Because the FAFSA Specifications Guides are such a useful tool, financial aid professionals will want to make note of several recent updates to both the 2025-26 and 2026-27 guides.
The Department of Education recently announced updates to several important volumes of the guides, such as Volume 5 – Edits and Rejects and Volume 6 – ISIR Guide.
For the 2025-26 FAFSA Specifications Guide, the following volumes were updated:
- 4B
- 5
- 6
- 7
In the 2026-27 FAFSA Specifications Guide, updates were made to the following volumes:
- 1
- 4B
- 5
- 6
- 7
More information on the updates is included in the Change History Table in each volume.
According to the Department of Education, the FAFSA Specifications Guide is designed to meet the reference needs of financial aid administrators (FAAs), programmers, data processing staff, and other partners of Federal Student Aid.
