Becoming a Member

FIRST welcomes new members. There are three categories of membership:

• Full Members are security incident response teams who assist a defined constituency in preventing and handling security-related incidents;
• Associates: are teams that are not in the security incident response business that have a legitimate interest in and value to FIRST;
• Liaisons: are individuals that have a legitimate interest in and value to FIRST.

Only Full Members have voting rights and discounted event registration fees. Other types of members are able to enjoy other benefits of FIRST membership, such as access to the FIRST MISP instance, Slack Workspace, Groups and mailing lists, and other services. You can see the full list of benefits here.

New members must be sponsored by existing Full Members of FIRST who draft letters of support stating how they know/have worked with the applicant:

• Two sponsors for new Full Members. The primary sponsor must be a Full Member outside the parent/host organization and for Full Member applicants they will also conduct a site visit and report;
• One sponsor for new Associates and Liaisons.

A detailed guide on Membership Process for Full member teams can be found here.
A detailed guide on Membership Process for Associates can be found here.
A detailed guide on Membership Process for Liaisons can be found here.

TEAMS APPLYING TO FIRST: Please start here by completing the Membership Interest Form. Liaisons should not use this form but follow the process here.

The Secretariat will begin the review process at the end of each month. The Membership Committee will review prior to posting for comments from the membership. The Board will review/approve applications during their monthly meeting and approved teams will be notified and invoiced.

Fees

Membership year

The Membership year runs from January until December.

Annual membership fee

The membership fee is subject to change each year.

The membership fee is not refundable upon membership termination.

Initial one-time application fee

An applying FIRST Full Member team must pay an initial one-time application fee of US$ 1,000 after its membership is confirmed. This fee only applies to Full Member memberships, not to Liaison or Associate memberships.

New members

A new member is invoiced when the member is joining FIRST, for:

• Full Members and Associates: the initial one-time application fee (Full Member only), if applicable the per month pro-rated amount of the annual fee (a team only pays the part of the annual fee for the remainder of the membership year)

• Liaisons: $100 for remainder of the FIRST calendar year (Jan-Dec) regardless of month joined.

Invoicing procedure

Invoices are sent as PDF per e-mail to the member's FIRST representative and are available for download on the FIRST Portal under Billing & Payment. FIRST does not manage third party invoicing software. Processing and payment of the FIRST invoice is the responsibility of the member.

Full Member and Associates payments can be done by:

• Credit card
• Electronic bank transfer/ACH

Liaison Member payments should be processed by credit card.

All details on payment are specified on the invoices that are sent out, or available on request at: FIRST Membership & Secretariat Services

US Tax information

IRS/form W9:
www.first.org/about/reports/FIRST-W9-2025.pdf

Federal Employer Identification Number:
First.Org, Inc. FEIN 38-3943584

Contact information

FIRST Secretariat FIRST Membership & Secretariat Services