How to Fill Out the FAFSA, Step | Financial Aid Scholarship

By Steve Levine · Updated November 8, 2026

Here is how to fill out the FAFSA. Set up a StudentAid.gov account for yourself and for each contributor. Then go through the form in order: student information, contributor invitations, each contributor’s section, and your list of colleges. Everyone signs and gives consent. The 2027-28 FAFSA, for school starting in fall 2027, is open now and uses 2025 tax information, so most families can finish it in a single evening once their documents are ready.

The form opened on September 23, 2026, ahead of the October 1 date the law requires, as CNBC reported the day after launch. Federal Student Aid’s 2027-28 FAFSA Specifications Guide also committed to making the form available to all applicants no later than October 1, 2026.

Before you start: what you need to fill out the FAFSA

Most problems with the FAFSA are really document problems. The 2027-28 form asks about the 2025 tax year: the questions read, for example, “Did the [student/parent] file their 2025 tax return jointly with their current spouse,” according to the 2027-28 Specifications Guide. Have these ready before you sign in.

Item	Who needs it	Why
StudentAid.gov account (username and password)	Student and every contributor	The login serves as your electronic signature
Social Security number, if you have one	Student and contributors	Identity match with the Social Security Administration and IRS
2025 federal tax return, or records of 2025 income	Student, spouse or parents	Most tax data transfers directly from the IRS, but you may need it to answer follow-up questions
Current balances of cash, savings, checking and investments	Student and contributors	The form asks for current asset amounts
Records of child support received	Contributors, if applicable	Reported separately from tax data
List of colleges you are considering	Student	Up to 20 schools can be listed online

Create the accounts a few days early. A parent who is locked out on deadline night is the most common reason a FAFSA goes in late.

Step 1: Work out who your contributors are

The FAFSA uses the word “contributor” for “anyone who is required to provide information, consent, and approval” on your form, according to the FSA Handbook’s Application and Verification Guide. You are always one. Who else depends on your situation:

Dependent students always have at least one parent contributor.
Parents who are divorced, separated or never married do not both fill it out. The parent on the form is “the parent who provided more than 50% of the financial support for the student during the last 12 months.” If neither parent provided more than half, it is the parent with the greater income and assets.
Married independent students include a spouse as a contributor when the couple did not file a joint tax return for the tax year the form asks about.

The “which parent” rule is about financial support, not about who you live with. Child support a parent pays counts toward that parent’s share. Getting this wrong is a common reason a school asks for corrections later.

Step 2: Answer the dependency questions honestly

Your dependency status decides whether parents are on the form at all. The handbook lists the tests: age (for 2026-27, being born before January 1, 2003), marriage, graduate-student status, military service or veteran status, having children or other legal dependents, being an orphan or in foster care, emancipation or legal guardianship, and being an unaccompanied homeless youth. These details are in the Application and Verification Guide. The 2027-28 form moves the birth-date cutoff forward one year.

Not living with your parents, or your parents refusing to pay for college, does not make you independent by itself. If your situation is truly unusual, such as abuse or abandonment, the form has a question for unusual circumstances. After that, the college’s financial aid office makes the decision, usually with documentation from a third party.

Step 3: Complete your section and invite contributors

The student starts the form at StudentAid.gov and fills in personal, school and family information. Then you invite each contributor by name, date of birth, Social Security number and email. Each contributor signs in with their own account and completes their own section. You cannot do it for them, and they should not use your login.

Wait to start your own section until the parent who will be your contributor is free to finish theirs the same week. Your form sits incomplete until every section is submitted.

Step 4: Consent and approval to use federal tax information

This is the step families most often skip by accident. Every student and every contributor must consent to the IRS disclosing their tax information and approve the Department’s use of it. The handbook is blunt about what happens otherwise: “the student will not be eligible for any Title IV aid until the approval is provided by each contributor,” according to the Application and Verification Guide.

Three details matter:

Consent and approval are given once each year, on that year’s form.
Only the Department can collect them. Your college’s aid office cannot give consent for you.
Consent is separate from signing. Your StudentAid.gov login is your signature online, but you still have to tick the consent step.

Income and tax data that comes straight from the IRS is treated as verified. That is one reason consent makes the process easier, not harder.

Step 5: List your colleges

You can list up to 20 schools on the online form and up to 10 on the paper version, and at least one school is required, according to the handbook. List every college you might attend, including ones you have not applied to yet. Adding a school costs nothing and you can add more later.

Your state uses the FAFSA for its own grants, so the form doubles as your state aid application in many states. See our guide to state grants for college for why filing early matters more for state money than for federal money.

Step 6: Submit, then read your FAFSA Submission Summary

The form is finished only when the student and every contributor have submitted their sections. Online, the deadline each day is 11:59 p.m. Central time, according to the 2027-28 Specifications Guide.

If you gave an email address, you will get a notice “within one to three days” after the form is processed, with a link to your FAFSA Submission Summary, according to the handbook. The summary shows your official Student Aid Index. You will see an estimate on the confirmation page first, and Federal Student Aid’s SAI explainer advises checking the summary for errors before contacting a school. Our guide to the Student Aid Index explains what the number means.

Common mistakes that delay aid

A contributor never finishes. Check the status in your account until every section shows as submitted.
No consent. Without it there is no Title IV aid, so this is the most expensive mistake on the list.
The wrong parent. Use the financial-support rule, not the household rule.
Family farm or small business reported as an asset. The 2025 law excludes the net worth of a family-owned business with 100 or fewer full-time or full-time-equivalent employees, of a farm the family lives on, and of a family commercial fishing business. That rule took effect starting with the 2026-27 form, according to Electronic Announcement APP-25-23.
Waiting for the federal deadline. Colleges and states often award money first-come, first-served. The Department added language to say so on the 2027-28 form, according to the Specifications Guide. Our FAFSA deadlines guide lays out all three kinds.

After you submit

Your school may select your FAFSA for verification and ask for documents. Answer those requests quickly, because aid cannot be paid until verification is done. You can still fix mistakes after you submit. For the 2026-27 cycle, the Department’s Federal Register deadline notice set September 11, 2027 as the last day for corrections to reach the processing system. The 2027-28 notice usually comes out the following summer.

If you will be a first-year student, check whether any college on your list also requires the CSS Profile. For a Pell Grant estimate, see our Pell Grant eligibility guide. To find private money, start with our free scholarship finder.

Once your FAFSA Submission Summary arrives, open it the same day and check three things: your SAI, the list of schools, and whether any section is flagged for action. Fixing a wrong answer in the first week costs you nothing. Finding it in April can cost you state grant money that has already been awarded to someone else.

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