Certain aspects of the present disclosure generally relate to techniques for distributed scheduling to control interference for small data transactions using grant-less transmissions. A method for wireless communications by wireless node is provided. The method generally includes receiving, from a base station, a list of supported modulation and coding schemes (MCS) and at least one parameter to control interference, determining a data rate and duration for a grant-less transmission based on the list of supported MCS and the at least one parameter, selecting access resources to use for the grant-less transmission from a common pool of resources configured to be shared by a plurality of wireless nodes for grant-less transmissions, and transmitting the grant-less transmission using the selected access resources, at the determined data rate and for the determined duration.