N-400 Naturalization Processing Times 2026

Eligibility basics: the 5-year and 3-year rules

Most lawful permanent residents (LPRs) become eligible to file N-400 after five years as a green-card holder. That five-year window is the default path and the one most applicants follow. To qualify, you must be at least 18 years old at the time of filing, have continuously resided in the United States as an LPR for the five years immediately preceding the application, and have been physically present in the country for at least 30 of those 60 months.

The 3-year rule is a shorter path for the spouse of a U.S. citizen. To use it, you must have been an LPR for at least three years, have been married to and living with the same U.S. citizen spouse for those entire three years, and the spouse must have been a U.S. citizen for the same period. If the marriage ends — through death, divorce, or separation — before naturalization, you generally fall back to the five-year rule. Physical presence under the 3-year path is 18 months out of the 36.

USCIS lets you file up to 90 days before reaching your eligibility date, which is useful because it lets the agency start working on background checks before the clock fully runs.

Continuous residence vs. physical presence

These two requirements sound similar but mean very different things, and confusing them is one of the most common reasons applicants are denied or have to refile.

Continuous residence measures whether you have maintained the United States as your primary home as an LPR. It is broken by absences abroad of certain lengths:

• A single trip of more than six months but less than one year creates a rebuttable presumption that continuous residence has been broken. You can overcome it with evidence — maintained U.S. home, ongoing employment, family ties, tax filings as a U.S. resident — but the burden is on you.
• A single trip of one year or more almost always breaks continuous residence unless you preserved it in advance by filing Form N-470 (typically only available for certain employment situations).
• Breaking continuous residence resets the clock. Depending on the circumstances, you may need to wait an additional 4 years and 1 day (under the 5-year rule) or 2 years and 1 day (under the 3-year rule) after returning before you can refile.

Physical presence is the simpler concept — actual days spent inside the United States. You need 30 months (913 days) out of the last 60 under the 5-year rule, or 18 months (548 days) out of the last 36 under the 3-year rule. Officers count this by reviewing the trip history you list on the application, cross-checked against CBP entry/exit records.

Good moral character

USCIS must conclude that you have shown good moral character during the relevant statutory period — five years for the standard path, three years for the spouse-of-citizen path — and that nothing in your earlier history disqualifies you. You are required to disclose older issues as well; officers can and do consider conduct before the statutory window when deciding character.

Some issues are permanent statutory bars. Others create rebuttable concerns:

• Most aggravated felonies and any murder conviction are permanent bars to naturalization.
• Two or more convictions for controlled substance offenses, a single conviction for an aggravated felony at any time after 1990, and certain crimes of moral turpitude during the statutory period can disqualify outright.
• False claims to U.S. citizenship — for example, on a job application, a voter registration form, or at the border — are an extremely serious issue and often disqualifying.
• Failure to file required tax returns, owed and unpaid taxes, or willful failure to support dependents can each weigh against good moral character.
• Failure to register with the Selective Service (for males who were required to — see Section 11 below) can be a character issue if it occurred during the statutory period.

English and civics tests

Two tests are administered during the naturalization interview. Both must be passed unless you qualify for an exemption.

English

The English requirement has three components. Speaking is evaluated informally by the officer during the interview itself — based on your ability to understand and respond to questions about your application. Reading requires you to read one of three sentences aloud correctly. Writing requires you to write one of three sentences correctly. The vocabulary is drawn from a published list focused on civics terms.

Civics

The civics test draws from a pool of 100 questions about U.S. history and government, all publicly available on the USCIS website. During the interview, the officer asks up to 10 of them orally and you must answer 6 correctly to pass. The test stops as soon as you reach 6 correct answers, so a confident start can mean you finish in a minute or two.

Age and residence exemptions

• 50/20 rule: 50 or older at filing and an LPR for at least 20 years — exempt from the English requirement, but still take the civics test (in a language of your choice, with an interpreter).
• 55/15 rule: 55 or older at filing and an LPR for at least 15 years — also exempt from English, still take the civics test in your language.
• 65/20 rule: 65 or older at filing and an LPR for at least 20 years — exempt from English, and take a shorter civics test of 20 designated questions (must get 6 of 10 asked correct).

A medical disability exemption (Form N-648, signed by a licensed medical professional) is also available for applicants who cannot meet the requirements because of a physical, developmental, or mental condition.

Filing the N-400

Under the 2024 USCIS fee rule, the filing fee is $760 for paper submissions and $710 for online submissions. The biometric services fee is now included in the filing fee — there is no separate $85 charge. Reduced and waived fees remain available for applicants who qualify based on income.

USCIS strongly encourages online filing through a myUSCIS account. Online filings tend to be processed slightly faster, generate digital receipts immediately, and make it easier to respond to requests for evidence and to track case status. Paper filings remain accepted, but you should expect a longer mail-and-data-entry lag before your receipt notice arrives.

You can submit the application up to 90 days before reaching your five-year (or three-year) anniversary as an LPR. Filing earlier than the 90-day window will result in a denial — and a lost filing fee — so check the math carefully against the "Resident Since" date on your green card before submitting.

Current processing time ranges (2026)

For live, office-specific numbers, see our N-400 processing times page, which pulls the USCIS published median and 80th-percentile ranges for each field office.

The high-level picture in 2026 is encouraging. USCIS prioritized N-400 adjudications starting in late 2022, and the agency has reported the national median for naturalization completion falling from over 14 months at the height of the post-pandemic backlog to roughly 5 to 6 months in many field offices through 2024 and 2025. That improvement has held into 2026.

The catch is wide variance by field office. Faster offices are routinely closing cases inside four months from receipt to oath. Slower offices — particularly some high-volume metros and offices that absorbed transferred caseload — still post ranges in the 9-to-14-month range. Always check the published number for the specific field office that covers your residential address.

For background on what those published ranges actually measure, see our companion guide on how USCIS processing times work.

Biometrics

Since 2021, USCIS has reused biometrics from earlier filings — typically the fingerprints captured during the I-485 green-card process — for most N-400 applicants. If your biometrics are still on file and current, you will not be scheduled for a new appointment, which removes a step that used to add four to eight weeks to the timeline.

Some applicants do still receive a biometrics appointment notice. This usually happens when prior fingerprints have expired, when there is a quality issue with the earlier capture, or when the system simply does not find a match. If you receive a notice, the appointment itself is short — 15 to 30 minutes at an Application Support Center.

The N-400 interview

The naturalization interview is the heart of the process. It typically lasts 15 to 30 minutes and is conducted in person at the field office that covers your address. The officer will swear you in, review your application page by page, administer the English and civics tests, and look at any supporting documents you brought (passport, tax transcripts, marriage and divorce records, court dispositions if relevant).

At the end, the officer issues a Form N-652, Notice of Examination Results, with one of three possible outcomes:

• Recommended for approval. The most common outcome for prepared applicants. You either take the oath the same day (more on this below) or receive a separate oath notice in the mail.
• Continued. The officer needs additional evidence, a second interview, or wants you to retake a test. Continuations are common and not by themselves bad news, but they add weeks to months to the timeline.
• Denied. Issued in a written decision that explains the basis. You can appeal an N-400 denial by filing Form N-336 within 30 days for a hearing before a different officer.

The oath ceremony

Approval at the interview does not by itself make you a citizen — taking the Oath of Allegiance does. There are two routes.

Administrative oath ceremonies are run by USCIS itself, often at the field office. At many offices, if you pass your interview in the morning, you can be sworn in at a small ceremony that same afternoon. At other offices, an administrative ceremony is scheduled separately, typically 2 to 6 weeks after the interview.

Judicial oath ceremonies are conducted in federal court before a judge. They tend to be larger, more formal events and are required in jurisdictions where the local court has reserved exclusive oath authority for itself. The wait for a scheduled judicial ceremony can run from a few weeks to a few months, depending on the court's calendar.

At the ceremony, you turn in your green card, take the oath, and receive a Certificate of Naturalization (Form N-550). The certificate is the official proof of citizenship and the document you will use to apply for a U.S. passport, register to vote, and update Social Security records.

Common reasons for denial or delay

• Failing the English or civics test. You are entitled to one retake, scheduled 60 to 90 days after the first attempt. Failing the retake results in denial.
• Good moral character issues. Undisclosed arrests, recent DUIs, domestic-violence allegations, and tax problems are all common bases for denial.
• Abandonment of LPR status. Long trips abroad, failure to file resident-status tax returns, and indicators that you have established your primary residence in another country can all be characterized as abandonment.
• Failure to demonstrate continuous residence or physical presence. Recordkeeping matters. Officers will compare your stated trip history against CBP entry/exit records, and discrepancies trigger further scrutiny.
• Tax compliance failures. Unfiled returns or owed and unpaid taxes are flagged regularly. The fix is usually to file what is missing and to enter a payment plan with the IRS before the interview.
• Selective Service issues for males in the required age window. See the next section.

The Selective Service registration issue

U.S. law requires nearly all male U.S. residents — including most LPRs — to register with the Selective Service System between the ages of 18 and 26. The obligation applies to males born in the United States and to those who became LPRs before turning 26. If you became an LPR after age 26, you were never required to register and this is not an issue.

For N-400 purposes, a failure to register is most consequential if it occurred during the statutory good-moral-character period (the last five or three years). If you should have registered and did not, and you are still under 26, register immediately at sss.gov before filing.

If you are over 26 and failed to register, you can request a Status Information Letter from the Selective Service that documents your situation. Combined with a written statement explaining the failure was not willful and a good track record since, USCIS can and often does waive the issue, particularly when the failure fell outside the statutory period.

Travel during the N-400 process

International travel while your N-400 is pending is generally fine. You are still an LPR with full travel rights, and a pending naturalization application does not by itself restrict you. There are two things to watch.

First, the continuous-residence rules still apply. A trip of more than six months during the pending period can break continuous residence and disqualify you, even after filing. Plan trips so that no single absence reaches the 180-day mark.

Second, keep careful travel records. Save boarding passes, take photos of passport stamps, and reconcile your records against CBP's I-94 travel history (available online). At the interview, you may be asked to update your trip list, and being able to do that accurately matters.

Renewing your green card while N-400 is pending

Your green card carries an expiration date independent of your naturalization application. If it is going to expire while N-400 is pending, you have two options.

The first is to file Form I-90 to renew the green card. This is the safer option if you have any meaningful international travel planned, because an unexpired card avoids confusion at re-entry.

The second is to request an ADIT stamp ("I-551 stamp") in your passport from your local USCIS field office. The stamp serves as temporary evidence of LPR status and is generally valid for one year. USCIS has also been sending automatic 24-month extension notices for N-400 applicants whose green cards are expiring; the extension notice plus the expired card is sufficient evidence of status in most situations.

Whatever you choose, do not let your green card go fully expired without documentation. Employers running E-Verify checks and airlines verifying travel documents will not accept an expired card alone.

What U.S. citizenship gets you

• Voting in federal elections. Only U.S. citizens can vote in federal elections and most state and local ones.
• A U.S. passport. Generally one of the more travel-friendly passports, and the legal right to enter the United States without further inspection.
• Protection from deportation. Citizens cannot be removed from the country. Denaturalization is possible but rare and requires fraud in the naturalization process itself.
• Faster family sponsorship. U.S. citizens can sponsor spouses, parents, and unmarried children under 21 with no annual visa cap — these are "immediate relatives" and avoid the long preference-category waits.
• Federal employment eligibility. Many federal jobs, security clearances, and certain contractor positions require U.S. citizenship.
• Eligibility for most elected office. You can run for and hold most public offices. The presidency and vice presidency remain reserved for natural-born citizens.
• Jury duty. This is an obligation rather than a benefit, but it comes with citizenship.

N-400 vs. N-600 vs. N-600K

All three forms relate to U.S. citizenship, but they serve very different purposes. Picking the right one matters because filing the wrong form delays your case by months.

• N-400 is the application for naturalization — the process of an LPR becoming a U.S. citizen. This is the form covered in this guide.
• N-600 is an application for a Certificate of Citizenship for someone who is already a U.S. citizen by operation of law — typically someone who acquired or derived citizenship automatically through a U.S.-citizen parent. You do not become a citizen by filing N-600; you document the citizenship you already have.
• N-600K is for children who are not yet U.S. citizens but who qualify to be naturalized through a U.S.-citizen parent while still living abroad. It involves bringing the child to the U.S. for the interview and oath. It is more common for U.S.-citizen parents working overseas or in the military.

If you are not sure which applies, the simplest test is your starting point. If you are an LPR seeking to become a citizen, it is N-400. If you believe you are already a citizen through a parent, it is N-600. If you are a U.S. citizen parent with a child abroad who needs to be naturalized, it is N-600K.