Becoming a U.S. Citizen (Form N-400)

Am I Eligible?

Generally, you must have held a green card for 5 years (or 3 years if married to a U.S. citizen), meet continuous residence and physical presence requirements, and show good moral character.

How It Works

You file Form N-400 with USCIS, attend a biometrics appointment, and then an interview that includes the English and civics tests. If approved, you'll be scheduled for an oath ceremony — the final step to becoming a citizen.

What to Expect

Processing times vary by field office and change over time — see How Long It Takes, and Where to Check below for where to look up the current figure. Past issues, like a criminal record or long trips abroad, don't automatically disqualify you, but should be reviewed carefully beforehand so there are no surprises at your interview.

The Civics Test

Which version of the civics test applies depends on your filing date: applications filed on or after October 20, 2025 take the 2025 civics test, and those filed before that date take the 2008 version. Under the 2008 version you'll be asked up to 10 questions from a list of 100 and must answer 6 correctly; under the 2025 version it is 20 questions from a list of 128, with 12 correct to pass. See the N-400 Study Guide for the full breakdown. We help clients study with practice questions tailored to their situation.

The Eligibility Requirements, One at a Time

Naturalization has several separate requirements, and an applicant has to satisfy all of them. People usually focus on the first and are tripped by the others.

Permanent residence for the required period. Five years as a lawful permanent resident, or three years if you have been married to and living with the same U.S. citizen spouse for those three years and your spouse has been a citizen throughout.

Continuous residence. You must have maintained continuous residence in the United States for that whole period, which is a different question from how many days you were physically here.

Physical presence. You must have been physically present in the United States for at least half of the required period — at least 30 months out of five years, or at least 18 months out of three.

State residence. You must have lived in the state or USCIS district where you file for at least three months before filing.

Good moral character, English and civics, attachment to the Constitution, age 18 or older at filing, and willingness to take the oath of allegiance.

You may file up to 90 calendar days before you complete the required five or three years of permanent residence. Filing earlier than that gets the application rejected.

Continuous Residence Versus Physical Presence

These two requirements sound alike and are not, and confusing them is one of the more common ways a naturalization case goes wrong.

Physical presence is arithmetic: add up the days you were in the United States during the statutory period. Continuous residence is about whether you kept the United States as your home without interrupting the period through a long absence.

A single trip abroad lasting more than six months but less than a year creates a presumption that continuous residence was broken. That presumption can be rebutted with evidence that you kept your home, employment, family ties, and financial life in the United States — but it has to be rebutted, with documents.

A single absence of one year or more generally breaks continuous residence outright, which restarts the clock. There are narrow provisions for certain employment abroad, and they require advance approval rather than after-the-fact explanation.

This is why we ask for a complete travel history before filing. A long trip you have half-forgotten is much easier to plan around than to explain at an interview.

Good Moral Character, and What USCIS Looks At

Good moral character is assessed over the statutory period — five years, or three for spouses of citizens — but USCIS may consider conduct before that period when weighing the overall picture.

Some convictions are permanent bars to establishing good moral character. Others create a bar only if they fall within the statutory period. Many issues fall into neither category but still require careful handling, because the application asks about them directly.

The application asks about arrests and citations even where the charge was dismissed, expunged, or never prosecuted. Answer completely. USCIS runs background checks, and a nondisclosure is treated far more seriously than the underlying incident usually is.

Other recurring issues include failure to file tax returns or an unresolved tax debt, failure to pay court-ordered child support, and failure to register for Selective Service where it applied. None of these is automatically disqualifying, and all of them are better addressed before filing.

This is the part of a naturalization case worth a real consultation. An applicant who files without reviewing their own history is asking an officer to be the first person to examine it.

What the Process Looks Like Step by Step

File the N-400 with the required documentation and fee. USCIS issues a receipt notice.

Attend the biometrics appointment if one is scheduled, where fingerprints and a photograph are taken for background checks.

Expect a possible neighborhood investigation before your interview is scheduled. Since August 25, 2026 this is no longer routinely waived — see The Neighborhood Investigation, Reinstated in August 2026 below.

Attend the interview. An officer places you under oath, reviews your application with you question by question, and administers the English and civics tests. The speaking portion of the English test is judged by how you answer the officer's questions about your application, which is why re-reading your own filed N-400 beforehand matters.

Receive a decision. USCIS may grant the application, continue it — for a retest or for more evidence — or deny it. A denial can be appealed through a request for a hearing.

Take the oath of allegiance at a ceremony. You are not a citizen until the oath is administered, so any change in your circumstances between the interview and the ceremony must be reported. At the ceremony you surrender your green card and receive a Certificate of Naturalization.

Processing times vary by field office — see the next section for where to check the current figure rather than relying on a national estimate.

The Neighborhood Investigation, Reinstated in August 2026

In Policy Alert PA-2026-10, issued August 25, 2026, USCIS ended the general waiver of the personal investigations authorized by INA § 335(a) — long known as neighborhood investigations, and a practice legacy INS had abandoned by 1991. The guidance is effective immediately and applies to N-400s that were already pending as well as to new filings.

What it is. A USCIS investigator — a USCIS employee, not the FBI — may interview people who know you in the vicinity of your home and of your workplace or business: neighbors, landlords, local business owners, homeowners association representatives, supervisors, coworkers, clients. The investigator has to identify themselves as a USCIS employee and explain the purpose of the visit. The scope covers at least the five years before you filed, and USCIS may look at a longer period, or at time spent abroad, where the circumstances call for it.

Who gets one. USCIS decides case by case, and for whole classes of cases, whether to conduct an investigation or waive it, so not every applicant will see one. What changed is the default: from 1991 until now the waiver was effectively automatic, and going forward, unless USCIS waives it, the investigation applies and is generally completed before your interview is scheduled. An officer may also request one later, at any point before the oath.

Character reference letters. USCIS said applicants may voluntarily submit testimonial or character reference letters, and that it weighs them in deciding whether a waiver is appropriate. The letters should come from people who personally know you — preferably U.S. citizens, and specifically not immediate family or relatives, whose letters USCIS said it does not consider. Each should give the writer's name, contact information, and proof of their citizenship or status, describe the relationship and how long they have known you, give specific examples rather than generalities, and speak directly to your character and your attachment to the United States. USCIS said submitting at least two letters with the application can help it decide to waive an investigation, and that failing or refusing to provide them may contribute to a decision to conduct one.

What this does not mean. The letters are optional, and USCIS said their absence alone does not support a finding that you lack good moral character. An investigation is not an accusation, and USCIS cannot deny your case on derogatory information from one without telling you what it is and giving you a chance to answer it. The practical point is narrower, and it is the one worth acting on: the people around you may now be asked where you have lived, where you have worked, and how you conduct yourself, so the history on your N-400 should match the life the people around you would describe. If you have a pending N-400, this reaches your case too — it is worth a conversation about reference letters now rather than after an investigator has already come by.

What Filing Costs

Two separate costs run alongside each other, and they are worth keeping apart. The USCIS filing fee is a government fee, paid directly to USCIS with the application. Attorney fees are what you pay a firm for the work of preparing it. A fee waiver or reduced fee from USCIS lowers the first and has no effect on the second.

The N-400 filing fee is currently $760 filed on paper or $710 filed online. The current fee schedule does not list a separate biometric services fee for the N-400.

There is a reduced fee and there is a fee waiver, and they are different things. An applicant whose documented annual household income is not more than 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Guidelines may file at a reduced fee, currently $380, with supporting documentation. A separate fee waiver, requested on Form I-912, is available to certain applicants. Either request has to be filed on paper — you cannot file the N-400 online while asking for a reduced fee or a fee waiver.

There is no fee at all for an applicant who meets the requirements of INA sections 328 or 329 with respect to military service.

On the attorney side, our intake call is free, a full consultation with our attorney is a flat $125 credited toward your retainer if you hire us, and case work is quoted as a flat fee before you commit to anything. A naturalization case with a complicated travel history, a criminal record to document, or a good moral character issue to address is more work than a straightforward one, and the quote reflects that.

Fees current as of September 7, 2026, taken from the USCIS fee schedule (Form G-1055, edition 05/29/26) and uscis.gov/n-400 — confirm the current amount at uscis.gov/forms/filing-fees before filing.

How Long It Takes, and Where to Check

Naturalization timelines are field-office specific, which is why a figure a friend or a relative quotes is often nothing like the one that applies to you. USCIS publishes its own current processing times at egov.uscis.gov/processing-times, broken out by form and by the office handling the case, and that tool is the right place to look rather than a general estimate.

What moves the number: which field office has your case and how busy it is, whether the application is complete and internally consistent, whether background checks resolve promptly, and whether the case is continued — for a retest, for a document, or for something in your history that needs a closer look.

The wait is not one wait, either. Filing is followed by a receipt notice, a biometrics appointment if one is scheduled, the interview with the English and civics tests, a decision, and then a separate wait for an oath ceremony date. Each of those has its own queue at your office.

You may file up to 90 calendar days before you complete the required five or three years of permanent residence, and filing earlier than that gets the application rejected outright. We recommend checking the current figure for your own field office rather than relying on a number you read anywhere, including an older version of this page.

What Happens If Your Filing Is Incomplete

In Policy Alert PA-2026-05, issued August 5, 2026, USCIS restored its officers’ full discretion to deny a benefit request outright — without first issuing a Request for Evidence or a Notice of Intent to Deny — where the required initial evidence is not submitted or the record does not establish eligibility. USCIS stated that the guidance is effective immediately and applies to applications that were already pending as well as to new ones.

For a naturalization applicant, that means you are not entitled to a follow-up request. An officer may still send one, and often will, but the older expectation that a gap simply draws a request you can answer later is no longer the policy. A missing court disposition, an incomplete travel history, an unaddressed tax issue, or an unexplained long absence is a gap in the initial evidence, not a loose end to tidy up at the interview.

If a request does arrive, the window is narrower than it used to be. Twelve weeks is now the maximum an RFE response period may be rather than the default, an officer may set less, thirty days is the maximum for a Notice of Intent to Deny, and USCIS eliminated the extra 14 days it previously added for notices mailed to someone outside the United States. A response that answers a request only in part is treated as asking USCIS to decide on what it has.

A denied N-400 is not always the end of the road — a denial can be appealed through a request for a hearing, and in many situations an applicant can file again later. But it is a lost fee, a lost year, and a decision on the record. The way to avoid it is the same as it has always been, and now matters more: file complete the first time, with the documents that answer the questions the application asks.

Accommodations and Exceptions

The English requirement has age-and-residence exceptions. Applicants who meet certain combinations of age and years as a permanent resident may take the civics test in a language they speak, with an interpreter, and older long-term residents may qualify for a reduced set of civics questions. The N-400 Study Guide sets these out in detail.

A medical disability exception is available where a physical or developmental disability or mental impairment prevents an applicant from meeting the English or civics requirements. It requires certification from a qualifying medical professional and is submitted with the application.

Disability accommodations for the appointment itself — an interpreter, an accessible location, additional time — are requested separately and should be raised early rather than on the day.

Applicants with U.S. military service have their own provisions, including different residence and presence requirements in some circumstances.

Who This Guide Is Not For

This guide is for lawful permanent residents applying on their own. If your question is how to prepare for the English and civics tests specifically — which version applies to you, how scoring works, and how to study — see the N-400 Study Guide.

If you are not yet a permanent resident, naturalization is several steps away. See the green card process guide for what comes first.

If you hold a two-year conditional card through marriage, address the conditions first; time as a conditional resident does count toward naturalization, but the sequence matters and is worth planning. See the removal of conditions guide.

If you are a child of a U.S. citizen, or became a permanent resident as a child, you may already be a U.S. citizen without filing anything. That is a different analysis and a different form, and it is worth confirming before you file an N-400.