The short answer
You fill out the FAFSA online at StudentAid.gov, where the 2027–28 form, for the school year from July 1, 2027, to June 30, 2028, has been open since September 23, 2026. Each person who must provide information, called a contributor, needs a StudentAid.gov account of their own: the student and, for a dependent student, one or two parents depending on how they filed their taxes; a married independent student may need a spouse. The student starts the form, answers questions about themselves, lists up to 20 schools and invites contributors by email. Each contributor then logs in, gives consent and approval for the IRS to transfer their federal tax information, completes their own section and signs. Without every required contributor's consent, the student cannot receive federal student aid. Once everyone has signed, the confirmation page shows an estimated Student Aid Index and Pell Grant eligibility, and the FAFSA Submission Summary follows in the student's account. The federal deadline is June 30, 2028, but state and college deadlines often come much earlier.
Before you start: what to have ready
The form pulls most income figures straight from the IRS, so you need fewer papers than you might expect. The 2027–28 FAFSA uses income from the 2025 tax year, and assets as they stand on the day you sign. Have these at hand before anyone logs in:
- A StudentAid.gov account for each person who signs. That is the student and every contributor, each with their own username and password.
- Social Security numbers for the student and contributors. A parent or spouse without one can still take part, as Step 1 explains.
- 2025 tax returns, if anyone filed one. The IRS transfer should fill in the figures, but the returns are useful if the transfer cannot supply them.
- Current balances of cash, savings and checking accounts, as of the day you sign the form.
- The value of investments, such as brokerage accounts, college savings plans and real estate other than the home you live in. Retirement accounts and the family home are not reported.
- The net worth of any business or farm. A family business with 100 or fewer full-time employees and a farm the family lives on are left out.
- A list of schools you are applying to or attending.
None of this has to be perfect before you begin. The form saves your progress, and a contributor can finish their section on a different day from the student.
Step 1: Set up StudentAid.gov accounts
Every person who signs the FAFSA needs their own StudentAid.gov account. A parent cannot sign with the student's login, and a student cannot sign for a parent, even with permission. Setting up accounts first saves the most common delay of all, a form that sits finished except for a contributor who has never logged in.
New accounts are verified with the Social Security Administration right away, so they can be used the day they are created. A parent or spouse who has no Social Security number can still create an account: they answer a set of identity questions instead and then complete their part of the form, entering their income by hand because the IRS transfer is not available to them.
Use an email address and phone number you check. Invitations, codes and notices about the form all arrive there, and a contributor who misses the invitation email can still find the form by logging in.
Step 2: Work out whose information you need
Before it asks about money, the form settles whether you are a dependent or an independent student, because that decides who else has to take part. For 2027–28 a student born before January 1, 2004, is independent, and so is one who is married, will be in a master's or doctoral program, is a veteran or on active duty, supports a child or other dependent, or was in foster care or a ward of the court at any time since age 13, among a few other situations. Everyone else is dependent, whatever their living arrangements, and needs at least one parent to contribute.
For a dependent student, the contributing parent is not always the one the student lives with. When parents are divorced or separated and live apart, it is the parent who gave more financial support over the last 12 months, and if that parent has remarried, the stepparent's information is included too. Grandparents and legal guardians are not parents for the FAFSA unless they adopted the student. Our guide to dependency status and which parent counts works through each family situation.
Married parents do not always both have to log in. If they filed their 2025 taxes jointly, only one of them is a required contributor, and the other's information comes in through the joint return; if they filed separately, both are contributors. The same applies to a parent and stepparent. An independent student who is married invites the spouse unless the two filed jointly; an unmarried independent student fills in the form alone.
Step 3: Fill in the student's sections
The student starts the FAFSA from their own account. The first sections are about the student: identity details, the dependency questions, family size and, where it applies, the student's own income and assets. Family size matters more than it looks, because the formula protects part of a family's income for living costs, and that protected amount grows with each person counted.
Then comes the list of schools. You can send your information to as many as 20 at a time, and only the schools on the list receive it. Include every school you are seriously considering, including ones you have not yet been admitted to; you can add more later by correcting the form.
A returning student will usually see an option to complete a renewal form. Choose it: it carries over some of last year's answers, so there is less to type. You still need a new FAFSA for each school year.
Step 4: Invite contributors and give consent
When the student names a parent or spouse, the form asks for enough to identify them, including an email address, and sends them an invitation. The contributor logs in with their own account and completes their section: details about themselves and, for parents, their finances and the family's assets.
Consent is not optional. Each contributor must give consent and approval for the IRS to transfer their federal tax information directly into the form, and that is required even of a contributor who did not file a tax return. If any required contributor does not give it, the student cannot receive federal student aid. Consent covers that year's FAFSA, and once given it cannot be withdrawn for that year.
The transfer saves typing and avoids errors. When the IRS cannot supply the figures, for example because it has no return on record or the contributor has no Social Security number, the contributor enters the amounts by hand. Those figures are still used in the calculation, though they are not treated as verified the way IRS data is.
If a parent was not required to file a 2025 tax return, they still give consent. For a family that was not required to file, the formula sets the Student Aid Index at −1,500, the lowest it goes.
A hypothetical household, start to finish
Ana is 18 and plans to start college in the fall of 2027. Her parents divorced years ago, and she lives mostly with her mother, but over the past 12 months her father, who pays child support, provided more of her financial support. That makes him her contributing parent. He has remarried and filed his 2025 taxes jointly with his wife, so he is the only parent who has to log in; his wife's information arrives through the joint return, and the form asks for her date of birth.
Ana creates her account, starts the form, lists six schools and enters her father's email address. He logs in with his own account, gives consent for the IRS transfer, reports the family's savings as of that day and signs. Only then is Ana's FAFSA complete and sent to her schools.
Step 5: Sign, submit and read the confirmation
The FAFSA is complete only when the student and every required contributor have finished their sections and signed. The student can see from their account which parts are still waiting, so a quick look there is the fastest way to find out who has not finished.
Once it is submitted, the confirmation page shows an estimated Student Aid Index and an estimated Pell Grant eligibility. Treat both as estimates. The official figures arrive with the FAFSA Submission Summary, which appears on the student's StudentAid.gov dashboard once the form has been processed, and the schools on the list receive the same results.
If you want a feel for the numbers before you file, our FAFSA & SAI Estimator runs the 2027–28 formulas on your own answers. Our explainer on what the Student Aid Index means covers how schools use the figure, and our guide to Pell Grant eligibility shows how it turns into a grant.
After you submit: the summary, corrections and verification
Swipe sideways to see the whole table.
| When | What you get | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Right after submitting | A confirmation page with an estimated SAI and Pell eligibility | Note the estimates; they can change once the form is processed |
| Once the form is processed | The FAFSA Submission Summary on your StudentAid.gov dashboard | Check every answer, especially income, family size and the school list |
| If something is wrong or missing | The option to correct the form | Fix errors and add schools; you can list up to 20 at a time |
| If a school selects you for verification | A request from the school for documents | Send what it asks for promptly; aid can wait on it |
| When schools have your results | Aid offers from the schools that admit you | Compare what each offer leaves you to pay |
The Submission Summary has four tabs: an eligibility overview with your official SAI and estimates of federal aid, your answers on the form, information about each school you listed, and next steps. The school information tab shows figures such as graduation and transfer rates, which are worth a look when you compare offers.
Corrections go through the same form. You can change an answer that was wrong, update something a school asks you to update, or add a school. The deadline for corrections falls in September after the school year ends; for the 2026–27 form it is September 11, 2027.
Verification is a school's check of selected answers. Being selected is not an accusation; the school will say which documents it needs, and its aid offer may not be final until it has them.
Snags that stall a FAFSA, and what to do
- A contributor who has not logged in. Resend the invitation from the student's account, or have the contributor log in and look for the form on their own dashboard.
- A parent who is unwilling to take part. A dependent student generally needs a parent's information for federal aid. If there is a serious reason you cannot involve your parents, such as abandonment or a risk to your safety, talk to your college's financial aid office before you give up; our dependency guide explains what the office can do.
- Figures the IRS could not send. Enter them by hand from the 2025 return and keep the paperwork, in case a school asks.
- Parents who filed jointly and have since divorced or separated. The IRS cannot split a joint return, so the contributing parent enters their own income and tax figures by hand.
- Balances that changed. Report cash and investments as of the day you sign, not as of the end of the tax year.
- A school missing from the list. Add it with a correction; the school only sees your results once it is listed.
Common questions
Is the FAFSA free?
Yes. The official form is free at StudentAid.gov, and so is the help offered there. You never have to pay to file a FAFSA or to get your results.
Do I have to fill out a FAFSA every year?
Yes, one for each school year you want aid. Returning students can usually choose a renewal form, which carries over some of the previous year's answers.
Can I add a school after I submit?
Yes. Correct the form and add the school; you can list up to 20 at a time, and a school sees your results only once it is on your list.
Can my parents use my StudentAid.gov account to sign?
No. Each contributor needs their own account and signs with it. A parent without a Social Security number can still create one.
What if my parents did not file a tax return?
They still give consent for the IRS transfer. If they were not required to file, the formula sets the Student Aid Index at −1,500, the lowest possible.
Official sources
- StudentAid.gov — Steps for students: filling out the FAFSA form
- StudentAid.gov — FAFSA Submission Summary: what you need to know
- StudentAid.gov — 2027–28 FAFSA form (PDF)
- Federal Student Aid Handbook 2026–27 — Filling out the FAFSA form
- U.S. Department of Education — The 2027–28 FAFSA launch
- Federal Student Aid — StudentAid.gov accounts without a Social Security number
Before you close the browser
Write down two dates: the earliest deadline among your state and the schools on your list, which our guide to FAFSA deadlines helps you find, and the day you expect the Submission Summary. When it arrives, read it line by line; a wrong family size or a missing school is easy to fix early and costly to discover after the aid offers are out. The site is an independent educational resource, not the Department of Education: your official results come only from StudentAid.gov and the schools you list.
