How to Report Parent Tax Information on the FAFSA

To report parent tax information on the FAFSA for the 2026–27 school year, you’ll use figures from the 2024 federal tax return of whichever parent counts as a contributor under federal rules. In most cases those numbers move from the IRS into the form automatically once each contributor consents. Getting this right depends on three things: knowing which parent has to be listed, having the right 2024 tax documents on hand, and making sure every contributor signs in and gives consent.¹

Which Parent Has to Be on the Form

Federal law, not the family’s preference, decides whose income appears on the FAFSA.² The FAFSA calls anyone required to provide consent and sign the form a “contributor.”³

Married parents who are not separated: both parents’ income and assets are included. If they filed jointly, one parent acts as the contributor. If they filed separately, both are listed as contributors.⁴
Unmarried parents living together: treated the same as married parents. Both count.
Divorced or separated parents: the parent who provided the greater share of financial support reports. This replaced the older rule about which parent the student lived with most.³
Remarried parent: if the parent who provides greater support has remarried, the stepparent’s income is also reported and the stepparent becomes a contributor.²
Widowed parent: the surviving parent reports as a single parent. If both parents are deceased, no parental information is reported.

Whether a parent actually plans to help pay for college has no bearing on this. If the rules identify them, their tax information is required.

The Tax Year and What to Gather

The 2026–27 FAFSA uses 2024 tax information.¹ The FAFSA always looks at the “prior-prior year,” so the IRS has already finalized the return by the time the form asks for it.

Pull out the 2024 Form 1040 (or 1040-NR for a nonresident filer) and any Schedules 1, 3, or C the household filed. W-2s and 1099s are useful for cross-checking, but they aren’t submitted with the FAFSA.

How the Numbers Get onto the Form

You almost never type tax figures into the FAFSA. The FUTURE Act created the Direct Data Exchange, a channel that lets the IRS send return data straight to the Department of Education.⁵ The form pulls the figures automatically once each contributor gives permission.

Every contributor needs their own StudentAid.gov account to sign in and provide consent.⁶ The form asks each contributor to agree to two things: sharing identifying information (name, Social Security number, date of birth) with the IRS, and letting the Department of Education receive and use the tax data that comes back. Both are required.¹

If the IRS can’t match a contributor’s records, or if the filing is unusual (a foreign return, for example), the FAFSA falls back to manual entry. You transcribe the figures from your return into the corresponding fields. Manually entered data is more likely to draw follow-up review, so it’s worth making sure the name, SSN, and date of birth you enter match IRS records exactly before assuming the transfer failed.

Which Line Items the FAFSA Pulls

The form doesn’t use every number on the return. These are the specific 2024 Form 1040 fields it looks at:¹

Adjusted Gross Income, line 11.
Income tax paid, line 24.
Income earned from work, line 1z plus Schedule 1 lines 3 and 6.
Tax-exempt interest, line 2a.li>
Untaxed IRA distributions, line 4a minus line 4b (rollovers are reported separately).
Untaxed pensions, line 5a minus line 5b.
Education credits, line 29 plus Schedule 3 line 3.
IRA deductions and self-employment retirement contributions, Schedule 1 lines 16 and 20 combined.
Net business profit or loss, Schedule C line 31.
Foreign earned income exclusion, Schedule 1 line 8d.
Earned Income Credit, line 27.

The form also checks whether Schedules A, B, D, E, F, or H were filed, because that indicator affects which formulas apply to the Student Aid Index.

Reporting Assets Alongside the Tax Data

The FAFSA asks about current assets as of the day you fill it out, not the tax year.

Report cash, savings, and checking balances, and the net worth of investments including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, CDs, and any real estate other than the home you live in. Vacation homes and rental property count. Net worth is the current value minus debt owed against the asset.⁷

Don’t report the primary home, retirement accounts (401(k), pension, IRA, annuity), or life insurance. Those are excluded regardless of value.⁷

A family-owned business or farm is excluded from reportable assets if the family controls more than 50% of voting rights, the business has 100 or fewer full-time employees, and the family actively operates it. Farms where the family lives are also excluded. Income paid out of the business still shows up on the tax return and still counts toward AGI. If a business or farm doesn’t meet those tests, report its net worth; if that net worth is negative, enter zero.⁸

Some families never see the asset questions at all. If the student qualifies for the maximum Pell Grant, or the parents’ combined AGI is under $60,000 with no Schedules A, B, D, E, F, or H, or a household member received a means-tested federal benefit like SNAP, Medicaid, or SSI in the last two years, the form skips the asset section automatically.

If a Parent Didn’t File a 2024 Return

A non-filing parent still has to consent to the IRS data exchange so the system can confirm no return exists.¹ The form asks the parent to pick a reason: filed in a U.S. territory, filed a foreign return, worked for an international organization, earned below the IRS filing threshold, or had no income. A parent with foreign earned income and no foreign return will enter income manually. If the reason given doesn’t match what the IRS shows, the school’s aid office typically flags the discrepancy and asks for documentation.

If a Parent Won’t Consent

Consent isn’t optional under the current rules. If any required contributor refuses to consent to the IRS data exchange, the application is rejected and the student loses eligibility for all federal student aid, including unsubsidized loans.⁶ A contributor can enter figures manually instead of relying on the automatic transfer, but the consent itself still has to be granted or the form won’t process.⁹

For a parent who is estranged, incarcerated, or otherwise unreachable, contact the college’s financial aid office. In unusual circumstances a school can grant a dependency override that removes the parental reporting requirement, but that decision is made at the school with documentation.

When 2024 Doesn’t Look Like Today

The 2024 return might not reflect the household’s current reality. Job loss, divorce, large medical bills, and similar changes are handled through a process called professional judgment.¹⁰ Every school is required to have one and to tell students it exists.

File the FAFSA with the 2024 data first. Then contact each school’s aid office to ask about a special circumstances review, with supporting documents ready: termination letters, unemployment records, divorce paperwork, medical bills. Each school decides independently, so outcomes can differ across schools even for the same student.

After You Submit: Verification

Once every contributor has signed, the form processes and the student gets a FAFSA Submission Summary with a preliminary Student Aid Index.

Some applications are pulled for verification, where the aid office confirms the reported figures.¹¹ Tax data that came through the Direct Data Exchange is already treated as verified, so no additional tax documents are needed for those items unless a contributor filed an amended return after the transfer.¹² For items outside the DDX, like assets or household size, the school sets its own deadline for documents. Miss it and the school can’t disburse federal aid until you comply.

Deadline

The federal deadline for the 2026–27 FAFSA is June 30, 2027, with corrections accepted through September 12, 2027.¹³ State aid programs and individual colleges usually close much earlier, and many distribute aid on a first-come, first-served basis, so filing near the federal deadline puts a student at the back of the line.

1
Federal Student Aid. Filling Out the FAFSA Form
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 20 USC 1087oo – Student Aid Index for Dependent Students
3
Federal Student Aid. Key Terms, Definitions, and Systems Related to FAFSA Simplification and FUTURE Acts
4
Federal Student Aid. Completing the FAFSA Form – Steps for Parents
5
Federal Student Aid. Data Sharing for a Better Customer Experience
6
Federal Student Aid. FAFSA Checklist – What Students Need
7
Federal Student Aid. How Do I Answer the Current Net Worth of Investments, Including Real Estate Question
8
Federal Student Aid. How Do I Answer the Current Net Worth of Businesses and Farms Question
9
Federal Student Aid. FAFSA Simplification Act Changes for Implementation in 2024-25
10
Federal Student Aid. Special Cases
11
eCFR. 34 CFR Part 668 Subpart E – Verification and Updating of Student Aid Application Information
12
Federal Student Aid. 2025-26 FAFSA Verification-Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Tax Return Transcript Matrix
13
Federal Student Aid. State FAFSA Deadlines