Self-hosted runners

You can host your own runners and customize the environment used to run jobs in your GitHub Actions workflows.

Note

Use of self-hosted runners is currently free. From March 1, 2026, repository owners will pay a per-minute fee for using the cloud platform to run workflows on self-hosted runners. See 2026 pricing changes for GitHub Actions in GitHub Executive Insights.

A self-hosted runner is a system that you deploy and manage to execute jobs from GitHub Actions on GitHub.

Self-hosted runners:

  • Give you more control of hardware, operating system, and software tools than GitHub-hosted runners provide. Be aware that you are responsible for updating the operating system and all other software.
  • Allow you to use machines and services that your company already maintains and pays to use.
  • Are currently free to use with GitHub Actions. From March 1, 2026, you will see a small per-minute charge for using the actions cloud platform in your bill for actions usage. See GitHub Actions billing.
  • Let you create custom hardware configurations that meet your needs with processing power or memory to run larger jobs, install software available on your local network.
  • Receive automatic updates for the self-hosted runner application only, though you may disable automatic updates of the runner.
  • Don't need to have a clean instance for every job execution.
  • Can be organized into groups to restrict access to specific workflows, organizations, and repositories. See Managing access to self-hosted runners using groups.
  • Can be physical, virtual, in a container, on-premises, or in a cloud.

You can use self-hosted runners anywhere in the management hierarchy. Repository-level runners are dedicated to a single repository, while organization-level runners can process jobs for multiple repositories in an organization. Organization owners can choose which repositories are allowed to create repository-level self-hosted runners. See Disabling or limiting GitHub Actions for your organization. Finally, enterprise-level runners can be assigned to multiple organizations in an enterprise account.

Next steps

To get hands-on experience with the policies and usage of self-hosted runners, see Getting started with self-hosted runners for your enterprise

To find information about the requirements and supported software and hardware for self-hosted runners, see Self-hosted runners reference.