FAFSA contributor section confusion - should I send second spouse invite when we file married filing separately?

im in the same boat! we file separate too and the system is super confusing. i invited my wife twice and then the whole application crashed lol. had to start over. frustraaating

This is actually a common issue with the redesigned FAFSA for married couples filing separately. Here's what's happening: When your son invited both parents, the system registered both of you as contributors. However, the form is designed for the first parent who completes their section to also confirm their spouse's information. Do NOT send another invite to your spouse. Since your son already invited him, he should have his own separate invitation link in his email. You should complete your section fully, including indicating that you're married filing separately, then your spouse should complete his section using his original invitation link. The system sometimes shows the 'invite spouse' prompt regardless of whether they've been invited already. If you send a duplicate invite, it can indeed cause problems with the SAI calculation as the system might count your spouse's income twice.

WAIT do NOT ignore that prompt! The system needs both invites sometimes. My situation was identical - married filing separately - and when we ignored that second invite prompt, my daughter's application was flagged for verification which delayed her aid by over 2 months!!! The financial aid officer told us it's because the system needs explicit linkage between spouses which sometimes doesn't happen with the student's original invites. Better safe than sorry!!!

I work with financial aid applications daily, and this is actually a known issue with the current FAFSA system. Here's the definitive answer: 1. Do NOT send a second invite to your spouse if your student already invited them 2. When completing your section, you MUST indicate that you file taxes as 'Married Filing Separately' 3. Your spouse must use their original invitation link (check email) 4. Both of you need to complete your sections independently What's happening is that the FAFSA system isn't always recognizing that both spouses have already been invited by the student. The second prompt is appearing automatically because you selected 'Married Filing Separately' - it's essentially a system glitch. If you send a second invite, it can potentially cause duplicate contributor records that have to be manually resolved later, often triggering verification.

Has anyone else been trying to reach the Federal Student Aid helpline about these contributor issues? I was on hold for almost 2 hours yesterday and then got disconnected. So frustrating when you just need a simple answer!

my cousins wife werks for the financial aid office at his college and she says the whole married filing separately thing is a total mess this year. apparently like half the applications with this tax status are getting stuck in processing for extra verification. good luck lol

As a follow-up to my earlier comment, I'd recommend taking screenshots of each completed section as you go. The FAFSA system has been known to lose data for married filing separately contributors specifically. Having documentation of what you submitted can make resolving issues much faster if they occur. Also, once both you and your spouse have completed your sections, have your son log back in to review and confirm all the information is there before final submission. There should be two distinct contributor sections showing complete. If one is missing or shows as incomplete, that's when you'd want to contact support.

update on my situation - we finally got it to work!! both me and wife used our ORIGINAL invite links from our daughter, and we both checked the married filing separately box. it looked weird at first but when our daughter reviewed the final application it showed both our incomes correctly. her SAI just came back yesterday and it looks right based on our incomes