Founder Agreement Template + Negotiation Guide | Ultimate Guide For Startups

TL;DR: Founder Agreement Template + Negotiation Guide for startup founders

Table of Contents

Founder Agreement Template + Negotiation Guide helps you protect your startup before trust, equity, control, or exits become a fight. It shows you how to put founder roles, share splits, vesting, IP ownership, decision rights, pay, and dispute rules in writing early, so your company stays fundable and your cap table stays clean.

• What to include: legal names, roles, time commitment, equity split, vesting, IP assignment, voting rights, compensation, outside work limits, departure rules, buyback rights, confidentiality, dispute process, and a deadlock clause.

• What to negotiate early: who is really full-time, who brought cash or pre-existing IP, who holds director risk, who can make which decisions, and what happens if someone leaves, underperforms, or blocks a sale.

• What founders get wrong: equal splits to avoid hard talks, no vesting, weak IP transfer, 50/50 ownership with no deadlock rule, and copy-pasting US terms into European entities without local legal review.

If you want a stronger starting point, compare this guide with a practical founder agreement guide or review a sample founder agreement template, then get startup counsel to adapt your draft and sign it before money or conflict arrives.

Check out startup news that you might like:

Typeform News | June, 2026 (STARTUP EDITION)

When the founder agreement finally says who owns what, who decides what, and who keeps the office espresso machine in the breakup. Unsplash

Founder Agreement Template + Negotiation Guide is one of the first documents I want founders to take seriously, because it decides what happens when trust gets tested, money enters, work becomes uneven, or someone wants out. For startups, a founder agreement is the written operating logic between co-founders: who owns what, who decides what, who commits what, and what happens when reality refuses to follow the optimistic plan.

I am writing this from the point of view of a female European founder who has built across deeptech, edtech, IP-heavy products, no-code systems, and messy real startup situations. My bias is simple: founder conflict is rarely caused by bad people. It is usually caused by vague assumptions, delayed conversations, and documents copied from the internet without negotiation.

Why this topic matters for startups: a good founder agreement reduces avoidable fights, protects the cap table, and makes future fundraising cleaner. Unlike a casual verbal understanding between friends, a written founder agreement forces uncomfortable decisions while the relationship is still intact, and that is exactly when those decisions should happen.

Key takeaway

How a founder agreement shapes control, equity, vesting, exits, and daily decision rights
What a practical founder agreement template should contain
How to negotiate sensitive clauses without wrecking the relationship
Which mistakes first-time founders keep repeating, and how to fix them early

What is a founder agreement, really?

A founder agreement is a private contract among startup founders that sets the rules for ownership, roles, commitments, decision-making, vesting, intellectual property, departures, disputes, and exits. It usually sits next to your incorporation documents, shareholders’ agreement, and employment or contractor arrangements, but it serves a different purpose: it deals with the human operating system of the founding team.

Let’s make one thing clear. A founder agreement is not just a legal formality. It is a behavioral tool. My work across startups taught me that people behave very differently when deadlines slip, cash runs out, or one founder starts acting like a celebrity while another quietly carries the company. The agreement exists for that moment, not for the happy kickoff photo.

Also, the agreement should match the company structure you actually chose. If you are still deciding between national legal forms, review a company formation guide before you finalize founder rights, because GmbH, SAS, BV, and Ltd setups can shape equity transfers, governance, and director duties in very different ways.

Why does a founder agreement matter so much now?

The challenge is brutal and common. Early founders spend weeks on product mockups, pitch decks, and domain names, but almost no time on conflict design. Then six months later they discover that one founder contributed cash, another contributed unpaid labor, a third introduced the investor, and nobody wrote down how that should convert into equity or authority.

Research from startup law firms, accelerators, and founder surveys has repeated the same broad pattern for years: co-founder conflict is one of the top reasons startups break down. The exact percentages differ by study, but the direction is clear. Team failure often arrives before product failure. You can see this logic echoed in material from startup legal platforms such as the Y Combinator guide on splitting equity among co-founders, and in startup legal commentary from firms like Cooley Go on founder stock purchase documents.

Here is why this matters even more in 2026. Startups now move faster, teams are more international, and many companies begin with part-time founders, remote contributors, no-code tools, and side-hustle energy. That sounds flexible. In reality, it creates ambiguity. Ambiguity is expensive.

Limited cash means one bad founder split can poison the whole company
Fast execution means undocumented decisions pile up quickly
Fundraising pressure means investors inspect founder risk early
Cross-border teams mean legal and tax assumptions can clash
Emotional overconfidence makes people postpone awkward talks

If you plan to raise, the founder agreement also connects directly to later investor negotiations. A messy cap table, vague IP ownership, or unclear founder vesting weakens your position before the term sheet even lands. If that stage is coming, read this alongside a term sheet negotiation guide so you do not fix founder mistakes under investor pressure.

Which clauses should a founder agreement template include?

Here is the practical part. A useful founder agreement template should not try to sound glamorous. It should be blunt, specific, and a little uncomfortable. If it feels too polite, it is probably too vague.

1. Founder identities and company details

State the legal names of the founders, company name, jurisdiction, and date. This sounds obvious, but many early documents mix personal nicknames, future entities, and draft structures. Clean identification matters.

2. Roles and areas of responsibility

Define who leads product, sales, technology, operations, fundraising, finance, hiring, and external communication. Also define what each founder is not responsible for. Titles without decision rights are theater.

3. Time commitment

This is where many teams lie to themselves. If one founder is full-time and another is “advising actively on evenings and weekends,” those are not equal commitments. Write down expected weekly involvement, transition deadlines, and what happens if someone stays part-time too long.

4. Equity split

State exactly how much equity each founder gets, in what form, and under what conditions. Spell out whether the split reflects cash, time, IP, network access, prior work, or future operating responsibility. If you cannot explain the split in one paragraph, you probably do not agree yet.

5. Vesting

Vesting means equity is earned over time rather than granted with no strings attached. Standard startup practice often uses four-year vesting with a one-year cliff, but your context matters. A founder agreement should state the vesting schedule, acceleration rules, and what happens on departure. Investors usually expect this. More importantly, sane founders should expect this too.

6. Intellectual property assignment

If you built code, designs, brand assets, CAD files, educational content, or research before incorporation, who owns it now? As someone who has spent years around IP-heavy products, I can tell you this clause is often handled with shocking laziness. The company should have clear rights to the assets it depends on. If founders keep personal ownership over business-critical IP, future investment and acquisition talks get ugly fast.

Useful reference material on this appears in startup legal libraries such as the Wilson Sonsini startup legal resource center and practical founder docs from Orrick startup forms.

7. Decision-making and voting rights

Who can decide on hiring, spending, fundraising, taking debt, issuing shares, changing salaries, signing partnerships, or selling the company? Separate routine operational decisions from reserved matters that need unanimous or supermajority approval.

8. Founder compensation and expense rules

Write down whether founders receive salaries, reimbursements, deferred pay, or founder loans. Nothing creates resentment faster than one founder quietly taking cash “just temporarily” while another assumes everyone is sacrificing equally.

9. Restrictions on outside work

Can founders run side businesses, freelance, invest in competitors, or advise other startups? Spell out what is allowed and what requires approval. Parallel entrepreneurship can work, but only if the boundaries are visible.

10. Exit, removal, and departure rules

Define what happens if a founder quits, becomes inactive, gets fired, breaches duties, becomes disabled, or dies. Include good leaver and bad leaver treatment if relevant. This section can feel harsh, but avoiding it is childish. A startup is not protected by positive thinking.

11. Reverse vesting, buyback, and repurchase rights

If someone leaves early, can the company or the remaining founders repurchase unvested shares, and at what price? This is one of the clauses that stops dead equity from haunting the company for years.

12. Dispute resolution

State how disputes are handled: direct negotiation, mediation, arbitration, or court. Also choose the governing law and forum. If your team is split across countries, do not leave this fuzzy.

13. Confidentiality and non-solicitation

Founders know the product plans, investor pipeline, technical methods, and customer leads. If someone exits, what can they take, say, or recruit away?

14. Deadlock procedure

What happens if there is a 50/50 split and the founders cannot agree? This deserves its own clause. Equal ownership without a deadlock process is not fairness. It is deferred chaos.

What does a practical founder agreement template look like?

Below is a simplified structure. It is not legal advice, and you should have counsel adapt it to your jurisdiction. Still, this template shows the sections serious founders should expect.

Parties
Name, address, legal entity details, incorporation status.
Purpose
Short statement on the company mission and what the founders are building.
Roles
Founder responsibilities, authority boundaries, and expected working hours.
Equity allocation
Share split, share class, grant timing, and conditions.
Vesting
Schedule, cliff, acceleration, treatment on voluntary and involuntary exit.
IP assignment
Transfer of prior and future inventions, code, content, designs, trademarks, and know-how to the company.
Confidentiality
Rules for handling internal information.
Compensation and expenses
Salary, founder loans, reimbursement process, and payment approval.
Decision rights
Routine decisions, reserved matters, board matters if applicable.
Restrictions
Outside work, competing activity, solicitation limits, social media conduct if needed.
Departure and share repurchase
Good leaver, bad leaver, valuation method, notice periods.
Dispute resolution
Negotiation, mediation, arbitration or court, governing law.
Miscellaneous
Amendments, notices, entire agreement, severability, signatures.

If you want public examples to compare structures, review the SeedLegals founders agreement overview, the Clerky founder stock explanation, and founder-focused legal content from SVB on founder equity splits. Compare the logic, not just the wording.

How should founders negotiate the agreement without damaging trust?

This is where most articles become too polite. Negotiation is not a threat to trust. Pretending you do not need negotiation is the threat. If you cannot discuss control, money, vesting, replacement, and failure before incorporation, you are not ready to build together.

As a woman founder, I have seen how often people expect us to keep things soft, grateful, and vague. I reject that. Women do not need more inspiration. We need infrastructure. That includes written rights, negotiation preparation, and clauses that do not depend on charisma. If that angle matters to you, pair this guide with a negotiation playbook for women.

Negotiation principle #1: Separate friendship from governance

You can love and respect your co-founder and still insist on vesting, IP assignment, and a deadlock clause. Written structure is not an accusation. It is damage prevention.

Negotiation principle #2: Price contribution honestly

Do not flatten all contributions into “we are all equal.” Ask hard questions:

Who is full-time now?
Who put in cash?
Who owns pre-existing IP?
Who takes legal liability as director?
Who can raise money?
Who can build or sell without supervision?

Equal people do not always create equal founder value at the same time.

Negotiation principle #3: Negotiate future scenarios, not current emotions

The startup version of romance says, “We trust each other.” The adult version asks, “What happens if one of us wants to leave in 11 months, another gets sick, and a third stops performing but refuses to resign?”

Negotiation principle #4: Use scenario testing

When I build founder systems, I like role-play because safe theory changes very little. Test your draft agreement against scenarios.

One founder leaves after 8 months
One founder is part-time for 18 months
One founder built the original code before the company existed
An investor demands all founder shares vest
The company gets an acquisition offer but one founder refuses
A founder starts another business that competes indirectly

If your agreement does not tell you what happens, it is unfinished.

Negotiation principle #5: Put governance in writing before money arrives

Founders often become brave only when investors ask uncomfortable questions. That is late. By then, every clause is filtered through fundraising panic. Deal with control and board structure earlier. If board design is already on your radar, read about board positioning because board rights often expose founder agreement weaknesses very quickly.

How do you build the agreement step by step?

Let’s break it down. You do not need a huge legal budget to start the process well. You do need honesty, documentation, and a sequence.

Phase 1: Assessment and planning

List every founder and actual contribution to date
Write current and expected time commitment for the next 12 months
Map pre-existing IP, code, content, patents, designs, domains, and data assets
Write down founder expectations on salary, reimbursement, and risk
Identify major disagreement zones before the lawyer draft starts

Documents to prepare: cap table draft, role descriptions, IP inventory, incorporation papers, and any prior side letters or informal emails that promised ownership.

Phase 2: Drafting the founder agreement

Choose the legal jurisdiction and document owner
Draft roles, equity split, vesting, decision rights, and exit rules first
Add IP assignment language early, not at the end
Write a deadlock clause if ownership is balanced
Write signature and amendment rules

At this stage, founders often obsess over percentages and ignore process. Bad idea. A slightly imperfect equity split with strong process rules is often more survivable than a mathematically elegant split with no exit mechanism.

Phase 3: Negotiation session

Review the document clause by clause in one dedicated session
Mark non-negotiables and flexible areas
Discuss examples, not abstractions
Capture objections in writing
Revise once, then close

Do not stretch this into a six-week emotional soap opera. Long drift creates politics. Short, structured negotiation creates decisions.

Phase 4: Legal review and signing

Ask startup counsel to review local enforceability
Check share issuance mechanics and tax consequences
Confirm IP assignment is consistent with employment and contractor papers
Sign and store the final version properly
Reflect the agreement in company records

Phase 5: Review triggers

A founder agreement is not a museum object. Review it after:

Incorporation or redomiciliation
First funding round
Board creation
Major role changes
One founder going part-time or full-time
Acquisition interest

Which founder agreement clauses cause the most fights?

Some clauses look technical but carry emotional explosives. These deserve extra care.

Equity split

The fight is rarely about math alone. It is about status, recognition, guilt, and future identity. Founders often ask for equal equity to avoid discomfort. Then the company spends years paying for that shortcut.

Vesting

People hear “vesting” and think “you do not trust me.” No. Vesting says the company should not be permanently owned by someone who leaves before the real work starts.

IP ownership

This gets nasty in technical companies, creative companies, and education products. If one founder says, “I built that before the company,” and the company needs it to function, your investors will notice the gap immediately.

Decision rights

Titles can hide power confusion for a while. Then the first hiring decision, financing decision, or acquisition interest exposes the truth. Write decision rights with more precision than job titles.

Departure terms

Good leaver and bad leaver rules are emotionally loaded because they force founders to imagine each other failing, quitting, or turning hostile. That discomfort is exactly why you must write them.

What are the best negotiation moves for founders in 2026?

Strong founder negotiation is less about aggression and more about structure. Here are practices that work.

1. Start with contributions, then move to percentages

What it is: List actual and expected inputs before discussing ownership. That includes time, cash, IP, network, customer access, operational load, and legal exposure.

Why it works: It anchors the conversation in observable facts rather than ego claims.

Create a founder contribution matrix
Score current and future commitment separately
Discuss where contributions are replaceable and where they are not

Common pitfall: Treating introductions and enthusiasm as equal to months of execution.

How to avoid it: Put time horizon and dependency into the analysis.

Metrics to track: founder time allocation, delivered outputs, capital contributed.

2. Use reverse vesting as a fairness tool

What it is: Founders receive shares subject to company repurchase if they leave before earning them.

Why it works: It protects the company from dead equity and keeps long-term contribution linked to ownership.

Set a clear vesting period and cliff
Define treatment for voluntary exit, termination, disability, and sale
Match the wording to local share law and tax rules

Common pitfall: Copying US vesting language into a non-US structure without legal adaptation.

How to avoid it: Ask counsel to localize the mechanics, not just the terminology.

Metrics to track: vested versus unvested founder shares, cap table cleanliness, investor diligence friction.

3. Write deadlock rules before conflict appears

What it is: A predefined process for founder disputes when votes stall.

Why it works: It prevents paralysis in 50/50 or high-friction teams.

Define which decisions can trigger deadlock
Add escalation steps such as mediation or external tie-break input
State final routes if no resolution is reached

Common pitfall: Assuming mature adults will “sort it out.”

How to avoid it: Build process before fatigue, money, and pride distort behavior.

Metrics to track: unresolved founder decisions, approval time for reserved matters, frequency of escalations.

4. Match founder rights to the next financing stage

What it is: Drafting the founder agreement with future due diligence in mind.

Why it works: Investors care about who owns the company, who controls the company, and whether someone can block the company irrationally.

Check vesting and IP assignment before fundraising
Make sure decision rights do not conflict with board structure
Remove side promises that are not documented properly

Common pitfall: Cleaning founder paperwork only after a lead investor points out defects.

How to avoid it: Run your own internal diligence first.

Metrics to track: legal issues flagged in diligence, document completeness, time to close financing.

What common mistakes do founders make?

Mistake #1: Splitting equity equally to avoid discomfort

Why founders do it: they want harmony fast, and equal sounds morally clean.

The impact: resentment later, weak accountability, and dead equity if commitment changes.

Map real contribution and expected contribution separately
Add vesting even if the split stays equal
Review the split after role changes only through formal amendment

If you already did this: run a reset conversation before fundraising, not during it.

Mistake #2: Ignoring IP assignment because everyone “understands” it

Why founders do it: they think friendship and intent are enough.

The impact: uncertain ownership over code, datasets, designs, and brand assets.

Inventory every asset the company depends on
Assign prior inventions properly where possible
Use separate invention assignment papers if needed

Mistake #3: No deadlock clause in a 50/50 company

Why founders do it: they confuse equal ownership with stable governance.

The impact: stalled hiring, delayed fundraising, frozen strategy, and emotional trench warfare.

Add mediation triggers
Define reserved matters tightly
Use tie-break processes that fit your jurisdiction

Mistake #4: Copy-pasting a US template into a European company

Why founders do it: many public startup resources are US-first, and founders assume legal language travels cleanly.

The impact: clauses that sound familiar but fail under local company law, tax treatment, or notarial requirements.

Use templates as structure, not as final wording
Check local rules on share transfer and vesting
Confirm director duties and employment status locally

Mistake #5: Waiting until after funding to clean founder documents

Why founders do it: they think legal cleanup can happen “once the money is there.”

The impact: lower negotiating power, investor distrust, and painful rushed amendments.

Do internal diligence before outreach
Check board, vesting, and IP consistency
Prepare founder narratives that match the legal papers

How should founder agreements change across startup stages?

Pre-seed and seed stage

Your reality: little cash, high uncertainty, and fast learning.

Prioritize vesting, IP assignment, role clarity, and founder commitment
Keep salaries and perks tightly documented
Write a deadlock process if ownership is balanced

What to prioritize: survivable governance.

What can wait: highly detailed board committee mechanics.

Success looks like: clean cap table, no ownership confusion, and investor-ready basics.

Series A stage

Your reality: outside money, hiring, and more formal governance.

Make sure founder rights do not clash with shareholder and board documents
Review acceleration clauses and reserved matters
Align founder reporting and decision processes with investor expectations

After funding, the founder agreement starts interacting with board communication and investor trust. That is where disciplined investor relations becomes part of founder risk management too.

Series B and later

Your reality: more formal governance, more employees, and more exposure if founder terms are inconsistent.

Check old founder side promises against current company documents
Review treatment for founder exits and post-termination restrictions
Prepare for acquisition and secondary sale scenarios

Success looks like: founder terms that no longer surprise investors, acquirers, or each other.

Which metrics show whether your founder structure is healthy?

You do not need fancy software for this. You need honest signals.

Foundational metrics

Percentage of founder equity subject to vesting
Documented IP ownership status for all business-critical assets
Time commitment variance between founders
Number of unresolved reserved-matter decisions
Founder cash withdrawals and reimbursements

Advanced metrics after a few months

Frequency of founder dispute escalations
Time to approve strategic decisions
Legal issues flagged during investor diligence
Board-level friction caused by founder ambiguity
Share of the cap table effectively inactive due to departed founders

If your metrics show one founder carrying most execution while ownership stays frozen in old assumptions, do not call it culture. Call it what it is: a governance mismatch.

What glossary terms should founders understand before signing?

Founder agreement: contract among founders that sets rights, duties, ownership, and conflict rules.

Vesting: schedule through which equity is earned over time.

Cliff: minimum period before any vesting starts, often 12 months.

Reverse vesting: founder holds shares that can be repurchased if they leave before earning them fully.

Good leaver: founder who exits under acceptable circumstances defined in the agreement.

Bad leaver: founder who exits under harmful or disallowed circumstances defined in the agreement.

IP assignment: transfer of intellectual property rights from a founder to the company.

Reserved matters: decisions that need special approval because they affect ownership, financing, debt, sale, or control.

Deadlock: situation where decision-makers cannot agree and the company cannot move.

Cap table: record of who owns which shares or rights in the company.

What should you do next?

Next steps. If you have co-founders and no written founder agreement, fix that now. Not next quarter. Not after the product launch. Not after the first investor call.

Write down founder contributions and expected commitments this week
Identify disagreement zones before drafting starts
Create a founder agreement draft using the clause checklist above
Test the draft against exit, conflict, and fundraising scenarios
Get startup counsel to adapt it to your jurisdiction
Sign it, store it, and review it after major company changes

My closing view is blunt because reality is blunt. A startup does not break when founders have hard conversations. It breaks when they avoid them. A founder agreement is not pessimism. It is respect for the company, for the work, and for each other. If you build with real ambition, write documents that can survive real pressure.

Or, said more simply: friendship starts companies, but structure keeps them alive.

Key takeaways

A founder agreement is a startup survival document because it sets ownership, power, vesting, IP rights, and exit rules before conflict appears.
A solid founder agreement template should cover roles, equity, vesting, IP assignment, decision rights, compensation, restrictions, departures, and dispute resolution.
Negotiation should happen early and should focus on scenarios, contribution reality, and future governance rather than comfort.
The most expensive mistakes are equal splits without logic, no vesting, weak IP ownership, and no deadlock procedure.
Strong founder paperwork improves fundraising readiness because investors trust clean cap tables, assigned IP, and predictable decision structures.

FAQ

When should founders sign a founder agreement if they are still testing the idea?

Ideally before meaningful work, money, or IP gets contributed. Even at idea stage, founders start building expectations around ownership and control. A lightweight early draft can prevent later confusion, especially if one person codes, funds, or introduces the first customers before incorporation happens.

Can a founder agreement work if the startup is not incorporated yet?

Yes. Pre-incorporation founder agreements can set expectations on equity intent, IP transfer, roles, confidentiality, and what happens once the entity is formed. The key is making sure the final company documents later mirror those promises so informal pre-company assumptions do not create legal contradictions.

How do you handle a founder who contributes mostly network, reputation, or introductions?

Treat that contribution carefully and avoid overpricing vague strategic value. Warm intros can matter, but they are not the same as daily execution or technical delivery. If reputation access is central, link some equity or advisory upside to measurable outcomes rather than granting large fixed ownership upfront.

Should married couples, siblings, or close friends use a stricter co-founder agreement?

Usually yes, not because trust is lower but because emotional assumptions are higher. Personal history often makes teams skip difficult governance questions. A stricter written co-founder agreement helps separate family or friendship dynamics from company decision-making, compensation, and exit mechanics when pressure rises.

What is the best way to document unpaid founder work before salaries begin?

Track it explicitly through approved reimbursement rules, deferred salary notes, or founder loan records rather than vague memory. If one founder is carrying heavy unpaid operational work, document whether that earns cash repayment, extra equity, or neither. Hidden sacrifice is one of the fastest routes to resentment.

How should founders think about option pools before agreeing their own equity split?

Discuss the employee option pool before locking in founder percentages, not after. Otherwise everyone thinks they own more than they really will post-dilution. If you are planning lean growth, the Bootstrapping Startup Playbook is also useful for planning early hiring tradeoffs.

Are founder agreement templates from the US safe to use in Europe?

Only as drafting references, not as final legal documents. European entities often have different rules on vesting mechanics, share transfers, notarial steps, tax treatment, and director obligations. For a stronger comparison point, review this founder agreement guide and then localize it with counsel.

What should solo founders do if they plan to add a co-founder later?

Prepare a founder-ready framework before the new person joins. Define what portion of equity is still available, what milestones justify co-founder status, and how vesting will work. This avoids rushed emotional offers when someone helpful appears during a stressful growth or fundraising moment.

How often should a founder agreement be reviewed after signing?

Review it after major structural changes, not just on a calendar. Triggers include incorporation, funding rounds, a founder going part-time, new IP entering the business, geographic relocation, or board creation. If the operating reality changes but the agreement does not, governance risk starts accumulating quietly.

What are early warning signs that a founder agreement no longer matches reality?

Watch for repeated decision bottlenecks, uneven founder workload, undocumented cash withdrawals, unclear ownership of product assets, and side commitments that distract from execution. If founders keep saying “we’ll sort that out later,” the agreement is already lagging behind the business and needs immediate revision.

Violetta Bonenkamp

Violetta Bonenkamp, also known as Mean CEO, is a female entrepreneur and an experienced startup founder, bootstrapping her startups. She has an impressive educational background including an MBA and four other higher education degrees. She has over 20 years of work experience across multiple countries, including 10 years as a solopreneur and serial entrepreneur. Throughout her startup experience she has applied for multiple startup grants at the EU level, in the Netherlands and Malta, and her startups received quite a few of those. She’s been living, studying and working in many countries around the globe and her extensive multicultural experience has influenced her immensely. Constantly learning new things, like AI, SEO, zero code, code, etc. and scaling her businesses through smart systems.

Founder Agreement Template + Negotiation Guide | Ultimate Guide For Startups | 2026 EDITION