Is there a basic income you can actually sign up for?

I run Ubiquitus, which is one of the options below, so read this with that in mind. I've held it to the same standard as everything else on the list: every claim links to a source at the bottom, and where I couldn't confirm something, I left it out.

The short answer

Search “universal basic income sign up” and you'll find plenty of programs and very few open doors. Most of what gets called basic income in the US is a guaranteed income pilot. A city or county picks a few hundred or a few thousand people, pays them a fixed amount for a year or two, and studies what happens. You can't join one by wanting to. You apply in a short window, you have to be under an income limit, and then a lottery decides.

There are things you can sign up for today. They're small. Some are crypto tokens worth close to nothing. One is mine.

City and county pilots: lotteries with income limits

Chicago's Resilient Communities Pilot paid $500 a month for 12 months to 5,006 people. To apply you had to live in Chicago, be 18 or older, have household income at or below 250% of the federal poverty level, and show an economic hit from COVID-19.¹ More than 176,000 people applied in 2022 — about a 2% chance of getting in.²

Cook County Promise paid $500 a month to 3,250 residents picked by lottery, from December 2022 to January 2025.³ Over 233,000 people applied. In November 2025 the county board put $7.5 million in its 2026 budget to make guaranteed income permanent.⁴ The new program is still being designed; applications aren't open, and the county's page offers an interest form instead.³

Stockton, California started the modern wave in February 2019: $500 a month for 24 months to 125 people, paid for with about $3 million in private donations.⁵

The Guaranteed Income Pilots Dashboard — run by the Stanford Basic Income Lab, the Center for Guaranteed Income Research and Mayors for a Guaranteed Income — tracks more than 30 pilots in detail.⁶ Sukhi Samra of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income told Smart Cities Dive in December 2025 that more than 150 cities have some kind of guaranteed income program.⁷ If you want into one, watch that dashboard and your own city's website. Expect a lottery.

The biggest privately funded study, OpenResearch, paid 1,000 people $1,000 a month for three years, from November 2020 to October 2023, in Illinois and Texas. Another 2,000 people got $50 a month as a control group. Everyone was 21 to 40, with income at or below 300% of the poverty line.⁸ The July 2024 NBER paper found recipients worked about 1.3 fewer hours a week than the control group.⁹ It's over. Enrollment was fixed from the start.

GiveDirectly: you can't apply

GiveDirectly is the best-known cash charity, and its FAQ is blunt: “No, you cannot sign up to be a cash recipient.”¹⁰ Its US page says it isn't accepting applications; its US programs are aimed at specific groups, whose members are invited.¹¹

Alaska: universal, if you live there

The closest thing the US has to a universal payment is Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend. For 2026 it's $1,200, including a $200 energy relief payment, with the first payments on October 1, 2026.¹² In 2025 it was $1,000, paid to more than 600,000 Alaskans.¹³ The catch is residency. You must have lived in Alaska for all of the prior calendar year and plan to stay, plus a handful of other rules.¹⁴ And it's yearly, not monthly.

Crypto “UBI” tokens

GoodDollar lets verified users claim its G$ token once every 24 hours after a face and liveness check.¹⁵ Each day's pool is split among everyone who claims that day, so the amount changes daily.¹⁶ A claim is worth very little in dollars. I couldn't find a reliable current figure, so I won't quote one.

Circles gives every person the right to issue 1 CRC per hour. Balances shrink 7% a year, and your CRC is only worth what the people who trust you will accept it for. Version 2 went live on Gnosis Chain on May 21, 2025.¹⁷

World, formerly Worldcoin, scans your iris with a device called the Orb and lets verified people claim WLD tokens. It launched in six US cities on April 30, 2025.¹⁸ Fortune described the idea in 2021 as based on the concepts of universal basic income.¹⁹ Regulators have pushed back: Hong Kong's privacy commissioner ordered it to stop operating in May 2024,²⁰ and Kenya's High Court ordered Kenyans' biometric data deleted in May 2025.²¹ What you get is a token grant, priced by the market — not a monthly cash payment.

Crowdfunded basic income

In Germany, Mein Grundeinkommen raffles off €1,000 a month for a year, drawing a new winner for every €12,000 it raises.²² Entry is free. As of September 26, 2026, its homepage says 2,416 people have won.²³ Its separate three-year study paid 122 people €1,200 a month from June 2021 to May 2024; the results, published in April 2025, found they didn't work less.²⁴

Scott Santens crowdfunded his own basic income on Patreon. He hit $1,000 a month from 143 patrons in December 2015.²⁵ That works for one person with an audience. It doesn't scale to you.

Where Ubiquitus fits

I built Ubiquitus. It pays an equal cash gift on the 1st of every month to every verified member. There's no application and no income test: you sign up with your email and verify with a 1¢ Venmo payment. Giving is never required, and someone who gave nothing gets the same share as someone who gave $10,000.

It has paid out in 34 months since December 2023, and every one is on the public payout ledger. The most recent payout, on September 1, 2026, was $0.10 per person.

Now the unflattering part. That's not rent money. The share is small because the pool is small, and it pays out only about 0.5% of itself a month, split equally. It's US-only, because payments go through Venmo. The pool is invested in a concentrated tech and crypto portfolio (not an index fund), so a bad year for those markets shrinks everyone's share. Ubiquitus isn't a nonprofit, and gifts to it aren't tax-deductible.

If you qualify for a city pilot or Alaska's dividend, apply. Those pay far more. But a small payment that actually arrives beats a lottery you probably won't win, and joining Ubiquitus costs a penny.

Questions

Can I sign up for a universal basic income in the US?

Not a government one. No US city, state or federal program lets anyone enroll in an unconditional monthly payment. City guaranteed income pilots pick people by lottery from applicants under an income limit, and most are closed. Alaska pays every eligible resident a yearly dividend, but you have to have lived there for the whole prior calendar year.

How do I apply for a guaranteed income pilot?

Watch your own city or county. Pilots open a short application window, check residency and income, then draw names. Chicago drew 5,006 people from more than 176,000 applicants. The Guaranteed Income Pilots Dashboard lists current and past pilots.

Can I apply to GiveDirectly for cash?

No. GiveDirectly says on its FAQ that you cannot sign up to be a cash recipient, and its US page says it is not accepting applications. Recipients are chosen through targeting and invited.

Is Ubiquitus a basic income?

It is a small, privately funded version of one. Every verified member gets the same cash gift on the 1st of each month, with no application and no income test. The amount is small, it is US-only because it pays through Venmo, and it depends on a concentrated tech and crypto portfolio. Ubiquitus is not a nonprofit and gifts to it are not tax-deductible.

How do I join Ubiquitus?

Sign up with your email, then verify with a 1 cent Venmo payment from a US Venmo account. Verified members are included from the next monthly payout.

Sources

Checked September 26, 2026. Dates are the source's own where it shows one.

1. City of Chicago, “Chicago Resilient Communities Pilot.” chirecoveryplan.com
2. Chicago Sun-Times, May 24, 2022. chicago.suntimes.com
3. Cook County, “Cook County Promise Guaranteed Income.” cookcountyil.gov/promise
4. Economic Security Project, “Cook County makes guaranteed income permanent,” November 2025. economicsecurityproject.org; The TRiiBE, November 2025. thetriibe.com
5. Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration. stocktondemonstration.org; Results for America case study. results4america.org
6. Guaranteed Income Pilots Dashboard, data updated July 1, 2026. guaranteedincome.us
7. Smart Cities Dive, December 4, 2025. smartcitiesdive.com
8. OpenResearch, “Unconditional Cash Study.” openresearchlab.org
9. Vivalt et al., “The Employment Effects of a Guaranteed Income,” NBER Working Paper 32784, July 2024. nber.org
10. GiveDirectly, FAQ. givedirectly.org/faq
11. GiveDirectly, United States. givedirectly.org/united-states
12. Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend Division. pfd.alaska.gov
13. Alaska Department of Revenue, September 22, 2025. dor.alaska.gov
14. Alaska PFD, eligibility requirements. pfd.alaska.gov
15. GoodDollar docs, “Sybil resistance.” docs.gooddollar.org
16. GoodDollar whitepaper, “Distribution and impact.” whitepaper.gooddollar.org
17. Gnosis, “Introducing Circles v2,” May 21, 2025. gnosis.io
18. World, “World launches in the USA,” April 30, 2025. world.org
19. Fortune, June 30, 2021. fortune.com
20. CoinDesk, May 22, 2024. coindesk.com
21. Business Daily Africa, May 2025. businessdailyafrica.com
22. ZDF heute, “Bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen: Verlosung.” zdfheute.de
23. Mein Grundeinkommen, homepage, checked September 26, 2026. mein-grundeinkommen.de
24. Pilotprojekt Grundeinkommen. pilotprojekt-grundeinkommen.de; DIW Berlin, April 2025. diw.de
25. Basic Income Earth Network, December 15, 2015. basicincome.org