FAFSA contributor invite email never arrived after 2 months - completely stuck

same happened to my mom. check ur contact info on the fafsa. my moms email had a typo in it. fixed it n she got the invite like 10 min later

This is actually a surprisingly common issue with the 2025-2026 FAFSA. The contributor invite system has been glitchy since the new FAFSA Simplification Act implementation. Here are some things to try: 1. Have your contributor (dad) check ALL email folders including junk mail and clutter 2. Try using a different email address for your contributor - some email providers are blocking the FAFSA emails 3. Clear browser cache and cookies before resending the invite 4. Make sure your SAI (Student Aid Index) calculation preferences are set correctly 5. Check that your dad's FSA ID is properly linked in your application If none of that works, you'll need to contact Federal Student Aid directly. The phone wait times can be brutal though.

The whole contributor system is COMPLETELY BROKEN. I waited 6 weeks and gave up. Ended up having to start over with a completely new FAFSA account for both me AND my mom. Wasted so much time!!! The Department of Education knows this is happening and does NOTHING. So typical of the government to launch a "simplified" system that makes everything 100x harder. My friend's financial aid office told her almost half their applicants are having issues with contributor invites.

have u tried printing out the form and mailing it in? thats what we did lol

I had the exact same problem! Turned out our internet security settings were blocking the FAFSA emails from being delivered. My dad had to whitelist studentaid.gov and fsaid.ed.gov domains in his email security settings. After he did that, we resent the invite and it showed up within minutes. If your dad uses a work email, their IT security might be blocking it. Try having him contact his IT department to check.

After going through this nightmare myself, I finally got through to a FSA agent using Claimyr (claimyr.com). They have a video demo at https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ that shows how it works. Instead of waiting on hold for 3+ hours, I got a callback from a FAFSA agent who fixed the contributor invite issue on the spot. Turns out there was a system flag on our application that was preventing invites from being sent properly. The agent removed the flag and resent the invite while I was on the phone. My mom got it instantly!

Listen y'all FAFSA is driving me CRAZY to!!!! They keep sending emails about verification to me but when I log in theres NO verification needed!!!! But my SAI says "processing" for 6 weeks now!!!!! The whole system is garbage andit's like they dont WANT us to get financial aid!!!!

UPDATE: We finally figured it out! After trying Claimyr to get through to an actual FSA agent (thank you for that suggestion!), we discovered the problem. Apparently when we first created the FAFSA account, my dad used his email as both MY contact email AND his own email for the contributor section. The system was trying to send contributor emails to him but was flagging it as a potential duplicate/security issue. The agent had us change my contact email to a different one, and within 5 minutes of making that change, the contributor invite finally arrived! Such a dumb technical issue but at least it's resolved. For anyone else having this problem, check if you're using the same email in multiple places on your FAFSA!