To complete a FAFSA, visit studentaid.gov. Check out this simple guide about FAFSA eligibility requirements to see who qualifies to file a FAFSA.

By December 1, 2024. Curious about what you may qualify for? Use the Federal Student Aid Estimator to see what you may qualify when you do file the FAFSA.

For Fall 2025, the priority deadline to submit your FAFSA to UTSA is February 15, 2025. New students can refer to future.utsa.edu.

A contributor is anyone who is required to provide consent for Federal Tax Information (FTI) and a signature on the FAFSA including:

• The student
• The student’s spouse (if applicable)
• A biological or adoptive parent; or
• The spouse of a remarried parent who is on the FAFSA (i.e., a stepparent)

The new FAFSA is student-driven, meaning the student’s answers on their section will determine who will be a contributor (in addition to the student). Students will need the contributor’s name, date of birth, Social Security Number (SSN), and email address to invite them to complete their required portion of the FAFSA. Contributors will need to provide personal and financial information on their section of the FAFSA.

If a dependent student’s parents are unmarried and living together, both parents will be contributors, will need to have separate Federal Student Aid (FSA) IDs, and need to provide consent. Dependent students whose parents filed their U.S. income tax return as Married Filing Jointly only require one parent contributor to complete the FAFSA. If the student’s parents filed separately, both parents will be considered contributors and therefore need separate FSA IDs.

If an independent student is married and filed separately, both individuals are contributors and must have FSA IDs.

To create an FSA ID, please visit the Create Account webpage on the Federal Student Aid website.

For the FAFSA to process successfully, consent must be provided by all required contributors (student, parent, parent spouse, and/or student spouse) on the FAFSA. This allows the Federal Tax Information (FTI) transferred from the IRS to be provided to higher education institutions, state higher-education agencies, and designated scholarship organizations.

Consent is provided once for the academic year and cannot be revoked in that academic year. This consent is necessary even if the contributor does not have a Social Security Number (SSN), did not file taxes, or filed taxes in another country. To provide consent, contributors must have an FSA ID.

Determining what parent(s) to include on the FAFSA is changing. Income and assets are to be reported for the parent who provides the most financial support even if the student does not live with that parent or lives with the other parent.

Use this tool to find out which parent needs to be included on the FAFSA.

In previous years, if a student’s parents were divorced or separated, the parent with whom the student lived the most in the past 12 months prior to filing the FAFSA was to be listed; however, this is no longer the primary consideration.

Parental Income on the FAFSA

• Parents who live together
  • Parental income and assets in the case of a student whose parents are married and not separated, or who are unmarried but live together, shall include the income and assets of both parents.
• Divorced or separated parents
  • Parental income and assets for a student whose parents are divorced or separated, but not remarried, is determined by including only the income and assets of the parent who provides the greater portion of the student’s financial support.
• Death of a parent
  • Parental income and assets in the case of the death of any parent is determined as follows:
    • If either of the parents has died, the surviving parent shall be considered a single parent, unless that parent has remarried.
    • If both parents have died, the student shall not report any parental income or assets.
• Remarried parents
  • If a parent who is divorced or widowed and would be included on the FAFSA has remarried, the income of the parent’s spouse must be included if the student’s parent and the stepparent are married as of the date the FAFSA is completed.
• Single parent
  • For a single parent who is not divorced, separated, or remarried, the income and assets of the single parent shall be included.

Unless you have been legally adopted or emancipated or fit one of the other categories classified as an independent student, you need to report your parents’ information even if you do not live with them. If your parent doesn’t live in the U.S., they will still need to provide consent and approval and will need to convert the amounts on the foreign tax return into U.S. dollars using the published exchange rate and manually enter their financial information and tax filing status from their most recent foreign tax return into the FAFSA.

Yes, you (the student) can still submit the FAFSA. Contributors will still need to create an FSA ID. Once you contributor creates an account without an SSN, they can immediately access and complete the FAFSA form. However, parents should consider completing the identity verification process to avoid issues in future years. Parents will still need to provide consent to allow the Federal Tax Information (FTI) to transfer from the IRS to be provided to higher education institutions regardless of citizenship status or tax filing status.

If your contributor filed or will file a foreign tax return, use the same tax return information to fill out the FAFSA form. This includes financial information and tax filing status (i.e Single, Married filing separately, etc.) Convert all monetary units to U.S. dollars using the published exchange rate in effect for the date nearest to when you completed the FAFSA form. For more information visit this help page.

To avoid issues with your FAFSA form, make sure the personal information you enter for your contributor exactly matches the information they provided when creating their StudentAid.gov account. Ensure correct spelling of names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, and emails. 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. You may check all contact information in the contributor’s account settings.

If a contributor doesn’t have an SSN, check the box under the SSN field to indicate that and leave the field blank. Then, be sure to enter their mailing address exactly as they entered it when they created their StudentAid.gov account. If a contributor does have an SSN, you must enter it the SSN field. For additional tips on successfully completing your FAFSA form, you may visit FAFSA’s Pro Tips resource page.

Once your FAFSA is submitted, it will be processed by the Department of Education. To check your status:

1. Log in to studentaid.gov dashboard
2. Click on “My Activity”
3. Select “View FAFSA Submission Summary” to check the status of your FAFSA.

All statuses of your FAFSA can be found here.