FSA has announced the availability of the updated NSLDS Transfer Student Monitoring & Financial Aid History User Guide and Record Layouts.
The user guide provides step-by-step instructions for using Transfer Student Monitoring (TSM) online, describes how to request Financial Aid History (FAH), and includes detailed information about the TSM/FAH batch process.
The updated manual, dated September 2026, replaces the March 2026 version. Refer to the “What’s New” section for a description of the recent changes, which were made to address an issue that was preventing NSLDS from processing some FAH output requests. An August 28, 2026, Electronic Announcement (GENERAL-26-52) detailed more information about the issue and its resolution.
FSA released an update on Sept. 16, 2026 providing additional clarification: “We would like to clarify an important detail regarding the Aug. 28, 2026, updates for error code 104 005. Although we revised the NSLDS logic that determines when users receive the error code, the code itself was not eliminated. NSLDS no longer generates error code 104 005 based on the value entered in the “Servicer Code” field (positions 56–63) in the header record of the TSM/FAH batch inform file. However, if a school reports that a third-party servicer requests and receives the school’s TSM/FAH files, NSLDS will still produce error code 104 005 if the TG mailbox provided is not associated with a valid, active servicer TG mailbox. To reflect this, we reinstated error code 104 005 in Section 7.2.4, Error and Warning Codes, of this user guide, along with an updated description.”