National Heritage Fellowship

National Heritage Fellowship
Awarded for	Lifetime achievement in folk or traditional arts
Location	Washington, D.C.
Country	United States
Presented by	National Endowment for the Arts
Reward(s)	$25,000
First awarded	1982
Last awarded	present
Website	https://www.arts.gov/honors/heritage

The National Heritage Fellowship is a lifetime honor presented to master folk and traditional artists by the National Endowment for the Arts. Similar to Japan's Living National Treasure award,^[1] the Fellowship is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.^[2][3] It is a one-time only award and fellows must be living citizens or permanent residents of the United States. Each year, fellowships are presented to between nine and fifteen artists or groups at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.

The Fellows are nominated by individual citizens, with an average of over 200 nominations per year. From that pool of candidates, recommendations are made by a rotating panel of specialists, including one layperson, as well as folklorists and others with a variety of forms of cultural expertise. The recommendations are then reviewed by the National Council on the Arts, with the final decisions made by the chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts.^[4] As of 2024, 487 artists in a wide variety of fields have received Fellowships.^[5]