The U.S. Department of Education (Department) announced today that it entered the final beta testing period of the 2025–26 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®), Beta 4, which will build on the successful results from the first three beta periods. Since Oct. 1, more than 14,000 students have successfully submitted their 2025–26 FAFSA forms. The Department has successfully processed the forms and sent over 81,000 records to more than 1,850 schools and 43 states. The Department has not found any critical bugs during the beta testing period, and the FAFSA system is working end-to-end. In addition, the Department has focused on addressing issues and improving the user experience in the application. Students and families are benefiting from these enhancements, leading to a satisfaction rating for beta participants of 95%.
Building on these efforts, before the end of the month, the Department will expand online beta testing to all students and families, consistent with industry best practices. The final testing period will have two phases: Beta 4 and Expanded Beta 4.
Beta 4: Throughout the beta testing period, the Department has worked with members of the college access and financial aid communities—community-based organizations, high schools, institutions of higher education, and others—to test the 2025–26 FAFSA form prior to its official release. Starting yesterday, thousands of additional students recruited by selected organizations and institutions have been able to complete and submit a 2025–26 FAFSA form as part of the Beta 4 testing period. Beta 4 builds on the work done in Beta 3 with a new group of students and contributors and through the same invite-only process the Department followed in the first three beta testing periods.
Expanded Beta 4: Before the end of the month, the Department will open Beta 4 to any interested student or family. This means that any individual who wants to access the online form as part of the Beta 4 testing period will be able to do so on the FAFSA website. During that time, the Department will continue to carefully monitor the FAFSA form, overall system performance, and support operations, such as our contact center, and adjust operations as needed. This will allow the Department to test the FAFSA system with higher volumes of users, while giving students an opportunity to submit online 2025–26 FAFSA forms before Dec. 1. The Department will continue to provide regular updates to users and stakeholders on Beta Central at fafsa.gov/beta.
Once the Department has determined that the FAFSA system is operating smoothly with high volumes of users, we will exit beta testing and announce the official release of the 2025–26 FAFSA form. As previously announced, this will happen by Dec. 1.
“More than 14,000 students have already submitted 2025–26 FAFSA forms, and we have successfully processed them and sent them to colleges, universities, and state agencies across the country,” said Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal. “Allowing more students to access the FAFSA form is the final state of beta testing as we prepare to officially launch the form no later than Dec. 1.”
Expanding Beta 4 to Interested Students and Contributors
Once the Department expands Beta 4 later this month, any student or contributor will be able to fill out and submit the online 2025–26 FAFSA form. Consistent with widespread software best practices, the FAFSA form will remain in beta while the Department monitors its performance under the increased test load. Just like other beta periods, the Department will process FAFSA forms and send them to institutions of higher education and states. Students who submit a FAFSA form during Beta 4 and Expanded Beta 4 will be able to make any needed corrections to the form after it is processed and will not need to submit a subsequent 2025–26 FAFSA form.
“Throughout weeks of beta testing, we have seen thousands of applicants successfully complete the 2025–26 FAFSA form and tens of thousands of records be sent to institutions across the country,” said FAFSA Executive Advisor Jeremy Singer. “And while we know that all new software launches come with hiccups, the consistency of the experience and the feedback of beta participants gives us confidence that the 2025–26 FAFSA form is ready to handle the large volume of applicants that await its arrival.”
The Department will make the decision to end the beta testing and announce the official release of the 2025–26 FAFSA form based on platform stability, customer satisfaction, and contact center capacity, no later than Dec. 1.
What Expanded Beta 4 Means for Students, Families, Institutions, and Other Partners
Students and contributors may choose to submit applications when the Expanded Beta 4 period opens, or they might choose to wait until the form is out of beta testing and officially released. Regardless of when they choose to submit an application, students and their contributors should sign up now for a StudentAid.gov account (also referred to as an FSA ID) if they do not already have one.
During the beta period, the Department has resolved a set of known issues and implemented fixes to further enhance the user experience and improve functionality of the FAFSA form. In addition, the Department has implemented a number of initiatives and released and updated additional resources and materials, including those listed below, to strengthen the user experience with the FAFSA form and process.
In addition to these efforts, the Department has significantly increased staffing for the Federal Student Aid contact center and will extend contact center hours to include evenings and Saturdays. However, we anticipate high demand when the form is initially opened during Expanded Beta 4 and when the FAFSA form is officially released. The Department will closely monitor traffic for both the FAFSA website and the contact center to ensure users get what they need to successfully complete and submit a FAFSA form. If users need additional assistance during this period, they may experience longer than usual wait times at the contact center.
The Department has recently released a suite of resources to assist students and families in completing and submitting the FAFSA form during the 2025–26 cycle. These include:
- “Creating Your StudentAid.gov Account” Page—A new resource that explains what families and partners need to know about creating a StudentAid.gov account.
- Pro Tips for Completing the FAFSA Form—Updated tips for preparing to fill out and submitting the FAFSA form. This resource will also be linked from the StudentAid.gov Dashboard to promote easier access for students and their required contributor(s).
- Federal Student Aid Estimator—Provides an estimate of the 2025–26 Student Aid Index (SAI) and Federal Pell Grant eligibility calculation.
- “Who’s the Parent on the FAFSA Form?” Wizard—A new, stand-alone tool to help students and families determine who will need to provide contributor information on the 2025–26 FAFSA form prior to starting the application.
- Federal Student Aid YouTube Channel: FAFSA Videos—Updated videos to help students and families understand the importance of the FAFSA form, who is a FAFSA contributor, and what happens after submitting the form.
Counselors, college access professionals, and other advisors may begin hearing from more students and families as Expanded Beta 4 opens. Throughout the fall, the Department has released resources to assist our partners in preparing for and navigating the 2025–26 FAFSA cycle, including a new counselor resource:
- 2025–26 Counselor Resource for Completing the FAFSA Form—Provides counselors and advisors with information and resources to help guide students and their families through the FAFSA form.
- 2025–26 FAFSA Roadmap—Highlights key dates for the FAFSA form launch, as well as timelines for the release of resources to assist our partners.
- 2025–26 FAFSA Preview Presentation—Provides financial aid administrators, advisors, and counselors with reference tools for staff trainings and financial aid nights. The presentation deck contains screenshots which highlight changes to the online 2025–26 FAFSA form.
- 2025–26 FAFSA Prototype—Provides the financial aid community an advance opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the FAFSA user experience ahead of its broad release.
Updated information and outreach tools for counselors, college access professionals, and other advisors may be found in the Financial Aid Toolkit.
Once the Expanded Beta 4 period opens, colleges and state agencies will likely begin receiving a higher volume of records than they did during the previous beta periods, and institutions that have not yet received records may begin receiving them. Additional resources and training to support the administration of federal student aid programs may be found on the Knowledge Center’s FAFSA Simplification Information page and more information about the implications of beta testing for institutions and states can be found here. Additionally, the Department will provide regular updates on Beta 4 and the Expanded Beta 4 testing period on Beta Central.
The beta testing period allows the Department to maximize a positive user experience, and the Department is grateful to all members of the financial aid community who are working with us during the beta testing period to help ensure a smooth FAFSA experience for the broader community.