New FAFSA Resources Available in Preparation for Dec. 1 Launch

To help colleges and universities with the upcoming full public release of the 2025-26 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), the Department of Education released two new resources and is hosting a webinar to assist stakeholders in planning and preparing for the December 1 launch date.

First is the FAFSA roadmap that provides details for stakeholders, students, and families on currently available and forthcoming resources, including when the new resources will be delivered.  According to the roadmap, the December release will include online and paper forms for the general public and incarcerated students. The FAFSA will allow for applications to be submitted to the Department, institutional student information records (ISIRs) to be processed and distributed to institutions, online student corrections, and manual institutional corrections via the FAFSA Partner Portal. Further functionality, including batch corrections, will be limited or deployed at a later date.

The Department also provided slides from its 2025-25 FAFSA preview presentation to help financial aid administrators and other stakeholders in preparing for the full release. The presentation provides details on various student application scenarios and multiple methods for contributors to submit corrections.

Finally, the Department is hosting a webinar, FAFSA: Preparing for 2025–26 and Updates on 2024–25, from 3:00-4:00 p.m. Eastern on Friday, Nov. 8. The webinar will provide current information about 2024–25 FAFSA processing, an update on the 2025–26 FAFSA Beta testing, and information to help partners prepare for the general availability of the 2025–26 FAFSA form by December 1.

All of these resources and more can be found on the Department’s new 2025-26 FAFSA resources repository.