Open-source grants
NLnet Open Calls
Open-source and public-interest grants for libre software and open standards work; a first grant is between €5,000 and €50,000.
Open Provider: NLnet
Checked on · next review due · confirm current terms on the official page before applying.
- Status
- Open
- Deadline
- Open for proposals; next deadline 3 November 2026, 12:00 CET
- Amount
- Between €5,000 and €50,000 for a first grant (you request the amount); next deadline 2026-11-03 12:00 CET
- Type
- Cash grant
- Best for
- OSS infrastructure, open standards, privacy, decentralization, and public-interest technical work.
- Effort
- Heavy prep
Conditions
What the programme asks for
Must have
- open/libre license
- outputs can be libre/open
Helps
- open standards alignment
Summarised from the official page. The provider decides; confirm every condition at the source.
Prepare
Materials to have ready
- proposal
- budget
- task plan
- website/wiki
- open license
Next step
Recommended action
Read the currently open Restack and CodeSupply fund criteria, then prepare a short technical project proposal, open-licence plan and budget for the 3 November 2026, 12:00 CET deadline. The general form gives a EUR 5,000 to EUR 50,000 first-grant range. Write in your own words; disclose any application AI assistance and retain the required prompt/output logs. Fund-specific fit and European-dimension conditions still need confirmation. Submit through the official form only if the selected fund criteria are met. For Restack specifically, AI-related work is outside scope unless it already serves more than one million active human users and directly concerns the stack; check https://nlnet.nl/restack/ before preparing a proposal.
Curator note
What we found at the source
Checked 2026-10-18: added Restack-specific AI-project exclusion and narrow user-scale/stack exception. The general first-grant range and 3 November 2026 noon CET deadline remain; fund-specific fit and European-dimension requirements still need confirmation.
Caveat
Before you rely on it
Funding depends on the selected fund, open licences and public-interest scope. Restack and CodeSupply each require a strong European dimension: the ordinary route allocates at least 60% of funding to team members from countries participating in Horizon Europe; an exceptional route for unique expertise or exceptional quality outside those countries remains possible and requires fund review. CodeSupply concerns software-package metadata, provenance/licensing, vulnerabilities/quality and software supply-chain security; Restack's AI-project scope restriction must not be assumed to apply to CodeSupply. GenAI application assistance must be disclosed with model, dates/times, prompts and unchanged output in a provenance log. The policy separately bars presenting purely AI-generated outcomes as paid grant work and requires FLOS-compatible outputs and transparency about substantive AI use in development; this is not a blanket ban on code assistants. Read the selected fund eligibility page and https://nlnet.nl/foundation/policies/generativeAI/; a shortlist does not establish eligibility.