Apply now for Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators 2026

Fast Company is now accepting applications for our annual Best Workplaces for Innovators awards.

This marks the eighth year we will be recognizing companies and organizations around the world that most effectively empower employees at all levels to improve processes, create new products, or invent whole new ways of doing business.

In addition to honoring the world’s overall Best Workplaces for Innovators, we will recognize companies in 19 categories, including a brand-new category, Skilled Labor, singling out companies that depend heavily on talented employees with the kinds of increasingly coveted technical expertise acquired through votech training and trade schools.

New Best Workplaces for Innovators categories

In addition to Skilled Labor, other new categories this year include:

Cybersecurity and Enterprise Software

Industrial and Manufacturing

Technology and Science

Advertising, Marketing, and PR

Biotech, Healthcare, and Life Sciences

Financial Services and Fintech

To select winners, the editors of Fast Company carefully review and score every application. An outside panel of industry experts then assesses the finalists to help determine the top 10, while the editors compile category winners based on application scores.

“At a time of intense competition for talent, when elite prospects are receiving unprecedented compensation packages, companies with robust innovation cultures have a real edge,” says Brendan Vaughan, editor-in-chief of Fast Company. “Best Workplaces for Innovators allows our editors to identify organizations that most successfully encourage all their employees to be creative, to experiment, to invent.”

Recognition in the fall issue

Companies selected as Best Workplaces for Innovators will appear in the fall 2026 issue of Fast Company magazine and on fastcompany.com in September. For more information and details, see the FAQs.

Last year’s Best Workplaces for Innovators issue honored nearly 200 diverse organizations from around the world, including Motorola Solutions (No. 1), Mattel (No. 7), Genentech (No. 25), and the only two companies that have made the cut every single year—Siemens (No. 10) and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (No. 50).

What differentiates Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators awards from other best places to work lists is that it’s the only major business magazine recognition program that emphasizes innovation as the primary workplace perk.

Any organization that can demonstrate a serious and sustained commitment to building a culture of innovation that yields tangible results is eligible to apply—public, private, or nonprofit. For more information or to apply, visit fastcompany.com/apply/bwi.

For more than a decade, Fast Company has been recognizing outstanding achievement with its awards programs. Our Most Innovative Companies list celebrates organizations that are transforming industries and shaping society through paradigm-shifting products, insights, or services. Innovation by Design focuses on individuals and firms that are addressing some of the world’s most intractable challenges through design solutions. World Changing Ideas highlights emerging initiatives that aim to enhance life for all of us. Brands That Matter and Next Big Thing in Tech shine a light on the world’s most relevant brands and highlight the most potent emerging developments in technology.

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