Odoo NFR keys: what they are, who asks for them and how to request them

If you got here searching for “NFR” and what you wanted were non-functional requirements — performance, availability, fault tolerance — this page is not it. Here NFR means Not For Resale: the licence a software company grants its partners so they can build demos and internal environments without paying for them. And one thing is worth knowing: Odoo calls nothing NFR. The word does not appear once in the Odoo Partnership Agreement (version 11, dated 19 May 2023). What you are looking for does exist, but under another name: there is no key, there is a clause in the Enterprise licence that switches on when you sign the partnership agreement, and a code that opens a trial project on Odoo.sh.

We write this from the inside: FLEXIBLES Y ACCESORIOS GOBE S.L. — the company behind FlexigoTech — joined the Odoo partner programme on 8 September 2026, at Learning Partner level. We publish no screenshot of the dashboard, because it carries identifiers and amounts; we describe it field by field further down.

The Learning Partner badge. The right to use the Odoo trademark and partner logo shows as Yes at all four levels in the section 4.2 table.

Why the acronym returns useless results

NFR has two unrelated meanings. In software engineering it is a non-functional requirement, a quality attribute of a system. In the distribution channel it is a not for resale licence, a free internal-use licence for resellers. The second has almost no literature in Spanish and none about Odoo, so search hands you requirement glossaries and other companies' channel programmes.

What Odoo gives you instead of an NFR key

Three different things, with three proper names and three places to get them. Mixing them up causes almost all the confusion.

1. Permission to use Enterprise. Not a key, a clause. The Odoo Enterprise Edition License v1.0 says that “with a valid Partnership Agreement with Odoo S.A., the above permissions are also granted, as long as the usage is limited to a testing or development environment”. That sentence is your entire “NFR licence”.
2. The partnership code. This one is a string you type into a form and it opens a trial project on Odoo.sh. The right comes from section 3.1 of the agreement — “ODOO grants PARTNER free access to the ODOO.SH platform for testing and development purposes” — and the mechanism from the Odoo.sh documentation, which says partners can use their partnership code to start a trial. First hand: in our Learning Partner dashboard the code that is labelled is the trial extension one, so if you cannot find the partnership code, ask your account manager for it.
3. The Enterprise trial extension code. A third code that is not for you: it extends a prospect's trial period. The benefits table in section 4.2 marks it as available at all four levels.

On top of that comes read access to the Odoo Enterprise source repository on GitHub, which is what lets you build and test modules against Enterprise on your own machine.

What they are really for, and what they are not

They are for sales demos, internal training, and development and testing of your own modules, including running one database against different major versions before a migration. They are not for a customer's production system, and the agreement is unusually blunt: section 3.2 says the partner commits not to offer services on Odoo Enterprise Edition to customers not covered by an Enterprise subscription, not even during the implementation phase. There is no grace window while you configure.

Nor are they for redistributing anything: the same section requires keeping the Enterprise source confidential within your staff and forbids redistributing it without written permission. What you can do is develop modules on top of Enterprise and distribute them under any compatible licence: the Enterprise licence allows it and names LGPL, MIT or similar proprietary licences.

Who can request them, and when in the sign-up

There is nothing before you sign: the licence clause speaks of a “valid Partnership Agreement”, and with no agreement there is no clause. Section 5 says the fee is specified in writing at signature — it is not a published figure — that it is paid on receipt of the annual invoice, and that it is non-refundable. Section 2 sets the term at one year from signature, renewing automatically unless a party gives 30 days' written notice. The programme has two partnership types and four levels, and your level depends on three numbers.

The detail that matters here: Odoo.sh access for testing and development, the trial extension code and access to the source all show as Yes at all four levels. You have them from day one as a Learning Partner. What you do not get is visibility on the public odoo.com partner list and the 50 % Odoo.sh commission, which stays at 10 % for Learning — and which is capped at every level: the footnote to section 4.2 limits it to €150 (or $180) of monthly commission per subscription, €1,440 (or $1,728) a year. A first-hand observation: the row that bundles the dedicated account manager with the partner dashboard is marked No for Learning, and yet on our September 2026 sign-up the dashboard was there and we were assigned an account manager with a direct phone and email. Section 4.4 itself says the partner will have access to commercial coaching from their account manager, with no level attached. The contract is the floor, not the ceiling.

The procedure, step by step

1. Sign the agreement and pay the annual fee. It is paid on receipt of Odoo's invoice and is non-refundable. With no signed agreement, none of the above exists.
2. Open the partner dashboard at odoo.com/my/partner. There you get your current level and the ladder to Official; the referral link, which carries your numeric partner id inside the campaign parameter; the trial extension code; read access to the Enterprise repository on GitHub for the user you declare; source and installer downloads; the brand assets; the status of your company listing, published or not; and the commission counter for the last twelve months.
3. Open the demo project on Odoo.sh. Click Deploy your platform, authorise with a GitHub account and, in the Subscription Code field — the docs warn it is also called subscription referral, contract number or activation code — enter your partnership code.
4. Pick a major version and a region. Odoo.sh does not support the intermediary versions Odoo Online runs. If you plan to start on Odoo Online and migrate later, the documentation recommends creating the database from odoo.com/start-lts so it is born on a supported version.
5. When the customer says yes, swap the code. The documentation is explicit: if the client proceeds, they must subscribe to an Odoo Enterprise plan that includes Odoo.sh hosting and use their own subscription code. Your partnership code leaves the equation.

The limits that catch people out

None are secret: they are all in the official documentation. The problem is that they are spread across five pages and you meet them one at a time, always at the worst moment.

• 1 GB and two staging branches. That is the ceiling for trial builds created with a partnership code. Dumps you import cannot exceed 1 GB either.
• 30 days and production stops being production. On trial projects, the production branch and all staging branches are automatically set back to the development stage after 30 days. That is the real expiry date of your demo.
• Staging databases delete themselves after one month and the branch must be rebuilt to be used again.
• A staging demo sends no email. Neutralisation disables scheduled actions and outgoing email — intercepted by a mail catcher — and switches off IAP services, payment providers and delivery methods. A neutralised database also loses bank synchronisation and search-engine visibility, and carries a red banner at the top so you notice.
• Swapping the code is a one-way door. You can change the project's activation code, but not to one already assigned to another project and not to a trial code: downgrading from paid to trial is not allowed.
• Your level is reviewed quarterly and adjusted to the highest one whose three requirements you meet. What counts is net new users over the last twelve months: renewals do not count towards the level, even though they still earn commission.
• If the agreement ends, everything ends. Section 6.1 says that on expiry or termination the partner may no longer use Odoo Enterprise for development, test or production purposes, and must stop using the brand. The expiry of your “NFR licence” is your agreement's date, not your project's.

The mistakes that cost you

• Running a customer's production on your trial project. It breaches section 3.2, it cannot be undone because downgrading from paid to trial is not allowed, and after 30 days the production branch demotes itself. All of it with the customer watching.
• Forgetting the renewal. The agreement renews itself for another year unless someone gives 30 days' written notice. If you want to renew, fine; if you want out, forgetting costs a non-refundable year.
• Promising in a demo what neutralisation switches off: emails, real payments, carrier labels, scheduled actions. Show them on a development environment with demo data, or say so up front.
• Pushing Enterprise code to a public repository. The quietest breach and the hardest to undo, because what went public has already been copied.

And if you are not a partner yet?

Two honest routes while you have not signed. Odoo's shared demo databases need no registration, but per the documentation each is only available for a few hours: good for showing a screen, not for preparing a tailored demo. And Odoo Community is free software under LGPLv3: if what you must demonstrate lives in a module of yours rather than an Enterprise app, it is a valid environment with no expiry. Odoo Online is not: it supports neither custom nor App Store modules, and duplicates expire after 15 days with a maximum of five per database.

We test every module against real Odoo.sh builds on versions 19, 18 and 17 before touching the App Store: the partner environment is exactly where that work happens. We explain it in Odoo engineering for consultancies and in an Odoo connector for your software.

Keep reading

If the decision in front of you is a different one — which edition you actually need — we compared them in Community or Enterprise. And if you want to see what comes out of a partner test environment, our published Odoo modules are all built and tested there first.

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