How to Apply to Web3 Foundation Grants in 2026
The Web3 Foundation has discontinued its general Grants Program. Here is the published application process, the funding levels, and what the open-source rule really bans.
How to Apply to Web3 Foundation Grants in 2026
How to apply to Web3 Foundation Grants in 2026: you cannot. The Foundation says it has discontinued the general Grants Program and is not accepting new applications, so no deadline exists. The published process was a public one: fork the w3f Grants Program repository, fill in the template, and open a pull request.
Two things about this grant surprise founders, and neither one is the check size. Everything the grant funds has to be open source, and your application is a pull request on a public GitHub repository, so the reviewer comments, the requested changes and the outcome are readable by anyone who searches your project name.
The third surprise is the current one: there is nothing to apply to. The Foundation says it has discontinued the general Grants Program and is not accepting new applications, which means there is no active deadline as of August 2026 (Web3 Foundation Grants Program repository). Read the process below as the shape of the application if it reopens, and as a working spec for milestone-based funding in the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystem.
The web3 foundation grants application process in seven steps
The entire application was one Markdown file inside one pull request. That mechanism makes the submission a technical document rather than a pitch, and it puts a thin one in public rather than getting it quietly declined.
one fork of the repository
one new Markdown file named for your project
one pull request containing only that file
- Read the repository README before writing anything. It is where the Foundation posts current status, including the discontinuation notice (Web3 Foundation Grants Program repository).
- Fork the repository into your own GitHub account. You are editing a repo, not filling in a web form.
- Copy the application template into a newly named Markdown file for your project, then complete it (Grants Program README).
- Write milestones, not a roadmap. The published terms describe the grant as financial support exchanged for software, deliverables and license rights, with payment tied to milestones (Grants Program terms and conditions).
- Pick a license from the accepted list and check that nothing in your stack breaks the open-source rule.
- Open a pull request containing only that new file. One new file, nothing else in the diff (Grants Program README).
- Answer review comments inside two weeks. Applications could receive public comments and requested changes, and could be closed after two weeks of inactivity (Grants Program README).
Your web3 foundation grants application is public, and so is the rejection
Anyone who opens the repository can read the review thread on your application (Grants Program README). The published flow allowed public comments and requested changes, and an application could be closed after two weeks of inactivity.
Write milestones a stranger can accept or reject without asking you a single question. Assume nobody will fill your gaps privately. Requested changes land in the thread, and the thread outlives the application.
✅ Good: "Milestone 2: Substrate pallet published as an Apache 2.0 crate with 90% unit test coverage and a written tutorial. 4 weeks." It names the artifact, the license and the acceptance test.
❌ Bad: "Milestone 2: continue development and improve documentation." Nothing here is checkable, so the change request lands in public and stalls your pull request.
Treat the two-week clock as the easiest way to lose an application. A stale pull request is not a pending decision, it is a closed one, and closing by inactivity looks the same in the repository as closing for quality.
What the open-source requirement actually rules out
Grant-funded code had to be open sourced and could not depend on closed-source software for full functionality, with Apache 2.0 preferred and GPLv3, MIT and Unlicense also listed as acceptable (Web3 Foundation Grants Program repository).
Read the dependency clause more carefully than the license list. Publishing your client is easy. Publishing it while a hosted indexer, a private data pipeline or a proprietary matching engine is required for the software to work at all is the thing the rule blocks.
If the part you were never going to publish is the part that makes the product work, this is not your funding source.
Do not plan a carve-out. Scope the grant to a component you would be happy to see forked on day one, and keep your commercial layer out of the application entirely rather than arguing it is separable.
Funding levels and web3 foundation grants equity terms
The published levels scaled reviewer approvals with the size of the ask.
| Level | Published amount | Approvals required |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | Up to $10,000 | 2 |
| Level 2 | Up to $30,000 | 3 |
| Level 3 | Unlimited | 5 |
Requests above $100,000 additionally required Web3 Foundation Council approval and a pitch call (Web3 Foundation Grants Program repository).
On equity, the published terms do not state a charge. They describe the grant as financial support exchanged for software, deliverables and license rights, paid against milestones (Grants Program terms and conditions). Treat that as no stated equity requirement rather than as an investment round, and read the agreement you sign instead of trusting a summary.
Non-dilutive is not the same as liquid. At least 50% of each milestone payment was made in DOT that vested linearly over two years, with the remainder paid in USDC on Polkadot AssetHub (Grants Program README). Half the award was a two-year token position carrying price risk, so budget only the USDC half as money that pays contractors this quarter.
Web3 foundation grants deadline 2026 and the Decentralized Futures window
There is no web3 foundation grants deadline in 2026, because there is no open program to attach one to (Web3 Foundation Grants Program repository).
The Foundation's other door is shut too. Decentralized Futures ran an application window from November 2023 through June 2024, its application process closed on June 30, 2024, and the page now marks the application period as ended. It was designed to distribute $20 million and 5 million DOT through grants, investments and service agreements, with the support mechanism selected case by case (Decentralized Futures).
Ignore any page still showing an apply button for either one. The repository and the Decentralized Futures page are the only status worth believing, and a summary hosted somewhere else is not evidence that a window reopened. We track dated windows across this program family in our deadline calendar.
Web3 foundation grants acceptance rate, and whether it was worth it
The web3 foundation grants acceptance rate is not published, so every percentage in circulation was made up. The only defensible proxy is the approval count per level: two, three and five approvals for Levels 1 to 3, plus Council approval and a pitch call above $100,000 (Web3 Foundation Grants Program repository).
Is web3 foundation grants worth it? It was, for exactly one profile: a team already committed to shipping open source. For everyone else the license terms are the real price of the check, and that arithmetic has not changed just because the door closed.
Keep the milestone file even though you cannot submit it. Scoping deliverables, licenses and acceptance tests is the portable work, and it is what every milestone-based funder and every technical diligence call asks for in some form.
When this matters for your raise
A shipped open-source milestone is a credential an investor can verify without trusting your deck. Public repositories, public review threads and a merged pull request are checkable in minutes, and a slide claiming the same thing is not.
Do not model discontinued grant income as runway. Price the raise on what you control, and if half a future award would arrive as two-year vested tokens, say so in diligence rather than letting a reviewer find it. Build the investor list while you build the product, and let Causo handle the matching and drafting so outreach is not competing with shipping.
FAQ
How hard is it to get into Web3 Foundation Grants? The Foundation publishes no acceptance rate and no cohort size, so any percentage you find on an aggregator was invented. The published proxy for difficulty is the approval count per level: two approvals for Level 1, three for Level 2, five for Level 3, and Web3 Foundation Council approval plus a pitch call above $100,000 (Web3 Foundation Grants Program repository). As of August 2026 the general program is discontinued and not accepting new applications, so there is no live bar to clear.
Does Web3 Foundation Grants take equity? The published terms and conditions do not state an equity charge. They describe the grant as financial support exchanged for software, deliverables and license rights, paid against milestones (Grants Program terms and conditions). Treat that as no stated equity requirement rather than as an investment round, and read the agreement you are asked to sign before assuming your cap table is untouched.
How much funding does Web3 Foundation Grants provide? The published levels ran up to $10,000 for Level 1, up to $30,000 for Level 2, and an unlimited amount for Level 3, requiring two, three and five approvals respectively (Web3 Foundation Grants Program repository). At least 50% of each milestone payment was made in DOT that vested linearly over two years, with the remainder in USDC on Polkadot AssetHub (Grants Program README).
When is the Web3 Foundation Grants application deadline? There is no deadline, because there is no open program. The Foundation says it has discontinued the general Grants Program and is not accepting new applications (Web3 Foundation Grants Program repository). The separate Decentralized Futures program ran from November 2023 through June 2024 and closed its application process on June 30, 2024 (Decentralized Futures).
Is Web3 Foundation Grants worth it for founders? It was worth it for teams that were going to open source the work anyway, since grant-funded code had to be open sourced and could not depend on closed-source software for full functionality (Web3 Foundation Grants Program repository). It was a poor fit for anyone whose commercial edge sits in an unpublished component. The question is academic in 2026, because the general program is discontinued, so plan your runway without it.
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