10 Best Free Finance Courses in 2026
Updated August 2026
You can learn a surprising amount of finance without paying for a course.
The problem is figuring out what "free" actually means.
Some platforms advertise free enrollment but charge for most of the course. Others let you watch a few lessons before hitting a paywall. A smaller group provides the lectures, materials, exercises, and sometimes even assessments without requiring payment.
Those are the courses I have prioritized here.
I teach finance at Santa Clara University and publish free finance courses myself. I have included those alongside courses I would send my own students to from NYU Stern, Yale, MIT, Khan Academy, and The Open University.
This is not a ranking of universities. It is a practical guide to which free course I would use for which purpose.
Quick Comparison
| Course | Best for | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Devon Coombs Academy | Applied finance and interactive practice | Completely free |
| Aswath Damodaran: Corporate Finance | Full MBA-level corporate finance | Completely free |
| Aswath Damodaran: Valuation | Business and equity valuation | Completely free |
| Yale: Financial Markets | Markets, risk, behavioral finance, and institutions | Completely free |
| MIT: Finance Theory I | Rigorous graduate-level finance | Completely free |
| Khan Academy: Finance and Capital Markets | Filling gaps and learning individual concepts | Completely free |
| MIT: Blockchain and Money | Crypto, blockchain, and financial innovation | Completely free |
| OpenLearn: Managing My Investments | Personal investing and portfolio decisions | Completely free |
| OpenLearn: Financial Statement Analysis and Interpretation | Reading and analyzing financial statements | Completely free |
| OpenLearn: Introduction to Bookkeeping and Accounting | Accounting fundamentals | Completely free |
Devon Coombs Academy
Devon Coombs, CPA, MBA · Teaching Professor of Finance, Santa Clara University
Best for: Applied finance with interactive practice rather than lectures alone
I built these courses around a problem I have with a lot of online finance education: watching someone solve a problem is not the same as being able to solve it yourself.
The Academy currently includes complete courses in:
The Corporate Finance course is organized around the same principles I use in The 10 Laws of Finance. The other courses extend those ideas into investing, real estate, entrepreneurship, and the changing way finance professionals work with AI.
Lessons include worked examples and interactive practice. The exams regenerate numbers so you have to understand the underlying method rather than memorize an answer.
There is no payment, subscription, or email gate required to access the course material.
I would use these courses when: you want applied finance, repeated practice, or a structured introduction that connects finance concepts to actual decisions.
I would go somewhere else when: you want a full graduate-level theoretical treatment. Damodaran and MIT go substantially deeper into several areas.
Cost: Completely free
Start freeAswath Damodaran: Corporate Finance
NYU Stern School of Business
Best for: A complete MBA-level corporate finance education without enrolling in an MBA
If someone already has the basics and asks me where to study corporate finance seriously for free, this is one of the first places I would send them.
Aswath Damodaran teaches Corporate Finance in NYU Stern's MBA program and publishes an extraordinary amount of the course publicly.
The full semester course contains 26 sessions and covers the major corporate-finance decisions: objectives and corporate governance, risk and hurdle rates, investment analysis, capital structure, dividend policy, and valuation.
More importantly, the site includes much more than lecture videos. Damodaran publishes lecture notes, spreadsheets, datasets, practice problems, solutions, past exams, quizzes, case materials, and company applications.
That changes the nature of the resource.
It is not simply a collection of finance videos. It is much closer to having access to the working materials of an MBA finance course.
I would use this course when: you already know basic accounting and finance and want to understand corporate finance at a serious MBA level.
I would start somewhere easier when: present value, financial statements, discount rates, and basic valuation are still unfamiliar.
Cost: Completely free
Go to courseAswath Damodaran: Valuation
NYU Stern School of Business
Best for: Learning how to value a company
This is the free valuation course I would recommend first.
Damodaran's stated objective is ambitious: by the end of the course, students should be able to value almost anything that has value and price almost everything else.
The course covers intrinsic valuation, relative valuation, cash flows, growth, risk, discount rates, young companies, mature companies, distressed businesses, private companies, and other situations where textbook valuation becomes messy.
The public materials include lectures, spreadsheets, datasets, practice questions, exams, company valuations, projects, and current market data.
One of the most useful features of Damodaran's teaching is that the assumptions remain visible.
Valuation can look scientific because the output has decimal places. In reality, the result depends on assumptions about growth, margins, reinvestment, risk, competitive advantage, and the future.
A good valuation course should teach you to interrogate those assumptions rather than merely operate a spreadsheet.
I would use this course when: you want to learn DCF valuation, relative valuation, or how professional finance connects narrative assumptions to numbers.
I would not start here when: you have never studied time value of money or financial statements.
Cost: Completely free
Go to courseFinancial Markets
Yale University · Robert J. Shiller
Best for: Understanding how financial markets, risk, behavior, and institutions fit together
Robert Shiller's Financial Markets is one of the best broad introductions to finance available publicly.
The Open Yale Courses version provides the lectures from his Yale course directly, without requiring a Coursera subscription.
The course covers stocks, bonds, insurance, real estate, behavioral finance, options, futures, banking, monetary policy, investment management, financial regulation, and the broader role financial institutions play in society.
Shiller brings a perspective that is different from a traditional corporate-finance course.
He is particularly interested in what happens when real human behavior encounters financial theory: bubbles, speculation, narratives, crises, incentives, and institutions.
That makes the course useful even for someone who does not intend to work in markets.
I would use this course when: you want a broad understanding of finance and financial markets rather than a narrowly technical course.
I would pair it with: a corporate-finance course if your objective is valuation, capital budgeting, or business decision-making.
Cost: Completely free through Open Yale Courses
Go to courseFinance Theory I
MIT Sloan School of Management · Andrew Lo
Best for: Rigorous graduate-level finance
MIT's Finance Theory I is the most academically demanding general finance course on this list.
It was designed for first-year MBA students and covers modern financial economics and financial management.
Topics include:
- present value;
- fixed-income securities;
- equities;
- forwards and futures;
- options;
- risk and return;
- portfolio theory;
- CAPM and APT;
- capital budgeting; and
- efficient markets.
MIT OpenCourseWare provides lecture videos, lecture notes, problem sets, solutions, exams, and related materials.
The advantage is rigor.
The disadvantage is also rigor.
This is not the course I would give someone who wants to understand what an income statement is or how to start investing a 401(k). It assumes you are prepared to work through the material rather than simply watch it.
I would use this course when: you want an MBA-level foundation in financial economics and are comfortable learning independently.
I would start elsewhere when: you are completely new to finance or primarily want practical personal finance.
Cost: Completely free, no registration required
Go to courseFinance and Capital Markets
Khan Academy
Best for: Looking up the finance concept you do not understand yet
Khan Academy is less useful as a single linear finance course than as a reference library.
That is not a criticism.
Its Finance and Capital Markets curriculum currently contains ten units covering interest and debt, housing, inflation, taxes, accounting and financial statements, stocks and bonds, investment vehicles, insurance, retirement, banking, central banks, derivatives, and related topics.
The short-video format makes it particularly useful when you encounter one concept that is preventing everything else from making sense.
Do not remember the difference between an income statement and cash flow statement? Look it up.
Do not understand compound interest? Start there.
Options? Mortgage-backed securities? Yield? Inflation?
The library is broad enough that there is usually an explanation.
I would use Khan Academy when: you are a beginner or need to fill specific gaps while taking a more structured course.
I would not rely on it alone when: you want a coherent MBA-level corporate-finance curriculum.
Cost: Completely free
Go to courseBlockchain and Money
MIT Sloan School of Management · Gary Gensler
Best for: Understanding crypto and blockchain as financial technologies rather than slogans
This is a specialized course, but it belongs on the list because it approaches blockchain from the perspective I think finance professionals should use.
The course was taught at MIT Sloan by Gary Gensler before he later became Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
It begins with Bitcoin, distributed ledgers, cryptography, consensus mechanisms, and smart contracts before moving into financial-sector applications and public-policy questions.
MIT publishes the lectures, written materials, and assignments through OpenCourseWare.
The material was taught in 2018, so some market examples are dated. The foundational questions are still useful: what does a blockchain actually do, which financial intermediaries might it replace, where does decentralization create value, and where does it merely add complexity?
I would use this course when: you want to understand the financial architecture beneath crypto and blockchain.
I would not use it as: a guide to which token to buy or a current survey of the crypto market.
Cost: Completely free
Go to courseManaging My Investments
The Open University · OpenLearn
Best for: Learning personal investing without starting with stock picking
A lot of beginner investment education begins in the wrong place.
It starts with selecting investments before explaining the purpose of the portfolio, the investor's time horizon, capacity for risk, diversification, or the evidence behind different investment approaches.
The Open University's Managing My Investments takes a broader approach.
The approximately 24-hour course covers investment choices, risk and return, historical performance, investment strategies, financial markets, and behavioral factors that can interfere with good decision-making.
It is less U.S.-specific than several resources on this page, which is both an advantage and a limitation depending on the learner.
I would use this course when: you want to understand investing as a portfolio and decision-making problem.
I would use another resource for: detailed U.S. tax, retirement-account, or brokerage questions.
Cost: Completely free, with a free Statement of Participation available after enrollment and completion
Go to courseFinancial Statement Analysis and Interpretation
The Open University · OpenLearn
Best for: Moving from reading financial statements to actually analyzing them
Learning accounting terminology is only the first step.
The more useful skill is being able to look at financial statements and infer something about the underlying company's economics, performance, financial position, and risk.
The Open University's free course on financial statement analysis focuses on exactly that transition.
It covers how users interpret financial information rather than simply how statements are prepared. OpenLearn currently lists it as a free intermediate-level course of approximately 12 hours.
That makes it useful preparation for valuation, investing, credit analysis, corporate finance, and many operating-finance roles.
I would use this course when: you understand the basic statements but still struggle to extract meaning from them.
I would start with bookkeeping or introductory accounting when: debits, credits, accrual accounting, and the three core financial statements are still unfamiliar.
Cost: Completely free
Go to courseIntroduction to Bookkeeping and Accounting
The Open University · OpenLearn
Best for: Someone starting accounting from zero
Finance rests on accounting.
You can postpone learning it, but eventually the lack of accounting knowledge becomes a constraint.
The Open University's introductory course is a straightforward place to start. It covers basic numerical skills, the accounting equation, double-entry bookkeeping, ledger accounts, trial balances, the balance sheet, and the profit and loss account.
OpenLearn estimates approximately eight hours of study and provides the course itself free. Learners who create a free account and complete it can receive a free Statement of Participation.
This is not financial statement analysis and it is not corporate finance.
It is the plumbing underneath both.
I would use this course when: you have little or no formal accounting background.
I would move on quickly when: you can already read the three financial statements and understand accrual accounting.
Cost: Completely free, with a free Statement of Participation available
Go to courseHow I Would Choose a Free Finance Course
Do not choose based on the university logo.
Choose based on what you are trying to learn.
If you are starting from zero, I would use a structured introductory course and Khan Academy whenever you hit a concept that does not make sense.
If you want corporate finance, I would move into my Corporate Finance course for applied practice or Damodaran for a deeper MBA-level treatment.
If you want valuation, go directly to Damodaran once you understand the foundations.
If you want financial markets and behavioral finance, take Shiller.
If you want graduate-level financial theory, use MIT.
If you want investing, use OpenLearn's investment course and then supplement it with books by Bogle, Malkiel, Housel, or other evidence-based investing writers.
If you want accounting, learn bookkeeping first and then move into financial-statement analysis.
And if you want AI applied to finance, use my Applied AI for Finance course after you have enough finance knowledge to judge whether an AI-generated answer is actually correct.
That last qualification matters.
AI makes it easier to produce financial analysis. It does not eliminate the need to understand the analysis.
A Practical Free Finance Curriculum
If someone wanted to teach themselves finance without spending money, I would not have them complete all ten courses.
I would build a sequence.
Stage 1: Learn the language
Start with accounting and basic finance.
Use the Open University bookkeeping course to understand how transactions reach financial statements. Use Khan Academy to fill gaps in interest rates, debt, markets, and other foundational concepts.
Stage 2: Learn how financial decisions work
Take a corporate-finance course.
The important concepts are time value of money, cash flow, risk and return, cost of capital, capital budgeting, financing, and valuation.
My course is more applied and interactive. Damodaran is substantially deeper.
Stage 3: Learn how markets work
Take Shiller's Financial Markets.
This adds institutions, market behavior, behavioral finance, banking, securities, derivatives, and risk management to the corporate-finance foundation.
Stage 4: Learn to value assets
Move into Damodaran's valuation course.
Do not just watch it.
Download the spreadsheets. Pick an actual company. Forecast its cash flows. Estimate its cost of capital. Make assumptions you can defend. Compare your value with the market price and figure out why they differ.
That is where valuation starts becoming a skill.
Stage 5: Specialize
Once the foundation is solid, choose the direction that matters to you.
For deeper theory, MIT.
For investing, OpenLearn and the investment literature.
For financial technology, MIT's Blockchain and Money.
For real estate, entrepreneurial finance, or AI for finance, use the specialized courses in my Academy.
At that point, taking another introductory finance class has diminishing returns.
You need application.
Free Finance Course FAQ
What is the best free finance course for beginners?
For a complete beginner, I would prioritize accessibility over prestige.
Khan Academy is excellent for learning individual concepts at your own pace. The Open University's bookkeeping course is useful if accounting is the main gap.
For a more structured applied introduction to corporate finance, my free Corporate Finance course is designed for learners who want lessons plus repeated practice.
Once the basics are comfortable, Damodaran, Yale, and MIT become considerably more useful.
What is the best free corporate finance course?
For depth, I would choose Aswath Damodaran's NYU Stern Corporate Finance course.
It is essentially the working material from his semester-long MBA course: 26 sessions plus lecture notes, spreadsheets, problems, exams, data, and applications. Damodaran explicitly states that the free online material is sufficient even without purchasing his book.
For a shorter and more interactive introduction, my Corporate Finance course is the alternative I would use.
What is the best free valuation course?
Aswath Damodaran's NYU Stern valuation material is the strongest free resource I know.
The public course includes classes, spreadsheets, datasets, practice problems, exams, projects, and company valuations.
It is much closer to an actual valuation education than a short series of explanatory videos.
What is the best free finance course from an Ivy League university?
Robert Shiller's Financial Markets through Open Yale Courses is my choice.
It provides a complete university course covering financial institutions, markets, risk, behavioral finance, securities, banking, derivatives, and related topics.
More importantly, the Open Yale version is actually open.
You do not need to rely on whether a third-party platform currently offers an audit option.
Is MIT OpenCourseWare really free?
Yes.
MIT OpenCourseWare publishes course materials openly. Its Finance Theory I page currently includes lecture videos, notes, problem sets, solutions, and exams.
You do not receive MIT academic credit or an MIT degree for completing the material.
You receive access to the education, not the credential.
Can I take Wharton finance courses for free?
This is where I would be careful in 2026.
Wharton's Coursera courses are excellent. Michael Roberts' Introduction to Corporate Finance and Brian Bushee's Introduction to Financial Accounting are both courses I would recommend on quality. Coursera currently lists Roberts' course at approximately nine hours and Bushee's course at approximately two weeks of study.
But I would no longer describe every Coursera course as fully "free to audit."
Coursera changed its free-access model, and the amount of content available without payment can vary by course, program, location, and enrollment option.
If the specific course currently offers the material you need free, use it.
If it requires payment for the full curriculum, there are enough genuinely open alternatives on this list that you do not need to pay merely to learn the fundamentals.
Is Coursera free to audit in 2026?
Sometimes, but the answer is no longer as simple as it once was.
Coursera introduced a free course-preview model in 2025 that replaced traditional auditing for many courses, while current Coursera materials still indicate that audit or preview access exists for many offerings.
In practice, check the enrollment options for the specific course before assuming the full curriculum is free.
"Enroll for free" does not necessarily mean "complete the entire course for free."
Is edX free?
Many edX courses still offer a free audit track.
As of August 2026, edX states that most courses can be audited free where an audit option is offered. Audit learners generally receive temporary access to videos, readings, and ungraded practice but not graded assignments or certificates.
Some programs and courses do not offer an audit track, so check the specific enrollment page.
Can I get a certificate from a free finance course?
Sometimes.
The Open University provides free Statements of Participation for eligible OpenLearn courses after learners create a free account and complete the requirements.
My Academy also provides free course-completion certificates.
MIT OpenCourseWare and Open Yale Courses provide educational materials rather than university certificates.
On commercial learning platforms, certificates are generally part of the paid offering even when some learning content is available free.
Are free finance courses as good as paid courses?
The underlying academic material can be excellent.
Damodaran is publishing material from his NYU Stern classes. MIT OpenCourseWare is publishing MIT course materials. Open Yale Courses gives you Robert Shiller's Yale lectures.
What you generally do not receive is the rest of the university experience.
You do not have a professor grading your work. You do not have classmates working through cases with you. You do not have office hours, recruiting, academic credit, deadlines, or a degree signaling completion.
For acquiring knowledge, the free material can be exceptional.
For structure, feedback, accountability, networking, and credentials, paid education can still have substantial value.
How long does it take to learn finance online?
You can learn the basic vocabulary in a few weeks.
Becoming competent takes longer.
A reasonable self-study sequence might involve two to three months of part-time work covering accounting, corporate finance, and markets.
But course completion is a poor definition of mastery.
You should eventually be able to:
- read financial statements;
- calculate and interpret present value;
- understand risk and return;
- build a basic cash-flow forecast;
- evaluate an investment using NPV;
- explain cost of capital;
- understand how debt affects risk;
- value a basic business;
- distinguish price from value; and
- explain your assumptions to someone else.
That requires practice, not just viewing hours.
Can I learn finance online without getting a finance degree?
Yes, if the objective is knowledge.
There is enough free material available now to learn a substantial portion of an undergraduate or MBA finance curriculum independently.
The harder part is replicating the application.
Do not spend a year watching finance courses.
Build models. Read annual reports. Value companies. Analyze investments. Compare businesses. Work through problems without looking at the solution. Explain concepts to someone else.
Education becomes useful when you can do something with it.
Where I Would Start
If I were learning finance independently today, I would keep the path fairly simple.
Start with accounting and basic finance until the vocabulary makes sense.
Take one serious corporate-finance course.
Study markets with Shiller.
Learn valuation from Damodaran.
Then stop accumulating introductory courses and start applying what you know.
The internet has largely solved the problem of access to finance information.
The remaining problem is doing the work.
The reading that pairs with these courses is in the best finance books guide, and every free tool on this site is indexed in the resource library.
From the author: Devon Coombs, CPA, MBA teaches finance at Santa Clara University and works with corporate teams on practical AI.
AI training for finance teams · Consulting · The 10 Laws of Finance