When you sign a Contributor License Agreement (CLA), you give Google the legal permission to use and distribute your contribution. You do not surrender ownership of your contribution, and you do not give up any of your rights to use your contribution elsewhere.

When you submit a contribution to one of Google's open source projects, we will verify that your contribution is covered by a CLA. If we find that the submission is not covered by a CLA, you'll be notified and we will not accept the submission unless you sign the CLA.

Depending on who owns the copyright for the contribution, we will need either a Corporate CLA or an Individual CLA. If your company owns the intellectual property you wish to contribute, then we must have a Corporate CLA on file for your company, even if you were the only person who worked on that contribution. You must also be on your company's list of authorized contributors.

Corporate CLA

Preview the text of the Google Corporate CLA.

How does my company sign the Google Corporate CLA?

Here's how it works:
  1. First verify that your company does not already have a CLA with Google. Only one CLA agreement per company is supported.
  2. A point of contact for your company fills out the form, creates the group to hold email addresses covered by the CLA, and enters the details of an Authorized Signer who will sign the agreement.
  3. The Authorized Signer receives the CLA to sign via Docusign. After they sign it...
  4. Google verifies the agreement and counter-signs.
    • If there is an issue, the agreement will be revoked via Docusign and the primary contact and Authorized Signer will receive the rejection reason via email. To resubmit, start at the beginning of the process.
  5. The CLA takes effect!

How do I create or manage the list of people covered by our Corporate CLA?

Create a Google Group for the members of your organization who are authorized to submit contributions under the CLA (e.g. [email protected]). Each authorized contributor will need to be a member of this group. This name should not be specific to any particular project (i.e. android or chromium) as it will be used for contributions to all Google projects, and the name should reflect that. You should have multiple owners of this group to ensure you don't lose access to it if one person is unavailable.

If you are a Google Workspace customer, you can use a Group within your own domain (e.g. [email protected]).

What if I lose access to my contributor group or don't know the group for my company?

If you need help with your corporate contributor group, email [email protected].

I'm not a lawyer. Can I fill out this form?

Although anyone in your organization may create the Google Group for managing approved contributors and fill out our web form, you must include contact information for an Authorized Signer who is authorized to sign legal agreements. (Even if you are that person.) This might be a particular attorney at a large company or the CEO of a small company. After submitting the form, they will receive an email asking them to sign the agreement electronically.

How soon can we start contributing?

After the agreement is electronically signed, it will need to be reviewed by someone at Google. We check to make sure that there isn't already an agreement on file for your company and that it was signed by someone with necessary authority. This normally takes a few days. Once it's been accepted, you will receive an email and it will appear in the "Agreements you are covered by" section of the Agreements page.

How do I add authorized contributors for my company?

First, add their email address to the Google Group that you submitted with the corporate CLA. This is most commonly their company address.

Instruct contributors to use that same email address for any contributions to Google projects that are made on behalf of the company. For example, for projects that use git for source control, they may need to use the git config command to set their email address.

Additionally, if contributing to a project that is hosted on GitHub, contributors should add that email address to their GitHub account. This will allow us to map their GitHub username to the Corporate CLA that their contribution is covered by.

My company signed the CLA but this site says you don't have a corporate agreement on file for me.

Verify that you are a member of the Google Group containing authorized contributors.

At the top of the CLA page, ensure you're signed in with the same email address listed in the Google Group.

This page says my company signed the CLA, but I was notified that a CLA couldn't be found.

Make sure you're submitting the contribution using the same email address that is a member of the Google Group.

Individual CLAs

Preview the text of the Google Individual CLA.

I know I signed the CLA, but this site says you don't have an individual agreement on file for me.

At the top of the page, verify that you are signed in with the same Google Account you previously used to sign the CLA.

This page says I signed the CLA, but I was notified that a CLA couldn't be found.

Your contribution (commit) must be associated with at least one of:

Can I sign the Google CLA without a Google account?

A Google account is required to sign the CLA. Google accounts are used to link individual and corporate CLAs to covered contributors and provide authentication for CLA management.

Manage your agreements