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

The deadline to claim the early-bird rate for Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators is quickly approaching—Friday, February 20, at 11:59 p.m. Pacific time.

This marks the eighth year Fast Company will be recognizing companies and organizations from 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 ranking the world’s Best Workplaces for Innovators, we will also recognize companies in 19 categories, including a brand new category that focuses on “skilled labor”—companies that depend heavily on talented employees with the kinds of increasingly coveted technical expertise acquired through vo-tech training and trade schools.

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

What differentiates Best Workplaces for Innovators from existing best-places-to-work lists is that it goes beyond benefits, competitive compensation, and collegiality (mere table stakes in today’s competition for talent) to identify which companies are actively creating and sustaining the kinds of innovative cultures that many top employees value as much as or even more than money. Places where they can do the best work of their careers and improve the lives of hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people around the world. Every application receives careful review by Fast Company editors. 

Start your Best Workplaces for Innovators application here. For more information on applying, see the FAQs. The final deadline to apply isn’t until March 27, but all applications submitted by Friday, February 20, at 11:59 pm Pacific time receive the preferred rate.

To sign up for Best Workplaces for Innovators notifications, register here

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