Open Collective Docs
Go back to Open Collective
  • WELCOME
  • Welcome
  • Why Open Collective?
    • Why Open Collective?
    • How Open Collective Works
    • Features
    • Pricing
    • Fiscal Host Documentation
  • Getting Started
    • Getting Started
    • Explore
    • Setting up your Account
    • Editing your Profile Page
    • Customizing your Page Layout
    • Adding and Removing Team Members
    • Your Dashboard
    • Understanding Contributions
    • Understanding Expenses
    • Tracking an Expense
    • Creating an Organization
  • Advanced
    • Notifications
    • Preview Features
    • Security For Accounts
      • Logging into your Account
      • Two Factor Authentication
    • Keeping your Community Updated
      • Updates and Contact
      • Conversations
    • Verification
    • Understanding the Ledger
      • Individual Transactions
      • Transaction Pairs, Groups & Perspectives
      • Viewing Transactions
      • Exporting Transactions
      • Fiscal Host Ledger Perspective
      • Contributions in the Ledger
      • Added Funds in the Ledger
      • Expenses in the Ledger
      • Ledger Changelog
    • Exporting Your Data
    • Deleting your Account
  • COLLECTIVES
    • Collectives
    • Creating a Collective
      • Creating Your Policies
      • Security for Collectives
      • Linking Connected Collectives
    • Choosing a Fiscal Host
    • Raising Money
      • Setting Goals and Tiers
      • Customising Thank You Emails
      • Adding Donation Buttons, Badges and Banners
      • Adding Embeds to your Website
      • Creating Custom Fundraising URLs
      • Rejecting and Refunding Financial Contributions
    • Managing Money
      • Budgets
      • Projects
      • Moving money
      • Tagging expenses
    • Spending Money
      • Inviting a Third Party to Submit an Expense
    • Events
    • Changing Fiscal Host
    • Closing a Collective
      • Zero Collective Balance
  • Collective Settings
    • Integrations
  • GIVING TO COLLECTIVES
    • Giving to Collectives
    • Contributing
    • Contributing as a Guest
    • Payment Methods
    • Platform Tips
    • Sharing your Support
    • Making a Recurring Contribution
    • Managing Receipts
    • Giving to Other Collectives
    • Giving as a Company
      • Creating a Fund
      • Bulk Transfers
      • Gift Cards
    • Requesting Refunds
      • Refund Policy
  • EXPENSES AND GETTING PAID
    • Expenses and Getting Paid
    • Submitting Expenses
      • Submitting a Reimbursement
      • Recurring Expenses
      • Multi-Currency Expenses
    • Editing an Expense
    • Payment Processor Fees
    • Getting Paid through Wise
    • Understanding Tax Requirements
  • FISCAL HOSTS
    • Fiscal Hosts
    • Why Become a Fiscal Host?
    • Setting up a Fiscal Host
      • Creating a Fiscal Host
      • Setting your Fiscal Host Fees
      • Fiscal Host Security
      • Fiscal Host Policies
    • Managing your Collectives
      • Hosted Collectives
      • Collective Applications
      • Collecting Local Taxes
      • Vendors
      • Viewing your Host Reports
      • Freezing a Collective
      • Unhosting a Collective
    • Receiving Money as a Host
      • Bank Transfers
      • Stripe
      • Adding Funds Manually
      • Pending Contributions
    • Expense Payment
      • Paying Expenses as a Fiscal Host
      • Understanding Security Checks
      • Asking for Information about Expenses
      • Paying Expenses with Wise
      • Handling Payment Errors Through Wise
    • Processing Refunds
    • Platform Settlements
    • Certified Member
  • INDEPENDENT COLLECTIVES
    • Independent Collectives
    • Creating an Independent Collective
      • Launching an Independent Collective
      • Migrating from Fiscal Host to Independent Collective
      • Migrating from Self-Hosted to Independent Collective
    • Managing Independent Collective Finances
    • Closing an Independent Collective
  • Development
    • API
  • Our Organization
    • About Open Collective
    • Mission And Values
    • Our Team
Powered by GitBook
LogoLogo

Open Collective

  • Open Collective Platform
  • Blog

Support

  • Contact

Community

  • Discord

© 2025 Open Finance Consortium

On this page
  • What is a Fiscal Host?
  • What are some examples of Fiscal Hosts?
  • Why are there different Fiscal Hosts?
  • Do all Collectives need a Fiscal Host?
  • How do I find a Fiscal Host?
  • I'm interested in creating a Fiscal Host

Was this helpful?

  1. FISCAL HOSTS

Fiscal Hosts

Fiscal Hosts can use the Open Collective platform to connect with Collectives, and complete admin tasks such as paying out expenses

PreviousUnderstanding Tax RequirementsNextWhy Become a Fiscal Host?

Last updated 2 months ago

Was this helpful?

What is a Fiscal Host?

Fiscal hosting enables Collectives to transact financially without needing to legally incorporate. In other contexts, this is sometimes called .

A Fiscal Host is a legal company or individual who holds a Collective’s funds in their bank account and can generate invoices and receipts for supporters and sponsors. You can think of a fiscal host as an umbrella organization for the Collectives in it.

The Fiscal Host is responsible for taxes, accounting, compliance, financial admin, and paying expenses approved by the Collective’s core contributors (admins).

The Open Collective platform makes the job of Fiscal Hosts a lot easier by providing our software platform for tracking budgets and expenses, generating reports, and automating bookkeeping. Fiscal Hosts have a dashboard where they can see their Collectives and perform common actions.

By sharing a host, Collectives are effectively mutualizing the cost and overhead of having a legal entity.

What are some examples of Fiscal Hosts?

Fiscal Hosts can be in any location and take any form of legal entity (as long as they have a bank account, PayPal account, and Stripe account). Each one determines its own policies for which Collectives it will host and what fees it will charge.

Below are a few examples of Fiscal Hosts.

Fiscal Host
Impact Area
Host Fee

Open source software projects

10%

EU-based Collectives

6%

NZ charity fundholder

8%

Climate and social justice in Europe

3%

UK social impact initiatives

5%

Why are there different Fiscal Hosts?

We want to enable all kinds of diverse Collectives, so we make our platform available to a network of Fiscal Hosts with different missions in different geographies. Each Fiscal Host determines its own policies and fees.

Some projects can’t be fiscally hosted by the entities Open Collective runs itself, because they are in a country we don’t cover or don’t fit under our entities' missions. For example, Open Source Collective is only for Open Source software projects. So we welcome external hosts on the platform.

Do all Collectives need a Fiscal Host?

How do I find a Fiscal Host?

If you already set up a profile for your Collective, you can also apply by navigating to your Collective's Dashboard > Settings > Fiscal Host.

I'm interested in creating a Fiscal Host

Every Collective that receives or pays out money needs a Fiscal Host because they need to connect the host's bank account, Stripe account, and PayPal account to activate Open Collective’s payment features. If you already have a legal company set up and your organization is equiped and comfortable with taking on the responsibility, you can create your own . If not, you can join an existing host.

Go to the Fiscal Host's page and click “Apply”. You can see .

Please see our documentation on .

View our illustrated guide about Fiscal Hosts
fiscal sponsorship
Independent Collective
all hosts here
becoming a Fiscal Host
Open Source Collective
Open Collective Europe
Gift Collective
All For Climate
Social Change Nest