Best offer on record: Autodesk Education Plan — free 1-year professional licenses for students. 5 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Offers
Autodesk Education Plan — free 1-year professional licenses for students high confidence
Free one-year, single-user access to 75+ professional products (AutoCAD incl. LT/toolsets, Revit, Maya, 3ds Max, Fusion, Inventor, Civil 3D, Alias, Arnold, Flow Studio, Tinkercad, etc.) with the SAME features/functionality as paid subscriptions (not a reduced trial). Access includes current version plus up to 3 prior versions where available; English (some titles in more languages). Install on up to 3 devices. No credit card required — eligibility is verified via SheerID (proof of enrollment). Cloud SaaS services (rendering, simulation, Autodesk Drive storage) are included but users who regularly consume beyond 'market average' may face restrictions that can change without notice. Autodesk Flow Studio requires post-secondary students age 18+.
Eligibility
Students enrolled at a qualified (government-accredited) educational institution — middle/high schools, junior colleges, universities, technical schools; meets minimum age requirement. Also eligible: homeschooled students (documented membership in a nationally recognized homeschooling body), students doing thesis/master's work, apprentices (Austria, Germany, Switzerland, UK only), registered participants in Autodesk-sponsored competitions. Typically verified with a school-provided (.edu or equivalent) email + SheerID verification; 'most educational institutions worldwide qualify' except countries under US trade embargo. Graduates lose eligibility but keep the account (and can buy paid licenses); school email can be changed if not using SSO. Minimum age: required per TOU (13+, per Autodesk account terms).
How to claim
1) Create/complete an Autodesk account at autodesk.com/education/edu-software (or get assigned a product by a teacher via institution account). 2) Confirm eligibility on the Education Products page using your school-provided email (SheerID may ask for proof of enrollment). 3) Click 'Complete Account Setup' from the confirmation email. 4) Download/install from the Autodesk Account 'All Products and Services' page; sign in to start. Alt path: educator's institution account assigns products — students skip individual verification but still need their own account.
Expiry
1-year term; renewable annually while eligibility (enrollment) continues. Autodesk emails a reminder 30 days before expiration; missing the renewal forces a full restart of access and any subscriptions, even for already-installed products. Check expiration on the Education Products page banner.
Gotchas
NOT trial-vs-free confusion: this is the full professional product, but licensed for EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY — no commercial, professional, or for-profit work; also excluded: campus facilities design and commercially affiliated research. Cloud add-ons (rendering/simulation/storage) can be throttled for heavy users. SheerID profile details can't be changed after submission — keep them matching school records. Verification repeats every year. From Aug 7, 2026 education accounts must use SSO (school credentials) instead of standalone Autodesk passwords. Output/work may not be used commercially even with free tools. US trade-embargoed countries excluded (export compliance).
Autodesk Education Plan — educators and qualified institutions (free classroom/lab licenses) high confidence
Free 1-year, renewable access for educators (employees/independent contractors whose primary purpose is teaching enrolled students at a qualified institution). An educator creates an Autodesk account FOR THE INSTITUTION and can assign/unassign products to up to 250 students per product; assigned students don't re-verify (eligibility inherits from the educator) but each still needs their own account. Institutions also get web services like Fusion for labs.
Eligibility
Employees or contractors of accredited middle/high schools, junior colleges, universities, technical schools, or recognized homeschool bodies. NOT eligible: non-accredited institutions, training centers, churches, hospitals/health-care systems, public libraries, research labs, retraining programs; Autodesk Certified Instructors at ATC partners get genuine ATC licenses instead. Most countries qualify except US trade-embargoed countries.
How to claim
1) Go to Get Products (autodesk.com/education/edu-software) and select products. 2) Confirm eligibility with school-provided email (SheerID). 3) Create the institution's Autodesk account via the 'Complete Account Setup' email link. 4) Even if software is already installed, click 'Download' on the product card to trigger the entitlement. 5) Admins can enable SSO and assign products to up to 250 students per product.
Expiry
Same as student plan: 1 year, renewable annually while employed/contracting at a qualified institution; renew before expiry or restart. Note region-specific sunset of new network/multi-seat licenses (see sunset_notes).
Gotchas
Educational use only — no facilities use (designing/maintaining the school's own buildings) and no research run by commercial affiliates. ACIs are excluded. Multi-seat/network licensing is being phased out in favor of institution subscriptions (see sunset_notes), so long-term lab plans should migrate to Education institution subscriptions.
30-day free trials (users who don't qualify for the Education Plan) medium confidence
Autodesk's standard 30-day product trial remains available to users who aren't eligible for the Education Plan (trial vs free: this is a time-boxed trial of the full commercial product, not the free education license). Official pages explicitly state trial participants may NOT use trials for training purposes.
Eligibility
Anyone not eligible for the Education Plan (e.g., training-center participants, unaccredited program attendees). No enrollment verification needed.
How to claim
Select 'Try' / 30-day trial on product pages at autodesk.com, create an Autodesk account. (Trial page specifics not re-verified today — site blocked this fetcher; see confidence.)
Expiry
30 days from activation, no renewal; after trial you must buy a paid subscription.
Gotchas
No training use permitted. Historically Autodesk trials don't require a credit card, but that was NOT re-verifiable today (autodesk.com returned HTTP 403 to the fetcher and the session web-search budget was exhausted), so treat the no-CC claim as unconfirmed. Trial licenses are commercial licenses — unlike the education plan, no usage restriction to education, but full paid version is commercial-only.
Tinkercad — free consumer tier (always free, no enrollment needed) medium confidence
Tinkercad (simple 3D design, 3D printing, circuits) is listed on Autodesk's education products page and is free to the general public; unlike the 1-year education plan it does not expire for casual use and needs no .edu email. It also remains available under the Education Plan as one of the included products.
Eligibility
Anyone with an Autodesk account; no eligibility verification, no age restriction stated beyond account terms; no region restriction found.
How to claim
Sign up at tinker.com (now autodesk.com/tinker) — free, no credit card.
Expiry
No stated expiration (persistent free product, not a 1-year subscription like the rest of the education catalog).
Gotchas
Cloud-based only; data/egress and export limits apply per Autodesk's service terms. Free tier vs paid Tinkercad Pro: Pro adds advanced export/assembly features — free tier has export/length limits that were not re-verified today.
Autodesk startup program — no active free startup offer found low confidence
As of 2026-10-22 no free 'Autodesk for Startups' / startup-credits program appears in today's search results for autodesk.com, and the education fronts are student/.edu-only. An earlier-generation Autodesk startup program (1-year professional licenses / discounts for young startups) could NOT be re-verified today: autodesk.com returned HTTP 403 to the fetcher and the session's web-search budget (200 shared calls) was exhausted on the startup-specific query. Treat any current startup program as unconfirmed; the safe conclusion is that Autodesk currently has no verifiable free tier, trial credits, or startup grant aimed at startups — free access is via the Education Plan (students/educators) or 30-day commercial trials.
Eligibility
Unknown/unverified — no startup age/funding-cap criteria found in any official page retrieved today.
How to claim
Not determinable today. If one exists it would live under autodesk.com/company/startups or autodesk.com/education; neither could be fetched (403) or re-searched (budget exhausted).
Expiry
Unknown.
Gotchas
Do not cite a startup program without re-verification once autodesk.com is fetchable again; historical programs may have been folded into the 'Autodesk 10x' / A360-era discounts or discontinued in 2024-2025.
2025–2026 changes confirmed from official pages read today: (1) Single Sign-On mandate — Autodesk Education accounts will be required to use SSO (school credentials) starting August 7, 2026; schools like SMU enabled it in Aug 2025 (blog.smu.edu, 2025-08-07). (2) Multi-seat sunset — the US Education products page states 'Starting December 31, 2027, Autodesk will no longer offer new network and multi-seat licenses' and pushes institutions to Education institution subscriptions; the Asia-Pacific page (dated May 2025) states the cutoff as March 2026 for that region — i.e., the network/multi-seat lab-license model is being rolled off region by region starting 2026, so multi-seat classroom plans should be migrated now. (3) Startup program — status unverifiable as of 2026-10-22 (403 fetch blocks + exhausted shared web-search budget); no active free startup offer appeared in results. (4) No evidence today that the core 1-year free education license for students/educators changed, was reduced, or sunset — it remains 1-year, renewable, 3-device, full-feature. (5) Consumer free tiers (e.g., Fusion personal-use, AutoCAD Web basic) were NOT re-verified today and should be treated as unconfirmed; if they were sunset, that would land here after re-verification.