Apply for Financial Aid

The first step is to make sure all contributors have their own StudentAid.gov account/FSA ID. The student and all contributors will need their own accounts, so setting these up in advance will streamline your ability to fill out the FAFSA.

1. If you didn’t submit a 2026-27 FAFSA form, make sure to create your StudentAid.gov account. Remember your username and password so you can fill out the FAFSA in future years.
2. Find out if your parents/guardians or spouse will need to be contributors based on your dependency status.
3. If your parents/guardians or spouse will need to contribute to your form, make sure each contributor creates their own StudentAid.gov account.

The FAFSA operates with the previous year’s tax information. You’ll fill out the 2026-27 FAFSA using tax information from 2024.

Any student, regardless of income, who wants to be considered for federal, state, and school financial aid programs. This includes grants, scholarships, work-study funds, and loans.

It takes most people 30 minutes to fill out the FAFSA form, including gathering any personal documents and financial information needed to complete it.

You and any of your contributor(s) must provide this information in order for the Department to determine if you are eligible for federal student aid and which type (e.g., Pell Grant, subsidized or unsubsidized loans) and amount of aid you might be eligible to receive. In addition, many states and colleges use your FAFSA information to determine your eligibility for state and school aid.

When creating a StudentAid.gov account, you and any contributor(s) must provide information such as name, Social Security number (SSN) (or the fact that you/they do not have an SSN), date of birth, address, phone number (optional), and email address. If you or your contributor(s) do not have an SSN, you/they may be required to answer identity questions from TransUnion (such as which of the following is a recent previous address) in order for the Department to fully establish your/their StudentAid.gov account.

When completing the FAFSA form, you will be required to confirm all personal contact information (populated into the FAFSA from your StudentAid.gov account) and enter information such as gender, race/ethnicity, and citizenship status; parent education level; student high school information; financial information including income taxes and whether you or a family member has received other federal benefits such as Medicaid; and what college(s) you would like to receive your FAFSA information.

The Department will share your information with the college(s) you select on your FAFSA form, as well as the state grant agency that is in the state you live in or in which the college(s) you selected is located. This is done to help you get access to any federal, state, or college aid you are entitled to receive.

The Department will also match your information with other federal agencies to help determine your eligibility for benefits (e.g., with the Social Security Administration (SSA) to verify your SSN and citizenship or with Department of Homeland Security to verify if you are an eligible non-citizen) and with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to obtain your tax information to populate the FAFSA system. If you have a contributor(s) with an SSN, the Department will share their information with the SSA to verify their SSN and with the IRS to obtain their tax information to populate the FAFSA system.

The Department must keep this information for the length of your relationship with the Department. For example, if you receive a loan, the Department will keep your information for the full life of the loan (including all the years you are in repayment) and a period of time thereafter to ensure full closure of your loan and to meet various legal and regulatory requirements. If you receive a Pell Grant, the Department will keep your information to track how much you received in Pell Grants so you do not exceed lifetime limits set by law over the recipient’s lifetime

Whether or not you should fill out a FAFSA form is a decision that you should make with your family. It is important to note that, to the extent that you or a contributor has already provided the Department with information when creating a StudentAid.gov account or previously filling out the FAFSA form, the Department likely still has that information. In such an instance, the Department would only be adding updated information to the Department’s systems (e.g., income information, change in address) were you to submit a new FAFSA form. Moreover, any future changes to how the Department’s data are used or shared could apply to data already in its possession, as well as data it collects after the changes.