex credits for Students terms of service, as reported 1 to 2 November 2026; OpenAI Codex for University Students page; independent student offer checks on 18 and 27 October 2026 confirming the $100, 2,500 credit, SheerID, and 12 month expiry terms.