How to Fill Out the FAFSA, Step by Step

Most people who put off the FAFSA are not afraid of the questions. They are stuck on something smaller: a parent who has not made an account, a password nobody remembers, a stepparent nobody is sure counts. The form, by the Education Department’s own estimate, takes most people about 15 minutes once everyone is ready. Getting everyone ready is the real job.

The FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is the single application for federal grants, work-study and federal student loans. Many states and colleges also use it to hand out their own money, so even if you assume you will not qualify for a federal grant, filing can still matter. It is free. Anyone who charges you to “file your FAFSA” is, at best, selling you something you can do yourself; the Federal Trade Commission flags paid FAFSA-filing pitches as a common scam pattern.

First, pick the right year’s form

The FAFSA runs by award year, which follows the academic calendar from July 1 to June 30. Two forms are open right now:

If you are enrolling this winter or spring and never filed, you want the 2026–27 form. If you are planning for next fall, you want the 2027–28 form. The Department announced on September 23, 2026 that the 2027–28 form was live, the earliest launch in the program’s history and the second year in a row it opened before the October 1 date set in law. If you return to school year after year, you file a new FAFSA for each award year.

The steps, in order

1. Create a StudentAid.gov account for everyone who needs one

   You sign the FAFSA with a StudentAid.gov account, the username and password that used to be called the FSA ID. Each person who has to provide information on your form needs their own account: you, and any “contributors” (next step). A parent cannot use the student’s account, or the other way around.

   Create accounts a few days before you plan to file. New accounts are checked against Social Security records, and that match can take a little time. Contributors who do not have a Social Security number can still create an account; the process asks for extra identity information instead.

   Write down which email and phone number each person used. Forgotten logins are the single most common reason a family’s FAFSA stalls halfway through.

2. Work out who your contributors are

   A contributor is anyone required to provide information on your FAFSA, consent to have their federal tax information pulled from the IRS, and sign. Who that is depends on two things: whether you are a dependent or independent student, and your family’s marital and tax-filing situation.

   • Dependent students: a parent is a contributor. If that parent is married and did not file taxes jointly with their spouse, the spouse (which can be a stepparent) is a contributor too.
   • Independent students who are married: your spouse is a contributor only if you did not file taxes jointly. If you filed jointly, you report your spouse’s information yourself.
   • Not contributors: grandparents, foster parents, legal guardians, siblings, aunts and uncles, unless they legally adopted you, even if they raised you.

   Being a contributor does not make someone responsible for paying your tuition or your loans. It only means their information feeds the calculation. If your parents are divorced or separated, Federal Student Aid has a “Who’s My FAFSA Parent?” tool on StudentAid.gov that walks through which one counts.

3. Confirm whether you are dependent or independent

   Dependency status decides whether your parents’ finances are part of the picture. It has nothing to do with whether you live with them or whether they claim you on their taxes.

   On the 2027–28 form, you are treated as a dependent student if all of these are true: you were born after 2003, you are not currently married, and you will be an undergraduate. If any of those is false (you were born in 2003 or earlier, you are married, or you are a graduate student), you are independent. The form then asks about other circumstances that can make a younger student independent, such as being a veteran or active-duty service member, having children or other dependents you support, being an orphan or ward of the court, being in foster care at any point after age 13, or being homeless or at risk of homelessness.

4. Gather what you need

   Because tax data now transfers directly from the IRS, there is less to collect than there used to be. The 2027–28 form uses 2025 federal tax information, and the 2026–27 form uses 2024 information. Have these on hand for you and each contributor:

   • StudentAid.gov username and password
   • Social Security number, if you have one
   • Your driver’s license number, if you have one
   • Your Alien Registration Number, if you are an eligible noncitizen
   • Records of untaxed income, such as child support received
   • Current balances of cash, savings and checking accounts
   • The net worth of investments, businesses and farms (not the home you live in, and not retirement accounts)
   • Tax returns if anyone filed outside the U.S. or did not file but had income

   The aid checklist tool turns this into a printable list you can split between family members.

5. Give consent for the IRS data transfer

   Every contributor, and you, must give “consent and approval” for the IRS to send federal tax information into the form. This is not optional. If anyone required to consent does not, you will not be eligible for federal student aid, even if you type the numbers in by hand.

   Consent is still required for someone who did not file a tax return, filed outside the U.S., or does not have a Social Security number. In those cases the person consents and then answers a few questions manually.

6. List the schools that should get your information

   You can add schools by name or federal school code. Each school you list gets your results, and listing a school does not commit you to it or tell other schools where else you applied. Add every school you are seriously considering, including community colleges and trade or career schools. If you are not sure yet, list your best guesses now; you can add schools later through a correction.

   Some states also require you to list a state school, or a particular one, to be considered for state aid. Check your state’s rules before you skip this.

7. Sign, submit, and check the deadline that actually applies to you

   Each contributor completes and signs their own section from their own account. If a parent finishes first, the student can still see where things stand from the dashboard. A form is not submitted until everyone required has signed.

   Here is where people get burned: the June 30 federal deadline is the last deadline, not the important one. There are three layers:

   Federal deadline

   June 30 at the end of the award year. Federal grants and loans remain available up to this date.

   State deadlines

   Vary widely, and some come months earlier. On the 2026–27 form, for example, some states listed priority dates in January or April 2026. Some state programs pay out until funds run out.

   School deadlines

   Set by each college, often a “priority” date for its own grants and for limited federal funds such as work-study. Look on each school’s financial aid page.

   In practice, the earliest of these is your real deadline. The state deadline list is printed in the FAFSA form itself and on StudentAid.gov.

After you submit: the Submission Summary and your SAI

Within a few days you will get a FAFSA Submission Summary in your StudentAid.gov account. Read it rather than filing it away. It shows the answers you gave, an estimate of your federal aid, and your Student Aid Index, or SAI.

The SAI is a number schools use to measure your financial need. It is not a bill and not what you will pay. A school typically starts with its cost of attendance, subtracts your SAI, and treats the rest as your need. The SAI can go as low as -1,500. A lower number means more measured need, and students at the lowest end are generally in line for the maximum Pell Grant if they meet the other requirements.

On the summary, check two tabs in particular. “Eligibility Overview” holds your official SAI and estimated federal aid. “Next Steps” tells you if anything is wrong, missing, or flagged.

If you are selected for verification

Some applicants are selected for verification, which means a school will check the information on the form against documents. Some selections are random, and some schools verify everyone. It is not an accusation.

The “Next Steps” tab will say if you were chosen. Then the school, not the Education Department, will contact you with a list of what to send and a due date. Send it fast. Schools cannot finalize your aid until verification is done, and a missed deadline can cost you money that is awarded first come, first served.

Verification is also the moment to raise anything the form could not capture. The FAFSA looks at income from two years before the award year, so a recent job loss, a divorce, or big medical bills will not show up. Schools cannot change your Submission Summary for those, but the financial aid office can review your situation on request. Ask for “professional judgment” by name.

Then: the aid offer

Each school that admits you and received your FAFSA will send an aid offer, sometimes still called an award letter. Timing varies; many come with or after an admission decision. Offers mix grants (which you do not repay), work-study (money you earn) and loans (which you do), and schools do not all lay them out the same way.

Two rules for reading them. First, separate the grants and scholarships from everything else, because only grants and scholarships lower the price. Second, find the full cost of attendance on the offer, not just tuition. Our guide to net price vs. sticker price shows how to do this line by line, and types of financial aid explains what each kind of aid actually commits you to. To put rough numbers side by side, the cost estimator will total costs and borrowing for one program at a time.

You do not have to accept every piece. You can accept grants and decline or reduce loans, and at many schools you can ask for a loan later in the year if you turn out to need it.

Questions people actually ask

If you do one thing this week: make sure you and every contributor can log in to StudentAid.gov. Everything else on this page moves quickly once that is done.