# Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) Information To Be Verified for the 2024-2025 Award Year
**AGENCY:**
Office of Postsecondary Education, Department of Education.
**ACTION:**
Notice.
**SUMMARY:**
For each award year, the Secretary publishes in the *Federal Register* a notice announcing the FAFSA information that an institution and an applicant may be required to verify, as well as the acceptable documentation for verifying FAFSA information. This is the notice for the 2024-2025 award year, Assistance Listing Numbers 84.007, 84.033, 84.063, and 84.268.
**FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:**
Vanessa Gomez, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue SW, Room 2C179, Washington, DC 20202. Telephone: (202) 453-6708. Email: *[email protected].*
If you are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability and wish to access telecommunications relay services, please dial 7-1-1.
**SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:**
If the Secretary selects an applicant for verification, the applicant's Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR) includes flags that indicate (1) that the applicant has been selected by the Secretary for verification and (2) the Verification Tracking Group (VTG) in which the applicant has been placed. The VTG indicates which FAFSA information needs to be verified for the applicant and, if appropriate, for the applicant's parent(s) or spouse. Beginning with the 2024-2025 award year, the Student Aid Report (SAR) is being replaced with the FAFSA Submission Summary. As was the case for the SAR, the FAFSA Submission Summary provided to the applicant will indicate that the applicant's FAFSA information has been selected for verification and direct the applicant to contact the institution for further instructions for completing the verification process.
To help institutions and applicants deal with the challenges resulting from the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the Secretary provided flexibilities to the verification regulations. On April 10, 2023, the federally declared national emergency related to the COVID-19 pandemic ended. As a result, these flexibilities expired at the end of the first payment period that began after April 10, 2023. Under 34 CFR 668.4, payment periods are defined for a student enrolled in an eligible program measured in standard terms, as the term, *i.e.,* semester, trimester, or quarter.
In accordance with the Fostering Undergraduate Talent by Unlocking Resources for Education (FUTURE) Act, much of the applicant's tax return information, including information from their spouse and parents, will come directly from the IRS and will not be viewable by the student and other contributors. Such information that is transferred and not edited will essentially be verified and need no further verification. However, for instances where income and tax information cannot be obtained directly from the IRS, the applicant would have to manually enter the necessary information into the FAFSA, and that manual entry may be subject to verification.
The following chart lists, for the 2024-2025 award year, the FAFSA information that an institution and an applicant and, if appropriate, the applicant's parent(s) or spouse may be required to verify under 34 CFR 668.56. The chart also lists the acceptable documentation that must, under § 668.57, be provided to an institution for that information to be verified.
| FAFSA information | Acceptable documentation |
| --- | --- |
| | Items a through h, if transferred directly from the IRS and unchanged, do not need to be verified. When information is not transferred from the IRS, and for item i, the following documentation is sufficient for verification: |
| | (1) For a student, or the parent(s) of a dependent student, who filed a 2022 joint income tax return and whose income is used in the calculation of the applicant's student aid index and who at the time the FAFSA was completed was separated, divorced, widowed, or married to someone other than the individual included on the 2022 joint income tax return— |
| | (2) For an individual who is required to file a 2022 IRS income tax return and has been granted a filing extension by the IRS beyond the automatic six-month extension for tax year 2022— |
| | (3) If d or e contains a rollover, collect a signed statement confirming the amount of the rollover in the untaxed pension or IRA distribution. Note that even if d or e are transferred as FTI, rollovers still need to be verified as they are manually entered. |
| | An institution may require that, after the income tax return is filed, an individual granted a filing extension beyond the automatic 6-month extension submit tax information by obtaining a transcript from the IRS, or by submitting a copy of the income tax return and the applicable schedules that were filed with the IRS that lists 2022 tax account information. When an institution receives such information, it must be used to reverify the income and tax information reported on the FAFSA. |
| | (4) For an individual who was the victim of IRS tax-related identity theft— |
| | Tax filers may inform the IRS of the tax-related identity theft and obtain a TRDBV transcript by calling the IRS's Identity Protection Specialized Unit (IPSU) at 1-800-908-4490. Unless the institution has reason to suspect the authenticity of the TRDBV transcript provided by the IRS, a signature or stamp or any other validation from the IRS is not needed. |
| | For an individual who has not filed and, under IRS or other relevant tax authority rules (e.g., the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Republic of Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, a U.S. territory or commonwealth or a foreign government), is not required to file a 2022 income tax return— |
| | (1) A signed and dated statement certifying— |
| | (2) For individuals without a Social Security number (SSN), Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN), or Employer Identification Number (EIN), that they do not have an SSN, ITIN, or EIN; |
| | (3) A copy of IRS Form W-2
for each source of 2022 employment income received or an equivalent document
; and |
| | (4) Except for dependent students, verification of non-filing
for individuals who would file a return with a relevant tax authority other than the IRS dated on or after October 1, 2023. |
| | The collection of documentation to verify income earned from work is also used to determine if the applicant (and the applicable spouse or parent) was required to file a U.S. income tax return for the 2022 tax year. |
| Family Size | Since family size is based on the number of individuals listed and claimed on the IRS tax return, if transferred directly from the IRS and unchanged, family size does not need to be verified. However, when information is not transferred from the IRS, or if the applicant updated their family size when presented with the opportunity to do so on their FAFSA, the following documentation is sufficient for verification: |
| | A statement signed by the applicant and, if the applicant is a dependent student, by one of the applicant's parents, that lists the name and age of each family member for the 2024-2025 award year and the relationship of that family member to the applicant. |
| | Verification of family size is not required if— |
| | • For a dependent student, the family size indicated on the ISIR is two and the parent is single, separated, divorced, or widowed, or the household size indicated on the ISIR is three if the parents are married, remarried or unmarried and living together; or |
| | • For an independent student, the family size indicated on the ISIR is one and the applicant is single, separated, divorced, or widowed, or the household size indicated on the ISIR is two if the applicant is married or remarried. |
| Identity/Statement of Educational Purpose | (1) An applicant must appear in person and present the following documentation to an institutionally authorized individual to verify the applicant's identity: |
| | (a) An unexpired valid government-issued photo identification
such as, but not limited to, a driver's license, non-driver's identification card, other State-issued identification, or U.S. passport. The institution must maintain an annotated copy of the unexpired valid government-issued photo identification that includes— |
| | i. The date the identification was presented; and |
| | ii. The name of the institutionally authorized individual who reviewed the identification; and |
| | (b) A signed statement using the exact language as follows, except that the student's identification number is optional if collected elsewhere on the same page as the statement: |
| | |
| | I certify that I _______ am |
| | (Print Student's Name) |
| | the individual signing this Statement of Educational Purpose and that the Federal student financial assistance I may receive will only be used for educational purposes and to pay the cost of attending for 2024-2025. |
| | (Name of Postsecondary Educational Institution) |
| | _______ _______ |
| | (Student's Signature) (Date) |
| | _______ |
| | (Student's ID Number) |
| | (2) If an institution determines that an applicant is unable to appear in person to present an unexpired valid government-issued photo identification and execute the Statement of Educational Purpose, the applicant must provide the institution with— |
| | |
| | I certify that I _______ am |
| | (Print Student's Name) |
| | the individual signing this Statement of Educational Purpose and that the Federal student financial assistance I may receive will only be used for educational purposes and to pay the cost of attending _______ for 2024-2025. |
| | (Name of Postsecondary Educational Institution) |
| | _______ _______ |
| | (Student's Signature) (Date) |
| | _______ |
| | (Student's ID Number) |
The individual FAFSA items that an applicant must verify are based upon the Verification Tracking Group to which the applicant is assigned as outlined in the following chart.
| Verification | Verification tracking group name | FAFSA information required to be verified |
| --- | --- | --- |
| V1 | Standard Verification Group | |
| | | |
| | | |
| V2 | Reserved | N/A. |
| V3 | Reserved | N/A. |
| V4 | Custom Verification Group | • Identity/Statement of Educational Purpose. |
| V5 | Aggregate Verification Group | |
| | | |
| | | |
| V6 | Reserved | N/A. |
**Other Sources for Detailed Information**
We provide a more detailed discussion on the verification process in the following resources that will be available on the Knowledge Center web page at *https://fsapartners.ed.gov/knowledge-center:*
• *2024-2025 Application and Verification Guide.*
• *2024-2025 FAFSA Specifications Guide: Volume 6- ISIR Guide, Volume 7—Comment Codes.*
• *2024-2025 COD Technical Reference.*
• Program Integrity Information—Questions and Answers on Verification at *www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/reg/hearulemaking/2009/verification.html.*
*Accessible Format:* On request to the program contact person listed under *FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT* , individuals with disabilities can obtain this document in an accessible format. The Department will provide the requestor with an accessible format that may include Rich Text Format (RTF) or text format (txt), a thumb drive, an MP3 file, braille, large print, audiotape, or compact disc or other accessible format.
*Electronic Access to This Document:* The official version of this document is the document published in the *Federal Register* . You may access the official edition of the *Federal Register* and the Code of Federal Regulations at *www.govinfo.gov.* At this site you can view this document, as well as all other documents of this Department published in the *Federal Register* , in text or Portable Document Format (PDF). To use PDF, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available free at the site.
You may also access documents of the Department published in the *Federal Register* by using the article search feature at: *www.federalregister.gov.* Specifically, through the advanced search feature at this site, you can limit your search to documents published by the Department.
*Program Authority:* 20 U.S.C. 1070a, 1070b-1070b-4, 1087a-1087j, and 20 U.S.C. 1087-51—1087-58.
Nasser H. Paydar,
Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education.