OpenAI will give you one year of ChatGPT Plus for free if you're a U.S. veteran or retiree who left active duty in the past 12 months, or an active service member who leaves within the next 12. You verify through ID.me, claim at chatgpt.com/veterans-claim, and the year starts when you do (OpenAI Help Center).
The offer isn't new. OpenAI announced it in 2025, and its 2026 update says more than 20,000 transitioning servicemembers and veterans have claimed a year (OpenAI). One detail differs from the 2025 announcement, which helps if you've read an older guide: the verification partner. More on that below.
Who qualifies
The terms are short. The offer is for verified U.S. military veterans and retirees who transitioned from active-duty service within the past 12 months, and for active service members who will transition within the next 12 (OpenAI Help Center). Retirees count if they were discharged from active duty in that window. ID.me's listing for the offer gives the same window (ID.me).
Read the window carefully. It runs 12 months either side of your service end date (the help article's error list calls it a 365-day window), and it isn't a lifetime benefit for anyone who ever served. If you left five years ago, you're outside it. We'd call this a transition perk, and a narrower offer than "free ChatGPT for veterans" sounds.
Before you open the claim page
Two account rules trip people up. The offer redeems only on a personal ChatGPT account, and accounts that belong to an Enterprise workspace can't use it, even from a personal workspace inside that account. And if your current Plus subscription was bought through a mobile app store, the offer stays unavailable until that subscription is no longer active (OpenAI Help Center).
Already paying for Plus on the web? Don't cancel first. OpenAI says existing eligible web subscribers get the free year applied directly, and that canceling ends access to Plus and any related promotions; once you've canceled, it can't reinstate the offer.
The claim, step by step
- Sign in at chatgpt.com with the personal account that should get the year.
- Go to chatgpt.com/veterans-claim and select Verify with ID.me.
- Sign in to or create an ID.me account and complete military verification.
- Select Allow so ID.me shares the result with OpenAI.
- Back in ChatGPT, enter your service end date if it asks. ID.me doesn't always return one.
- When ChatGPT shows Eligibility confirmed, select Claim offer.
If you don't already have web Plus, you may be sent through checkout to start the plan. Confirm the promotion is shown before you finish. If it isn't, stop and contact OpenAI Support. Don't pay and sort it out later. OpenAI also says to contact Support before retrying repeatedly after a verification failure.
What ID.me sees and what OpenAI gets
The 2025 announcement named SheerID as the verification partner, describing a permission-based platform (OpenAI). The 2026 update thanks ID.me "for helping servicemembers and veterans access the free-year offer," and the current help article says verification through ID.me is required (OpenAI, OpenAI Help Center). Neither page explains the change, and we won't guess at it. An older guide telling you to use SheerID doesn't match the current terms.
What moves between the two companies is described in one line: you allow ID.me to share "the result" of your military verification with OpenAI. The help article doesn't list the fields, and the ID.me listing we read doesn't either. The help article does say ChatGPT asks you to type your service end date when ID.me doesn't return one, so that date is at least sometimes part of what comes back. Beyond that we can't tell you. Read ID.me's privacy terms on the screen before you approve, because the identity check itself happens on their side, not OpenAI's.
One more consequence: an ID.me identity links to only one ChatGPT account at a time, and a claimed offer can't be transferred. Pick the account you actually use. Starting on the wrong email means a support ticket.
When the year ends
The offer expires one year from the date you claim it. After that the subscription renews automatically at the standard Plus monthly rate unless you cancel before the first billing date following the promotional period (OpenAI Help Center). The standard monthly price sits on OpenAI's pricing page, which shows it in your local currency; check it there before the year is up.
We don't love this. A free year that rolls into a paid plan by default is a trial with a long fuse, and long fuses are easy to forget. Put a reminder in your calendar for week 50. Don't cancel today to be safe: the help article says Plus access may end immediately when you cancel, and that OpenAI can't reinstate the offer afterward.
Is it worth claiming?
Yes, if you're inside the window and already use an AI assistant for job hunting. The uses OpenAI's own page describes are plain ones: organizing a job search, rehearsing interviews, turning military experience into a civilian résumé. Air Force veteran Tilak Bhatnagar, who used his free year to prepare for a dozen interviews, valued being able to pick up where he left off. As he put it, "each conversation built on the last" (OpenAI). Our explainer on how ChatGPT memory works covers what it stores.
If you only need a model for a few weeks of résumé work, the free tier plus a different assistant might do it; our ChatGPT vs Claude vs Gemini comparison lays out the trade-offs, and Claude and Perplexity both have free plans. Free is free, though. A year of Plus costs you nothing but an ID.me account and the discipline to cancel on time.
Change these settings first
Our position is that defaults are policy, and the default here isn't kind to your data. OpenAI's help page says that on personal workspaces with ChatGPT Free, Plus or Pro, data sharing is enabled by default, so "Improve the model for everyone" starts on (OpenAI Help Center).
Turn it off. Open Settings, select Data controls, switch off Improve the model for everyone and select Done. Your chat history stays. On phones the path is the sidebar, then your profile icon, then Data controls. Voice mode has its own training control, and Codex has a separate Include environments setting, so changing the main toggle doesn't touch either one.
A veteran's job-search chats contain a service history, a clearance level perhaps, a salary target and a draft cover letter. That's the kind of thing we'd rather not hand over by default. Do it before the first résumé prompt. Our list of ChatGPT features most people miss is the next stop once the privacy side is settled, and ChatGPT Work covers what happens if the job hunt ends in a new employer's workspace.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to be a U.S. citizen?
The terms say the offer is for verified U.S. military veterans, retirees and service members. They don't mention citizenship, and we won't invent a rule. ID.me's military check decides who passes.
Can my spouse use it?
Not under this offer. OpenAI says it can't be shared, transferred or sold, and it's for the verified person only. OpenAI Academy's training does include military spouses, but that's learning, not a free plan.
What if I get an eligibility error?
The help article lists the causes: no eligible military group returned by ID.me, a service end date outside the 365-day window, a missing end date, an ID.me result that couldn't be retrieved, an ID.me identity already linked elsewhere, or an account or billing state that isn't eligible. Try again with ID.me for the retrieval case; contact Support for the rest.
Can I claim it more than once?
No. The terms allow one offer per eligible subscriber, and it can be redeemed only once at this time. It can't be combined with other promotions either.
Will I be charged today?
No. The year is free once you verify and claim. The terms say the subscription renews at the standard rate after the promotional period unless you cancel.
