The honest answer is: it depends entirely on which hackathon, and the eligibility line is usually the first thing worth reading, before the theme or the prize pool.
The two different kinds of eligibility rule
Hackathons split into two eligibility patterns, and confusing them is the most common first-year mistake.
Open eligibility - no restriction on year of study, only on institution type. Smart India Hackathon works this way: any student at an AICTE-recognised institution can be on a team, and a first-year can team up with a final-year student without issue. Most community hackathons (Devfolio, MLH-affiliated events, college-run internal hackathons) follow the same open pattern.
Graduating-year eligibility - restricted to students graduating within a specific window, usually one to three years out. This is common at company-run hackathons built around a hiring pipeline: Flipkart GRiD and the Amazon ML Challenge both specify graduating batches (recent editions: 2027-2028), because the company is timing the pipeline against its own internship and full-time hiring cycles, not testing whether a first-year "deserves" to compete.
If you're in your first year of a four-year programme, you're several years out from most graduating-year windows - not excluded because you're not good enough, just because the timing doesn't line up yet.
What actually is open to you right now
- Smart India Hackathon has no year-of-study floor for its main edition.
- College-run internal hackathons almost always welcome every year, since they exist partly to build a talent pipeline for who represents the college externally later.
- General community hackathons on platforms like Devfolio or Devpost are typically open to any student, sometimes any person, with no graduating-year requirement at all.
- Online hackathons run by open developer communities almost never gate by year of study - the barrier there is usually a project idea and a weekend, not a graduation date.
Why entering early is worth it even if you don't win
A first hackathon does two things that matter more than the outcome: it teaches you how a real time-boxed build actually goes (the parts that break, the tradeoffs you're forced into with six hours left), and it gives you material for your resume before you're competing against seniors who've done this three times already. What a first hackathon with no coding background looks like covers the practical side of showing up prepared even without deep technical skills yet.
Reading an eligibility line correctly
Before registering, look for three things specifically: whether the rule says "year of study" or "graduating year" (these are not the same thing - a graduating-year rule can technically include a first-year in a five-year integrated programme), whether team members all need to match the same eligibility bar or only the team leader does, and whether the rule is fixed every edition or reset each year (most company hackathons reset their window annually, so a rule you read from last year's edition may not carry over).
Find hackathons that are actually open to you
Brabble's live hackathon feed filters by what's currently accepting registrations, so you can check eligibility per listing instead of guessing from a company's general reputation.