It's the first question almost every Florida student asks about Bright Futures: how many hours do I actually need? The honest answer is that it depends on which award you're going for, and on a rule that quietly changed for current high schoolers. Here's the full picture for the 2025-26 cycle, straight from the state's own sources.
The short answer, by award
Per Florida's official Bright Futures Scholarship Program site and the 2025-26 Bright Futures Student Handbook, the volunteer-service requirement for each award is:
- Florida Academic Scholars (FAS): 100 volunteer service hours
- Florida Medallion Scholars (FMS): 75 volunteer service hours
- Gold Seal Vocational (GSV) and Gold Seal CAPE (GSC): 30 volunteer service hours, with an important exception below
Those are the volunteer-only numbers. As of the class of 2023, every award also accepts paid work as an alternative, which changes the math (more on that below).
The catch: 30 hours for Gold Seal is going away
If you're aiming for a Gold Seal award, read this carefully. The handbook still lists 30 volunteer hours, but it adds a key note: students who entered grade 9 in the 2024-25 school year or later must complete 75 volunteer service hours, not 30.
So for most students currently in high school, the Gold Seal requirement is effectively 75 hours, the same as FMS. The pivot point is the year you started 9th grade, not the year you graduate. A lot of older blog posts still print a flat "30," so double-check this one against your own grade-9 year.
You can use paid work instead of volunteering
Here's the part many families still miss: you don't have to volunteer for all of it. Since the class of 2023, you can satisfy the requirement with 100 paid work hours, or a combination of volunteer and paid hours totaling 100, for any award.
One important wrinkle: the paid-work and combination paths always require a full 100 hours, even for awards where the volunteer-only minimum is lower (FMS at 75, Gold Seal at 30 or 75). We break down exactly how that works, and how to document a job, in our guide to using paid work for Bright Futures.
Hours are only part of it
Hitting your hours doesn't earn the scholarship by itself. Each award also has academic requirements for 2025-26:
- FAS: a 3.50 weighted Bright Futures GPA plus a minimum ACT 29 / SAT 1330 / CLT 95.
- FMS: a 3.00 weighted Bright Futures GPA plus a minimum ACT 24 / SAT 1190 / CLT 82.
- Gold Seal Vocational (GSV): a 3.0 weighted GPA in non-elective courses, three CTE credits with a 3.5 unweighted GPA in them, and qualifying ACT, SAT, or PERT scores.
- Gold Seal CAPE (GSC): five postsecondary credit hours through CAPE industry certifications, with no GPA or test-score requirement at all.
The Gold Seal awards are the career and technical path, and they're worth a closer look if you're in a CTE program. We cover them in Bright Futures for the Trades.
The hours only count if they're documented right
A hard truth: students lose hours every year not because they didn't do the work, but because the paperwork wasn't right. Statewide, your hours must be documented in writing and signed by three people: you, your parent or guardian, and a representative of the organization. On top of that, your district adds its own rules about who can verify and what the documentation must contain.
That's the most common place hours fall apart, so it's worth getting right. We walk through it in how to make sure your hours actually get accepted.
Bottom line
For the 2025-26 cycle: 100 hours for FAS, 75 for FMS, and 30 or 75 for the Gold Seal awards depending on when you started 9th grade, with 100 paid work hours (or a 100-hour combination) as the universal alternative. Know your award, know your number, and start logging early so a missing signature never costs you the scholarship.
BrightLog tracks your hours toward your specific award goal and collects the signatures your district needs along the way, so you always know exactly where you stand.
Figures reflect the 2025-26 award cycle and are subject to change with each legislative session. Always confirm current requirements on floridabrightfutures.gov and with your school counselor.