N-400 Fee Waiver: Can You Apply for Citizenship for Free?

The standard fee to apply for U.S. citizenship (Form N-400) is $760 if filed on paper or $710 if filed online. But USCIS runs a genuine, well-established program that lets lower-income applicants pay less — or nothing at all — and a lot of eligible people don't realize it exists.

There are two separate tiers. The full fee waiver, requested using Form I-912, brings the cost to $0, and is available if your household income is at or below 150% of the federal poverty guidelines for your household size, if you or a household member currently receives a means-tested public benefit (Medicaid, SNAP, SSI, or similar), or if you can document financial hardship. The reduced fee tier brings the cost down to $380 instead of $760, and is available for household income at or below 400% of the federal poverty guidelines — a considerably higher bar than the full waiver, so many more applicants qualify for this tier even if they don't qualify for the full waiver.

For 2026, using the federal poverty guidelines for the 48 contiguous states and DC, 150% of the guideline for a single person is about $23,940 in annual income, and 400% is about $63,840 — both figures scale up with household size, adding roughly $8,520 (150% tier) or $22,720 (400% tier) per additional household member.

One filing detail worth knowing upfront: the reduced fee ($380 tier) is only available if you file Form N-400 on paper — it is not available through the online filing system. The full waiver via Form I-912 also requires paper filing. If saving money is the goal, don't use the online portal for this particular application.

A regulatory change is worth watching: in June 2026, the Department of Homeland Security published a proposed rule that would raise the standard N-400 fee to $1,330 and eliminate both the reduced fee and the fee waiver program entirely. As of now this is only a proposal, not a final rule, but it signals this could change — if you're close to filing and might qualify for a waiver or reduced fee, there's a reasonable argument for not delaying.