Do both parents need to complete FAFSA when filing taxes jointly?

Good question! For the 2025-2026 FAFSA, only ONE parent needs to complete the FAFSA when you file jointly. Your son (the student) will create his own FSA ID and fill out his portion, and only one parent needs to create an FSA ID to complete the parent section. The parent who provides more financial support to the student generally completes it, but it can be either parent when you file jointly. Just make sure whoever does it has their FSA ID, Social Security number, and your 2023 tax information ready.

wen we did my kids form last month the fafsa system kept crashin when my husband tried logging in so i just did it myself. doesnt really matter which parent does it as long as u filed jointly, the system sees the same income either way

One important thing to remember: The parent who creates an FSA ID and completes the FAFSA will need to be the one who signs any future financial aid documents or makes corrections. So choose the parent who's most likely to handle financial aid matters going forward. Also, when entering tax information, you'll need to enter the AGI (Adjusted Gross Income) from your joint return, not just one parent's income. This is a common mistake that can cause verification issues later.

same question i had. thanks for asking!

I went through this exactly 3 weeks ago with my son's FAFSA. Only ONE parent needs to create an FSA ID, but here's what no one tells you - make sure you write down which email address and password you use! My wife started the process, forgot her password, got locked out, and we had to start over with my FSA ID instead. Complete nightmare. Also, if you struggle to reach someone at Federal Student Aid when you have questions (which you probably will), I recently discovered a service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that helped me get through to an actual human at the FAFSA helpline in under 5 minutes instead of waiting on hold for hours. They have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ Saved me so much frustration when we had questions about the parent contribution section.

As someone who used to work in a financial aid office, there's another reason to choose carefully which parent completes the FAFSA. If your student might need to apply for a Parent PLUS loan later, it's usually easier if the same parent who completed the FAFSA applies for the PLUS loan. Not required, but makes the process smoother.

THE WHOLE SYSTEM IS DESIGNED TO BE CONFUSING ON PURPOSE!! I'm convinced they hope people just give up. My daughter's going to her second year and I STILL don't understand half the terminology. What even IS an SAI score and why does it seem totally unrelated to our actual ability to pay?? Sorry for the rant but the married filing jointly question is just the tip of the iceberg of FAFSA confusion.

my sister told me both parents had to make separate accounts and do separate forms even tho they file together and now im wondering if thats why her kids fafsa took so long to process?????

Thank you all so much for the helpful information! I'm going to create an FSA ID today and get started on our portion of the application. I'll make sure to use our joint AGI from our 2023 tax return and keep track of my login credentials. I feel much more confident about the process now!

Great to see you got all the answers you needed! Just want to add one quick tip from my recent experience - when you're entering your tax information, have your actual 2023 tax return handy rather than relying on memory. The FAFSA asks for very specific line items from your 1040, and getting even one number wrong can trigger verification requests later. Also, if you haven't already, make sure your son has his Social Security card accessible too - the system is pretty picky about exact name matches. Good luck with the application!

Just wanted to chime in as someone who completed this process last month! One thing that really helped us was setting up a shared document with all the information we'd need before starting - things like our FSA ID credentials, 2023 AGI, bank account balances, and my daughter's Social Security number. Having everything in one place made the process much smoother and we didn't have to stop mid-application to hunt down documents. Also, don't panic if you see different SAI numbers when you're comparing with other families - every situation is unique and the formula considers things like family size and number of kids in college simultaneously. The whole process took us about 45 minutes once we had everything organized. You've got this!