When the 2024–25 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) form first became available, a technical issue prevented contributors without a Social Security number (SSN) from starting or accessing the form. This issue has been resolved. Students are now able to submit a fully completed FAFSA form that includes contributor information.
Provided below are instructions to help students and their contributors successfully navigate the form. This includes answers to frequently asked questions and help with issues that might impact the user experience.
Issues that may impact user experience include the following:
- All contributors without an SSN, including those with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN), will need to manually enter their financial information. We still encourage all impacted users to enter an ITIN, if they have one. At a later date, the U.S. Department of Education will work to retrieve federal tax information via the direct data exchange with the IRS and will reprocess the form, as necessary, to reflect any changes. There is no timeline for resolution of this issue.
- Parent contributors from the Freely Associated States are not able to start a FAFSA form on behalf of dependent students. Until this issue is resolved, students should start their own form and invite their required parent contributor(s) to participate.
Instructions for Students Who Haven’t Started a Form
To start an online FAFSA form in situations where a contributor does not have an SSN, follow the steps below. Completing these steps will help you avoid encountering errors.
Step 1: Get a StudentAid.gov account before filling out the FAFSA® form.
As you prepare to fill out the form, make sure you and your contributor(s) each create a StudentAid.gov account. We strongly recommend that you and your contributor(s) each create a StudentAid.gov account before you start your form. If you’re an independent student, and you didn’t file taxes jointly with your spouse, your spouse may be a required contributor. If you’re a dependent student, your parent(s) may be required contributors. To find out if your parent(s) will be a contributor on your FAFSA form, check out the Is My Parent a Contributor When I Fill Out My FAFSA Form? infographic.
IMPORTANT: We recommend printing a copy—or taking a screenshot—of the information your contributor enters on the “Personal Information” page when they create their StudentAid.gov account. You will need to enter this same information exactly as entered when inviting the contributor to your FAFSA form. Differences as small as using “Road” in the invitation to the contributor, versus using the abbreviation “Rd” when creating their StudentAid.gov account address, can potentially lead to errors that will prevent the contributor from entering the FAFSA form.
Contributors without an SSN who create a StudentAid.gov account will need to complete an identity verification process after they create the account. Your contributor will need to complete all steps to verify their identity before they can access your FAFSA form, which may take several days. Your contributor will not be able to start or access your FAFSA form to provide information until their account is validated. See How do I verify my identity if I create an account and don’t have a Social Security number (SSN)? for more information.
Step 2: Start the 2024–25 FAFSA® form at fafsa.gov.
Be prepared so you can complete your form in one session. You might need the following documents as you fill out the 2024–25 form:
- 2022 tax returns
- Records of child support received
- Current balances of cash, savings, and checking accounts
- Net worth of investments, businesses, and farms
Learn more about Pro Tips resource.
You may receive the following error message if you enter inaccurate information on a contributor’s invitation or if you send multiple invitations to the same contributor: "If you entered a Social Security number (SSN), it is already associated with a StudentAid.gov account. Except for email address, all information entered on this page must match that existing account. Please confirm this information with the person you are adding to your form to ensure accuracy. If you did not enter an SSN, review this guidance and recommended workaround and try again.”
If you receive this error message, you must wait until the next day and then try to invite your contributor again.
Step 4: Sign your section of the form after selecting schools.
After adding your school(s) to your form, review your information, sign your form, and then continue to the “section complete” page.
Step 5: Have your contributor(s) accept their invitation and log in to the form to provide their information.
Your contributor(s) will need to manually enter their income and tax information including their adjusted gross income and income taxes paid. They will need a copy of their 2022 tax return to complete this section.
All contributors without an SSN, including those with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN), will need to manually enter their financial information. We still encourage all impacted users to enter an ITIN, if they have one. At a later date, we’ll attempt to retrieve federal tax information via the direct data exchange with the IRS and will reprocess the form, as necessary, to reflect any changes.
Step 6: Submit the form.
If you successfully completed your section, and your contributors successfully complete their section, your form should be submitted.
Step 7: Watch for your confirmation email.
You will receive a confirmation email showing your submission date and your estimated aid eligibility.
Note: This process is different when the student does not have an SSN. Undocumented students, including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, are not eligible for federal student aid but may still be eligible for other types of financial aid (state aid, college or career/trade school aid, or private scholarships). These students should check with their high school counselor or college’s or career school’s financial aid office to see whether completing the FAFSA form is the appropriate way to apply for state and school student aid. Get more details and tips for DACA recipients filling out the FAFSA form.
Instructions for Students Who Have Started a Form
Follow the steps below if you have already started your FAFSA form and were previously blocked from inviting contributors who don't have an SSN to your form. Completing these steps will help you avoid encountering errors.
Step 1: All contributors must create and validate their StudentAid.gov accounts, if they haven’t already done so.
Contributors without an SSN who create a StudentAid.gov account will need to complete an identity verification process after they create the account. Your contributor will need to complete all steps to verify their identity before they can access your FAFSA form, which may take several days. Your contributor will not be able to start or access your FAFSA form to provide information until their account is validated. See How do I verify my identity if I create an account and don’t have a Social Security number (SSN)? for more information.
Step 2: You (the student) should log in and complete the FAFSA® form that is in “Draft” or “In Progress” status.
Log in to your StudentAid.gov account Dashboard and select the 2024–25 form in the “My Activity” section. The form must be in a “Draft” or “In Progress” status to make changes.
Step 3: Invite all required contributors to participate in the form.
Follow the prompts in the online form to identify and invite your contributors. Then, complete the entire student section of the form. To invite contributors to your FAFSA form, you’ll be asked to provide their
- first and last name;
- SSN (if they have one);
- date of birth;
- email address; and
- mailing address.
To avoid issues with your FAFSA form, list contributor information exactly as it appears on the contributor’s legal identification such as their birth certificate, U.S. driver's license, or foreign passport. Also, if they already have a StudentAid.gov account, make sure the personal information you enter exactly matches the information they provided when creating their account.
Differences as small as using “Road” in the invitation to the contributor, versus the contributor using the abbreviation “Rd” when creating their StudentAid.gov account, can potentially lead to errors that will prevent the contributor from entering the FAFSA form. Leave the SSN portion blank only for those contributors that do not have one. For additional tips on successfully completing your 2024–25 FAFSA form, read our Pro Tips resource.
You may receive the following error message if you enter inaccurate information on a contributor’s invitation or if you send multiple invitations to the same contributor: "If you entered a Social Security number (SSN), it is already associated with a StudentAid.gov account. Except for email address, all information entered on this page must match that existing account. Please confirm this information with the person you are adding to your form to ensure accuracy. If you did not enter an SSN, review this guidance and recommended workaround and try again.”
If you receive this error message, you must wait until the next day and then try to invite your contributor again.
Step 4: Sign your section of the form after selecting schools.
After adding your school(s) to your form, review your information, sign your form, and then continue to the “section complete” page.
Step 5: Have your contributor(s) accept their invitation and log in to the form to provide their information.
Your contributor(s) will need to manually enter their income and tax information including their adjusted gross income and income taxes paid. They will need a copy of their 2022 tax return to complete this section.
All contributors without an SSN, including those with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN), will need to manually enter their financial information. We still encourage all impacted users to enter an ITIN, if they have one. At a later date, we’ll attempt to retrieve federal tax information via the direct data exchange with the IRS and will reprocess the form, as necessary, to reflect any changes.
Step 6: Submit the form.
If you successfully completed your section, and your contributors successfully complete their section, your form should be submitted.
Step 7: Watch for your confirmation email.
You will receive a confirmation email showing your submission date and your estimated aid eligibility.
Note: This process is different when the student does not have an SSN. Undocumented students, including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, are not eligible for federal student aid but may still be eligible for other types of financial aid (state aid, college or career/trade school aid, or private scholarships). These students should check with their high school counselor or college’s or career school’s financial aid office to see whether completing the FAFSA form is the appropriate way to apply for state and school student aid. Get more details and tips for DACA recipients filling out the FAFSA form.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens if my contributor can’t complete the identity verification process through TransUnion?
All contributors must complete an identity verification process to create a StudentAid.gov account without an SSN. When creating the account username and password online, they will be required to answer additional questions to verify their identity. These questions are generated by TransUnion, a credit reporting company.
- If They Aren’t Presented Questions:
If identity verification questions couldn’t be generated for your contributor, a yellow banner will display. They can continue creating their account and then will be required to complete a manual verification process, which is detailed below.
IMPORTANT: Your contributor can’t create another new StudentAid.gov account to make another attempt at verification.
- Manual Verification Process:
If your contributor wasn’t presented with identity verification questions while creating their account or they answered them incorrectly, they will be notified on the account creation confirmation page that they need to take additional steps to verify their identity. The contributor will receive a “Verify Your Identity” email from us with additional steps and the required document(s) that must be submitted.
- Your contributor must respond to the email address that is provided and attach a copy of the required documents from the list below, plus a completed and signed attestation form.
- One of the following identity documents:
- Driver’s license
- State or city identification card
- Foreign passport
- OR One of the following pairs of identity documents:
- Municipal identification card and utility bill
- Community ID card and utility bill
- Consular identification card (Matricula Consular) and utility bill
How is the data that students and their contributors enter on the FAFSA® form, including personally identifiable information (PII), used and protected?
The U.S. Department of Education (ED) follows all applicable laws and regulations to handle your information responsibly. ED requires personal information for identify verification, to determine a student’s eligibility for federal student aid, and to prevent fraud. ED may also share personal information from the FAFSA with other federal agencies. For example, ED will share information with the Social Security Administration to verify an SSN (critical for obtaining tax information from the IRS), citizenship (for students who are applying for aid), or to ensure the individual has not passed away. ED will only share information on the applicant (the student), not any of their contributors, with the Department of Homeland Security to confirm citizenship and eligibility for federal student aid.
Any federal agency that receives this information from ED can only use the data for the explicitly authorized purposes. This does not include any immigration or enforcement actions.
For those individuals without an SSN that go through an identity verification process through TransUnion, TransUnion:
- can only use the data it receives from ED for the purpose of verifying someone’s identity;
- cannot keep the data; and
- cannot share the data with or sell the data to any other entities.
You may review how all collected information is used and shared by accessing Federal Student Aid's privacy statements at studentaid.gov/notices/privacy.
If I submitted a paper form but it was not for the purpose of meeting an application deadline, can I also file an online form now?
You may still submit an online version of the FAFSA form. When your online form is processed, your paper form will be marked as a duplicate application and returned to you. Because the online form will be processed before the paper form, the date that the online version was submitted will be the recorded submission date of your FAFSA form (even if you submitted a paper form at an earlier date).
Note: If you filed a paper form to meet an application deadline in January or February, you should not fill out a duplicate online form, as it will override your earlier paper application date.
What can I use to show proof of my FAFSA® form submission if my school, state, or scholarship provider requests it?
If you submitted the online form, provide a copy of your confirmation email as proof of your submission. Alternatively, take a screenshot of your confirmation screen once you’ve submitted your form, or select your submission from the “My Activity” section of your StudentAid.gov account Dashboard to take a screenshot of your submission details.
If you’re not sure the provider requesting proof of your submission is legitimate, check out our resource about how to identify and avoid student aid scams.
Will online and paper forms be processed at the same time when processing begins in the first half of March?
Online forms will be processed first, followed by paper forms in the weeks that follow. Therefore, it’s highly recommended that all applicants apply via the online form, whenever possible, to prevent further delays. Because the online form will be processed before the paper form, the date that the online version was submitted will be the recorded submission date of your FAFSA form (even if you submitted a paper form at an earlier date).
Note: If you filed a paper form to meet an application deadline in January or February, you should not fill out a duplicate online form, as it will override your earlier paper application date.
I submitted an incomplete FAFSA® form as instructed by the U.S. Department of Education to meet a critical aid deadline. When can I update the form with my contributor’s information?
You will be able to make a correction to your form in the first half of April.
