diff --git a/CITATION.cff b/CITATION.cff
index 06d135d1a..a03ac84a4 100644
--- a/CITATION.cff
+++ b/CITATION.cff
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ cff-version: 1.2.0
 message: "Please cite the accompanying GraphPathology manuscript and the original data studies."
 title: "GraphPathology"
 type: software
+license: MIT
 version: 0.3.0
 authors:
   - family-names: Hy
diff --git a/LICENSE b/LICENSE
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..35c197fb1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+MIT License
+
+Copyright (c) 2026 Truong-Son Hy
+
+Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
+of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
+in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
+to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
+copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
+furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
+
+The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
+copies or substantial portions of the Software.
+
+THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
+IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
+FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
+AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
+LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
+OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
+SOFTWARE.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 32995c821..6336e1107 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -78,4 +78,4 @@ python -m graphpathology verify-archive --historical --report outputs/archive-au
 
 ## Citation and terms
 
-Use the manuscript title and author above; [CITATION.cff](CITATION.cff) supplies citation metadata. HEST, HER2ST, Wu, Bassiouni and upstream model weights retain their own terms. See the [release guide](docs/RELEASES.md) for artifact-specific distribution conditions. Raw tissue data and upstream pretrained encoder weights are not redistributed in this repository. The repository has no root software LICENSE; inclusion here does not establish a software license grant.
+Use the manuscript title and author above; [CITATION.cff](CITATION.cff) supplies citation metadata. HEST, HER2ST, Wu, Bassiouni and upstream model weights retain their own terms. See the [release guide](docs/RELEASES.md) for artifact-specific distribution conditions. Raw tissue data and upstream pretrained encoder weights are not redistributed in this repository. The project software is licensed under the [MIT License](LICENSE). This software license does not override separate terms for datasets, pretrained models, model artifacts or other third-party materials; Phikon model weights remain private pending clarification of redistribution permissions.
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index f58425570..359440142 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"
 [project]
 name = "graphpathology"
 version = "0.3.0"
+license = {file = "LICENSE"}
 description = "GraphPathology geometry-aware reconstruction and publication reproduction"
 requires-python = ">=3.11"
 dependencies = ["numpy>=1.26,<3", "scipy>=1.11", "pandas>=2.1", "h5py>=3.10", "Pillow>=10", "matplotlib>=3.8", "requests>=2.31", "scikit-learn>=1.4", "threadpoolctl>=3.2", "numba>=0.59"]