Eligibility Limits
OSE funds open source worldwide, but as a US nonprofit, it must follow US law. That's why some projects cannot get our grant, even when the model ranks them high and marks them eligible.
Key limitations
- No anonymous recipients. Before approval, we confirm the name and country of the person or organization that gets the grant. For a bank wire, the beneficiary name and address on the payment account must also match.
- Limited set of countries. We don’t fund maintainers based outside the countries that GitHub Sponsors supports. GitHub is a subsidiary of a US public company, so it excludes all regions under a US embargo and does its own checks.
- OFAC compliance. We don’t fund maintainers listed or affiliated with entities listed in the OFAC or similar US sanctions lists.
Supported countries
We prefer to distribute grants through GitHub Sponsors, but can also send bank wires to grantees in the USA, Canada, the UK and certain EU countries. As of November 2026, GitHub Sponsors supports these 103 countries for payouts:
| Region | Countries |
|---|---|
| North America (3) | Canada, Mexico, United States |
| Europe (40) | Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom |
| Asia (25) | Australia, Bahrain, Cambodia, Hong Kong SAR, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Macao SAR, Malaysia, Mongolia, New Zealand, Oman, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vietnam |
| South America (19) | Antigua & Barbuda, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, St. Lucia, Trinidad & Tobago, Uruguay |
| Africa (16) | Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia |