Y Combinator acceptance rate: how hard it is to get in, and what the numbers show.

Between 2022 and 2024, YC's "Meet the batch" posts on its blog gave both the number of applications and the number of companies funded. These are the five that do:

The last column is our arithmetic, except for Winter 2024, where YC itself called the rate under 1% and the batch one of the most selective in its history. YC's batch stats posts stop at Winter 2024, and we found no official figure for any later batch. Numbers you see for 2025 or 2026 are estimates made by third parties, not YC figures.

YC now runs its three-month program four times a year. In its directory, Fall 2024 is the first Fall batch and Spring 2025 the first Spring batch. The 2025 batches were all smaller than the old twice-yearly ones, yet the yearly total has grown again:

Batch size is not an acceptance rate: without YC's application counts for these batches, the directory cannot tell you the odds of getting in. Two more cautions. The directory lists the companies YC shows publicly, so its counts run a little below the numbers YC announced: 248 for Winter 2024, against the 260 YC said joined. And the Fall 2026 batch was still being added on the day we checked. Even so, 2026 already lists more companies than any year since 2021. Every batch since 2005, with a page of companies for each, is in our YC batches directory.

YC labels every company in its directory as active, acquired, inactive or public, and flags 91 of them as top companies. As of September 13, 2026, the 6,215 launched companies it lists break down like this:

The share of active companies flatters the picture, because 30% of the directory comes from batches since 2024, and almost all of those are still active. Among the 924 companies from YC's batches between 2005 and 2015, about a third were acquired, 2% went public and 38% are inactive. These are YC's status labels, not a measure of returns: acquired can mean a large exit or a small one, and active says nothing about revenue.

According to YC's deal page, the standard deal is $500,000 in total: $125,000 on a post-money SAFE for 7%, plus $375,000 on an uncapped SAFE with a most-favored-nation (MFN) provision. YC's apply page says it invests as soon as a company is accepted rather than waiting for the batch to start.

• Apply online on YC's apply page. On September 13, 2026, it was taking applications for Winter 2027, which runs from January to March in San Francisco.
• Meet the deadline. The on-time deadline is November 2 at 8pm PT, and on-time applicants get a decision by December 11.
• Expect a short video interview if you get through. YC says most interviews are held by video conference in November and December, and that it typically decides the same day.
• Late applications still count. YC says it will consider them but cannot commit to when it will reply.

Dates change with every batch, so check the apply page for the current deadline before planning around these.

YC's FAQ says that on average 40% of the companies it funds in each batch are just an idea, and that most have no revenue. The batch posts give the same picture for single batches: 43% of Summer 2022 and 52% of Winter 2023 were accepted with only an idea.

The FAQ also says YC regularly accepts solo founders, while warning that one-person startups are tough, and that its application is open to startups anywhere in the world. Persistence shows up in the numbers too: the FAQ says about half the companies applied multiple times before being accepted, and 59% of the Winter 2023 batch had applied more than once.

No amount of marketing buys a place in YC, and customers still have to be won either way. If you are building a technology company and marketing is on your list, our page on marketing for technology companies explains how we work.