NVIDIA RSU Vesting Schedule: The Reported Pattern

This is not official. NVIDIA does not publish its RSU vesting schedule, and nothing here is sourced from NVIDIA directly. It's assembled from public employee reports (Blind, financial-planning commentary) that don't fully agree with each other. Treat it as a starting point for modelling, not a fact to negotiate against — your own offer letter or grant agreement is the only authoritative source for your specific grant.

The current, most-commonly-reported pattern

Recent public reports describe NVIDIA's initial RSU grants vesting on a front-loaded, four-year, no-cliff schedule, paid out quarterly rather than in one lump sum per year:

Year	Annual total	Per quarter
Year 1	40%	10.0%
Year 2	30%	7.5%
Year 3	20%	5.0%
Year 4	10%	2.5%

Reports describe vesting occurring on fixed calendar dates — the third Wednesday of March, June and September, and the second Wednesday of December — regardless of an individual's actual start date, and with no one-year cliff: the first tranche reportedly vests at the first quarterly date after grant. This is a meaningfully different shape from the flat 25/25/25/25 schedule most people picture when they hear “four-year vesting” — see how each shape actually pays out for the general comparison.

The older reported pattern

Earlier accounts describe a more conventional structure: a one-year cliff at which 25% vests, followed by the remaining 75% vesting quarterly over the following three years (roughly 6.25% per quarter). Public discussion suggests NVIDIA moved away from this toward the front-loaded pattern above, though neither the timing nor the completeness of that shift is something we can independently confirm. If your offer letter or grant documentation describes a cliff, that's the schedule that actually governs your grant — not whatever is more recently discussed online.

Initial grants vs. refreshers

Public reports don't agree on whether NVIDIA's refresher grants follow the same front-loaded quarterly pattern as initial grants, or a flatter one. This is exactly the kind of detail worth confirming directly rather than assuming continuity between grant types — a refresher is a separate grant with its own terms, at any employer.

Model it yourself

The button below opens the full calculator pre-loaded with the current reported pattern — a $400,000 initial grant vesting quarterly on the 40/30/20/10 shape above, no cliff — alongside a blank comparison offer you can edit to match your current job. Use the Look up button on the NVIDIA offer to pull a live NVDA share price instead of the placeholder, and edit every other field to match your actual offer.

Open this NVIDIA pattern in the calculator

Frequently asked questions

What is NVIDIA's RSU vesting schedule?

The most commonly reported current pattern is front-loaded over four years — 40% in year one, 30% in year two, 20% in year three, 10% in year four — vesting quarterly within each year rather than in one annual lump sum. This is not an official published policy; it's assembled from public employee reports, and NVIDIA has reportedly used a different, evenly-split schedule before. Confirm your own grant documents.

Does NVIDIA have a one-year cliff?

Under the newer reported pattern, no — vesting is described as starting quarterly from the grant date with no cliff. Older reports describe a more conventional one-year cliff with 25% vesting at that mark. Which applies to a specific offer depends on when the grant was made; check the offer letter.

How often do NVIDIA RSUs vest?

Quarterly, according to current reports — with vest dates commonly described as the third Wednesday of March, June and September, and the second Wednesday of December, regardless of an individual's actual start date. This calculator approximates quarterly cadence as evenly-spaced periods rather than those specific fixed dates.

Do NVIDIA refresher grants follow the same schedule as the initial grant?

Not necessarily, and public reports disagree on this point. Some describe refreshers following the same front-loaded quarterly pattern; others describe a flatter schedule. Model refreshers separately from your initial grant and confirm against your own grant documentation rather than assuming they match.

Sources

Patterns described above are drawn from public discussion, not an NVIDIA-published policy: employee discussion on Blind, Arch Financial Planning's NVIDIA RSU guide, and Mercer Advisors' NVIDIA RSU FAQ. None of these are official NVIDIA sources, they don't fully agree with each other, and none of this is affiliated with, endorsed by, or verified against NVIDIA Corporation.