Washington (CNN) — The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as the FAFSA, officially opened Thursday for students seeking financial aid for college during the 2025-2026 school year.

The form traditionally opens on October 1, but the Department of Education delayed the release in an effort to avoid a repeat of last year’s rocky rollout after making significant updates to the application. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressed concern that the problems would prevent some low-income students from attending college at all.

Submitting the form is required for students to access federal Pell grants, student loans and other kinds of financial aid and is filled out by millions of people annually.

The department has been testing the 2025-26 form by allowing a limited number of students and families to submit the application since October 1. Officials had expected to officially release the form on December 1 but pushed up the opening date after conducting four testing phases.

“The results throughout the beta testing have been really encouraging,” said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on a call with reporters.

As of Tuesday morning, 167,000 applications had been successfully submitted.

“The 2025-26 FAFSA form is ready for prime time and is available both online and on paper,” Cardona said.

Earlier this week, both the Senate and the House of Representatives passed a bill that, if signed into law, will legally require the Department of Education to open the FAFSA form on October 1 each year going forward.

Updates to the FAFSA

Late last December, a new version of the FAFSA form – a culmination of changes approved by Congress in 2019 and 2020 – was released.

The changes make the FAFSA easier to fill out and deliver more financial aid to students and families, but the implementation was plagued with problems.

The botched rollout resulted in significant delays for students, many of whom were still waiting for financial aid award letters – which show how much they will have to pay for college – when trying to decide where to enroll for the coming fall.

An earlier analysis from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found that FAFSA submissions were down 3%, or by 432,000, compared with the year before as of late August – when most college fall terms begin – and that the drop in applications was the largest for low-income students.

The Department of Education has said that the submissions gap fell to about 2% in September and that more students qualified for Pell grants, which are awarded to the lowest-income students.

Many students whose parents do not have Social Security numbers experienced challenges submitting the 2024-25 form as they waited for the government to verify their identity through other means.

Now, those students are allowed to submit the 2025-26 FAFSA even if their parent’s identity has yet to be verified.

How to submit the FAFSA

Before submitting the FAFSA through the Federal Student Aid website, a student must create a username and password with Federal Student Aid, known as an FSA ID. Parents of dependent students must also create an FSA ID and fill out a portion of the application.

The number of questions on the FAFSA vary by applicant, based on his or her financial circumstance, but there are roughly two-thirds fewer questions as of last year’s form than in previous years.

It’s easier to fill out than in years past because some information is now directly taken from a filer’s tax return so that an applicant won’t have to go hunting for information. Additionally, a handful of questions have been eliminated on the updated form.

It’s expected to take most people less than an hour to fill out the FAFSA form, including gathering any information needed to complete it.

The Department of Education has added 700 agents to its contact center since January and will add 225 more over the next few weeks to help support students and families submit the form. It also added extended FAFSA-only weeknight and Saturday contact center hours.

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