Do you need Claude Max to send guest passes?

No. Anthropic's support article states that guest passes are available to eligible Pro and Max subscribers, not Max alone - a point most write-ups get wrong. The word doing the work is 'eligible': having a Pro plan does not guarantee passes appear in your account.

How many Claude guest passes do you get?

Anthropic says only that subscribers get a limited number, and does not publish a figure. Three is the count subscribers most often report, but it is not documented and should not be treated as a guarantee.

Do Claude guest passes expire?

Yes. Anthropic's article says guest passes are available for a limited time, and that once your passes are redeemed or expired you cannot send more. An unshared pass is worth nothing to anyone once it lapses, which is the whole reason this board exists.

Why does my Claude guest pass link say invalid?

Usually because someone else opened it first - redemption is first-come, first-served, so a link posted publicly can be spent within minutes. The other common causes are having held a paid Claude plan before, a pass that expired on the sender's side, and sender-side bugs that have been reported against Claude Code. Trying a different pass is faster than diagnosing one.

Can I use a guest pass if I had Claude Pro before?

No. Anthropic requires that referral recipients be new to Claude paid subscriptions. A current or lapsed Pro or Max account disqualifies you, and the pass will not apply even if the link opens.

Do you need a credit card for a Claude guest pass?

Yes. Anthropic asks for payment information at signup but does not charge it unless you keep using Claude past the seven days. Some articles claim no card is needed; the official article says otherwise.

Can you buy or sell a Claude guest pass?

No. Anthropic's terms state that passes have no cash value and are non-transferable, so anyone charging for one is selling something they do not own. Sharing a pass link for free is the program working as designed, which is all that happens here.

How much credit do you get for referring someone?

Less certainly than most pages claim. $10 per conversion is widely repeated, but Anthropic's own wording is that a guest pass will sometimes result in a specified amount of overage credits - conditional, unspecified, and paid in usage credit rather than cash. The credits expire a year after issuance and are voided if you move to the Free tier.

Claude guest pass: what it is and how to get one

A Claude guest pass is a personal invite from a Claude subscriber that gives someone new to paid Claude seven free days of the Pro plan, with Claude Code and Cowork included. It is not a coupon and there is no code to type - a pass is a link, and opening it starts the trial on claude.ai. Anthropic offers no other free trial of Claude Pro, which makes a guest pass the only official way to use the paid plan without paying for the first week.

The usual advice is to find a friend on Max and ask nicely. You don’t have to. This board lists passes subscribers have shared - free, no resale, and links get retired once people report them spent.

The short version

What it is: A personal referral link from a Claude subscriber, not a code you type.
What it gives: Seven days of Claude's Pro plan, including Claude Code and Cowork.
Who can send one: Eligible Claude Pro and Max subscribers - not Max only.
Who can redeem one: Only people new to Claude paid subscriptions.
Payment card: Required at signup. Not charged if you cancel inside the seven days.
After seven days: Converts to a paid Claude Pro plan automatically unless canceled.
Where a subscriber finds theirs: /passes in Claude Code, Claude settings under Claude Code, or the Cowork tab in Claude Desktop.

Every row above comes from Anthropic’s guest pass support article. Where this page goes beyond it, it says so.

Two things most guest pass articles get wrong

This keyword attracts a lot of thin, recycled writing, and two errors have spread far enough to be worth correcting directly.

“Guest passes are Max-only.” They are not. Anthropic’s article says guest passes are “currently available to eligible Pro and Max subscribers only” - Pro counts. If you pay for Claude Pro, check /passes before assuming you have nothing to give. The load-bearing word is eligible: being on Pro does not guarantee passes appear, which is probably where the Max-only claim came from.

“You get $10 for every referral.” Widely repeated, nowhere in the documentation. What Anthropic actually says is that a guest pass “sometimes” results in “a specified amount of overage credits” - conditional, unquantified, and paid as usage credit rather than money. Those credits expire a year after they are issued and are voided if you drop to the Free tier. Share passes because an unused one expires worthless, not because you are counting on $10.

How to get a Claude guest pass

Three routes, in descending order of how well they work.

Ask someone who subscribes. Anyone on Claude Pro or Max can run /passes in Claude Code and send you a link in about ten seconds. Most subscribers have never looked, and passes expire unused, so asking costs them nothing.
Claim one from this board. Sign in, unlock a pass, open the link on claude.ai. Signing in is what keeps bots from scraping every link the minute it is posted, and the report-back button is what retires spent links instead of leaving them to waste the next person’s time. See what’s available now.
Watch Reddit, X and Discord. Passes do get posted publicly in r/ClaudeAI and elsewhere. Redemption is first-come, first-served and nothing marks a spent link as spent, so a post more than an hour old is usually a dead end. Never pay anyone for a link.

What you get during the seven days

The full Claude Pro plan - not a reduced demo tier.
Claude Code, the agentic coding tool that runs in your terminal and IDE.
Cowork, Claude working alongside you on files and everyday tasks.
Pro-level usage limits and access to Anthropic’s current models.

A week is enough to find out whether Claude Code fits how you work, which is the honest reason to take a pass: not free stuff, but a real decision made on real evidence.

Who can redeem one

Only people new to Claude paid subscriptions. Anthropic’s wording is that “referral recipients must be new to Claude paid subscriptions”, and that rules out anyone with a current Pro or Max plan and anyone who had one and canceled. A free claude.ai account is fine - that is not a paid subscription. If you are not eligible the link will open and the pass simply will not apply, so it is worth checking before you spend one.

The payment card, stated plainly

Redeeming a pass requires entering payment information. Anthropic does not charge it during the trial, and won’t charge it at all if you cancel inside the seven days - but if you don’t cancel, the trial “will automatically convert to a paid Pro plan”. That is the part the enthusiastic write-ups leave out, and a few of them claim outright that no card is needed. Set a reminder for day six.

Why a Claude guest pass link doesn’t work

This is the most common complaint about the program, and it usually has a boring cause:

Someone got there first. Anthropic redeems passes first-come, first-served. A link posted anywhere public is often spent within minutes, and the link keeps working - it just stops granting anything.
You have had a paid plan before. The single most common disqualifier, and the error message rarely says so.
The pass expired on the sender’s side. Passes are available for a limited time whether or not anyone redeems them.
A bug on the sender’s account. Subscribers have reported links generating as invalid while passes still showed as remaining, and passes vanishing from accounts outright, in Claude Code issue #34816 and #30060.

None of these are worth diagnosing. Trying a different pass takes ten seconds; if one from this board fails, mark it and the next person is spared the same detour.

If you subscribe: sending your passes

Open /passes in Claude Code, or find them in Claude settings under “Claude Code”, or in the “Cowork” tab of Claude Desktop settings. You get a limited number, Anthropic doesn’t publish how many, and once they are redeemed or expired you cannot send more.

Passes “have no cash value and are non-transferable”, so nobody should be charging you for one and you shouldn’t be charging anyone. Giving a link away is the program working exactly as designed. If yours are going to lapse otherwise, list them here and someone who can’t afford Claude Pro gets a week with it.

Claude guest pass questions

Do you need Claude Max to send guest passes?: No. Anthropic's support article states that guest passes are available to eligible Pro and Max subscribers, not Max alone - a point most write-ups get wrong. The word doing the work is 'eligible': having a Pro plan does not guarantee passes appear in your account.
How many Claude guest passes do you get?: Anthropic says only that subscribers get a limited number, and does not publish a figure. Three is the count subscribers most often report, but it is not documented and should not be treated as a guarantee.
Do Claude guest passes expire?: Yes. Anthropic's article says guest passes are available for a limited time, and that once your passes are redeemed or expired you cannot send more. An unshared pass is worth nothing to anyone once it lapses, which is the whole reason this board exists.
Why does my Claude guest pass link say invalid?: Usually because someone else opened it first - redemption is first-come, first-served, so a link posted publicly can be spent within minutes. The other common causes are having held a paid Claude plan before, a pass that expired on the sender's side, and sender-side bugs that have been reported against Claude Code. Trying a different pass is faster than diagnosing one.
Can I use a guest pass if I had Claude Pro before?: No. Anthropic requires that referral recipients be new to Claude paid subscriptions. A current or lapsed Pro or Max account disqualifies you, and the pass will not apply even if the link opens.
Do you need a credit card for a Claude guest pass?: Yes. Anthropic asks for payment information at signup but does not charge it unless you keep using Claude past the seven days. Some articles claim no card is needed; the official article says otherwise.
Can you buy or sell a Claude guest pass?: No. Anthropic's terms state that passes have no cash value and are non-transferable, so anyone charging for one is selling something they do not own. Sharing a pass link for free is the program working as designed, which is all that happens here.
How much credit do you get for referring someone?: Less certainly than most pages claim. $10 per conversion is widely repeated, but Anthropic's own wording is that a guest pass will sometimes result in a specified amount of overage credits - conditional, unspecified, and paid in usage credit rather than cash. The credits expire a year after issuance and are voided if you move to the Free tier.

Get a pass

Subscribers list spare passes here so they don’t expire unused. Unlock one, redeem it on claude.ai, and tell us whether it worked.

See available Claude passes