Getting a PIN before you begin the FAFSA could prevent processing delays, and it only takes a minute.

Gathering the Documents Needed to Apply

The FAFSA asks for information about you (your name, date of birth, address, etc.) and about your financial situation. Depending on your circumstances (for instance, when you filed taxes or what tax form you used), you might need the following information or documents as you fill out the FAFSA:

• Your Social Security number (it's important that you enter it correctly on the FAFSA!)
• Your parents' Social Security numbers if you are a dependent student
• Your driver's license number if you have one
• Your Alien Registration Number if you are not a U.S. citizen
• Federal tax information or tax returns including IRS W-2 information, for you (and your spouse, if you are married), and for your parents if you are a dependent student:
  • IRS 1040, 1040A, 1040EZ
  • Foreign tax return and/or
  • Tax return for Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Marshall Islands, the Federal States of Micronesia, or Palau
• Records of your untaxed income, such as child support received, interest income, and veterans noneducation benefits, for you, and for your parents if you are a dependent student
• Information on cash; savings and checking account balances; investments, including stocks and bonds and real estate but not including the home in which you live; and business and farm assets for you, and for your parents if you are a dependent student

Keep these records! You may need them again. Do not mail your records to us.

Learn more about reporting tax information on your FAFSA.

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One thing you don't need for the FAFSA is money! The FAFSA is FREE, so if a website asks you to pay to fill it out, you're not dealing with the official FAFSA site. Remember, the FAFSA comes from the government, so it's on a .gov site: www.fafsa.gov.

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Getting Help

If you need help filling out the FAFSA, use these free tools:

• Read the "Help and Hints" located on the right side of any FAFSA on the Web entry page. (The hints change depending on what question you're on.)
• Click "Need Help?" at the bottom of any FAFSA on the Web entry page (in other words, any page where you're entering information into the application).
• Chat (in English or Spanish) with live technical support staff by clicking the "Help" icon with the big question mark at the top of any FAFSA on the Web entry page.
• Contact the financial aid office at the college or career school you plan to attend.
• For details about the purpose of FAFSA questions and how information should be reported in some unusual cases, try our guide called Completing the FAFSA.

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Although FAFSA on the Web is compatible with Macintosh, Mac users will have a slightly different experience on fafsa.gov than PC users.

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Starting Your FAFSA and Providing Your Basic Personal Information

If you are starting a FAFSA for the first time, go to www.fafsa.gov and click on "Start A New FAFSA." As you start your FAFSA, keep the following in mind:

• Your name and Social Security number must match those on your Social Security card.
• If you're concerned about providing your personal information on the login page, choose the virtual keyboard option for additional security.
• The password you create near the beginning of the FAFSA on the Web application is not the same as yourFederal Student Aid PIN. You'll need the password only if you start your FAFSA, save it without finishing it, then want to open it again later to finish it. 
• If you are applying for a summer session, contact the financial aid office at your college to find out which school year you should select when you complete your FAFSA.

If you filled out a FAFSA last year and want to renew it, click "Login" on the home page, enter your name, Social Security number, and date of birth, and then select "FAFSA Renewal" so that many of the (nonfinancial) questions will be pre-filled for you. Just be sure to update any information that has changed since last year.

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Listing Colleges and/or Career Schools

While completing the FAFSA, you must list at least one college to receive your information. The schools you list will use your FAFSA information to determine the types and amounts of aid you may receive.  You should list your first choice college first, second choice second, and so on. You can list up to 10 schools on FAFSA on the Webor up to four schools on a paper FAFSA. (You can add more schools to your FAFSA later.) Schools you list on your FAFSA will automatically receive your FAFSA results electronically.

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Determining Your Dependency Status

The FAFSA asks a series of questions that determine whether you are a dependent or independent student for purposes of applying for federal student aid. If you are a dependent student, you must report parent information, as well as your own information, on your FAFSA. If you're curious, you can find out now whether you're a dependent student.

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Reporting Parents' Information

If you're a dependent student, you'll need to report parent information on your FAFSA. (Find out who counts as your parent.)

You might find that you're unable to provide parent information because you have no contact with your parents or because they refuse to provide their information. The tips below might help you out.

Are you unable to provide parent information due to special circumstances?

In situations such as the ones below, you may be able to submit your FAFSA without parent information despite being considered a dependent student:

• Your parents are incarcerated.
• You have left home due to an abusive family environment.
• You do not know where your parents are and are unable to contact them (and you have not been adopted).
• You are older than 21 but not yet 24, are unaccompanied, and are either homeless or self-supporting and at risk of being homeless.

FAFSA on the Web will ask you whether you are able to provide information about your parents. If you are not, you will have the option to indicate that you have special circumstances that make you unable to get your parents' information. FAFSA on the Web then allows you to submit your application without entering data about your parents.

However, it is important for you to understand the following:

• Although your FAFSA will be submitted, it will not be fully processed. You will not receive an Expected Family Contribution and must immediately contact the financial aid office at the college or career school you plan to attend.
• The financial aid staff may ask for additional information to determine whether you can be considered independent and have an EFC calculated without parent data. Gather as much written evidence of your situation as you can. Written evidence may include court or law enforcement documents, letters from a clergy member, school counselor or social worker, and/or any other relevant data that explains your special circumstance.
• The financial aid office's decision about your dependency status is final and cannot be appealed to the U.S. Department of Education. 

Are your parents unwilling to provide their information on your FAFSA?

You can't be considered independent of your parents just because they refuse to help you with the FAFSA. Still, we do understand that in some cases, the parents are not supporting the dependent student at all and refuse to provide their information on the student's FAFSA. If you're in that situation, here's the process:

1. When FAFSA on the Web asks you whether you are able to provide information about your parents, say no.
2. On the next screen, select the option that says you don't have a special circumstance but you still can't provide parent information.
3. The FAFSA explains that if your parents don't support you and refuse to provide their information on the FAFSA, you may submit your FAFSA without their information. However, you won't be able to get any federal student aid other than an unsubsidized loan'and even that might not happen. The decision is up to the financial aid office at the college or career school you plan to attend. If you agree to this, you may submit your FAFSA without parent information.
4. Your FAFSA information will be sent to the colleges you list, but you won't get an Expected Family Contribution (EFC).
5. You must immediately contact your school's financial aid office to discuss the possibility of getting an unsubsidized loan. The financial aid office may ask for a written statement from your parents, indicating that they refuse to provide their information on the FAFSA and that they no longer support you. (Forms of support include allowing you to live in their home, including you on their car or health insurance, providing a car to drive on a regular basis, and payment of your tuition or fees.)
6. The financial aid office will look at your situation and decide whether you may receive an unsubsidized loan. That decision is final and cannot be appealed to the U.S. Department of Education.

If you're considering following this process, think about this first: If you submit your FAFSA without parent information, you will not receive an EFC. Some nonfederal aid programs look at the EFC in order to determine your eligibility for their funds; because you won't have an EFC, you won't be considered for those aid programs. You could be giving up a chance at many sources of aid. So encourage your parents to provide their information'doing so won't require them to support you in any way, it'll just help you be considered for as many sources of financial aid as possible.

Your FAFSA information is safe with us! Is it safe with you? Read Student Aid and Identity Theft to learn how we safeguard the personal information you report on your online FAFSA. We've also included some tips on what you can do (at home, online, or in the dorm) to keep your identity from being stolen.

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Providing Financial Information

The FAFSA asks for financial information, including balances of savings and checking accounts and information from tax forms.

• Use income records for the tax year prior to the academic year for which you are applying: for instance, if you are filling out the 2013'14 FAFSA, you will need 2012 tax information.

• If you haven't done your taxes by the time you fill out your FAFSA, it's okay to estimate the amounts. You might want to base your estimates on last year's tax return. If your income changed drastically since last year's tax return, you may click on "Income Estimator" on the FAFSA on the Web page that asks for income information. The Income Estimator will help you estimate adjusted gross income (AGI). After you file your taxes, you'll need to log back in to the FAFSA and correct any estimated information that was wrong.
• If you have done your taxes, be sure to consider the option in FAFSA on the Web to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (IRS DRT). You may be able to use the tool if you filed your taxes electronically at least two weeks ago or if you filed on paper at least eight weeks ago. Find out when your tax return information will likely be available using the IRS DRT.
  • The IRS DRT takes you to the IRS website, where you'll need to log in by providing your name and other information exactly as you provided it on your tax return.
  • At the IRS site, you can preview your information before agreeing to have it transferred to your FAFSA.
  • When you return to the FAFSA, you'll see that questions that are populated with tax information will be marked with "Transferred from the IRS." Don't make any changes to those answers (except where Individual Retirement Account or pension rollovers are involved), or you'll invalidate the information you retrieved.

Using the IRS DRT saves you time and effort:

• You don't have to find your tax records.
• You don't have to worry about making mistakes entering your tax information on your FAFSA.
• If you use the IRS DRT and don't change any of the retrieved information in your FAFSA, you won't need to provide tax transcripts if you're selected for verification.

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Determining When Tax Information Will Be Available Via the IRS DRT

The IRS has provided the following guidance to help you determine when you should be able to access your tax data using the IRS DRT.

When Will My Tax Return Information Be Available Using the IRS DRT?

The IRS tax return processing times and the availability of the IRS DRT reflected in the chart below are merely guides to help tax filers estimate when they will be able to retrieve their IRS tax return information using the IRS DRT. Specific questions related to the processing of your IRS tax return should be directed to the IRS at 1-800-829-1040.

When a tax return filer who...	If Tax Return Filed Electronically	If Paper Tax Return Filed
At the time their tax return was submitted to the IRS, has no amount owed or has an expected refund	Generally tax returns are accepted by the IRS within a day or two of the return having been electronically filed with the IRS. In most cases, the IRS DRT is available within two'three weeks after the return has been accepted by the IRS.	Generally tax returns are accepted by the IRS when the tax return is received by the IRS. In most cases, the IRS DRT is available within eight'11 weeks after the tax return has been accepted by the IRS.
At the time their tax return was submitted to the IRS, has an amount owed and makes a full payment on that amount	Generally tax returns are accepted by the IRS within a day or two of the return having been electronically filed with the IRS. In most cases, the IRS DRT is available within two'three weeks after the return has been accepted by the IRS.	IRS will process the tax return in June. In most cases, the IRS DRT is available within two'three weeks after the tax return has been processed by the IRS.
Has an amount owed and subsequent to submitting their tax return to the IRS, pays the full amount due	Generally tax returns are accepted by the IRS within a day or two of the return having been electronically filed with the IRS. In most cases, the IRS DRT is available within three'four weeks after full payment is made.	IRS will process the tax return in June. In most cases, the IRS DRT is available within two'three weeks after the tax return has been processed by the IRS.
At the time their tax return was submitted to the IRS, has an amount owed and has not paid in full	Generally tax returns are accepted by the IRS within a day or two of the return having been electronically filed with the IRS. However, IRS will not process the return until May. In most cases, the IRS DRT is available within two'three weeks after the return has been processed in May.	IRS will process the tax return in June. In most cases, the IRS DRT is available within two'three weeks after the tax return has been processed by the IRS.

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Signing and Submitting the FAFSA^SM

Before your FAFSA can be processed, you'll need to sign and submit it. Here are some tips as you finish your FAFSA:

• Be sure to sign with your Federal Student Aid PIN so your FAFSA will be processed as quickly as possible.
• Once you see your confirmation page, you'll know you've successfully submitted your FAFSA. If you provided an e-mail address on your FAFSA, you'll automatically receive the confirmation page by e-mail. There are a few differences between the e-mailed confirmation and the one you'll see in the FAFSA before exiting the application, so consider printing your confirmation page before you exit. For example, the e-mailed confirmation won't include the college graduation, retention, and transfer rates for schools you listed on your FAFSA.
• When you fill out the FAFSA, you're also automatically applying for certain state financial aid. In some cases, the state requires an additional application in order to determine your eligibility for state aid. There are some states that have a partnership with the FAFSA that allows you to transfer your information directly into your state aid application, so if you see a link on your FAFSA confirmation page to your state financial aid application, you should click on it.  (Please note that the link won't appear on the e-mailed confirmation page, so be sure to take advantage of it while you're still at the original confirmation page.)

• Your confirmation page offers the option for the parent information in your FAFSA to be transferred automatically into another student's FAFSA. So if you have a sibling who needs to fill out a FAFSA, be sure to use this option when you see your confirmation page. (Please note that the link won't appear on the e-mailed confirmation page, so be sure to take advantage of it while you're still at the original confirmation page.)

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Taking the Next Steps

Once you've completed your FAFSA, you're not finished. There are more steps you have to take before you receive financial aid. Make sure you know what happens after you submit your FAFSA.

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