Federal Student Aid has updated volumes on the 2027–28 FAFSA Specifications Guide.
FSA has updated Volumes 1, 4A, 4B, 5, 6, and 7 and the Excel version of the ISIR record layout. For complete information, review the Change History Table in each volume and the “Changes” column in the Excel file.
The FAFSA Specifications Guide is designed to meet the reference needs of financial aid administrators, programmers, data processing staff, and other FSA partners who want to incorporate electronic FAFSA functionality into their institutional systems and communicate electronically with the FAFSA Processing System. It includes FAFSA-related processing information and guidance in a multi-volume resource.
FSA will continue to post revised versions of volumes throughout the processing cycle to implement new requirements or address issues in earlier published drafts. To assist in tracking these changes, FSA includes a “Change History Table” in each volume to outline changes made to the volume over time, after its initial publication.
Current available volumes:
- Introduction
- Volume 1 – Summary of Changes
- Volume 2 – FPS Schedule and Getting Help
- Volume 3 – Electronic Data Exchange and FAFSA Processing
- Volume 4A – Record Layouts
- Volume 4B – Processing Codes
- Volume 5 – Edits and Rejects
- Volume 6 – ISIR Guide
- Volume 7- Comment Codes
- Volume 8 – Agency Matches
- Volume 9 – Testing