If your FAFSA was selected for verification, the single most useful thing on your FAFSA Submission Summary is a short code: V1, V4, or V5. That code — your “verification tracking group” — tells you exactly what you have to prove, so you’re not guessing at documents. For the 2026-27 award year, V1 means income and household, V4 means identity only, and V5 means both. Here’s what each one requires and who provides it.
What is a FAFSA verification tracking group?
A verification tracking group is the code the Department of Education assigns when it selects your FAFSA for verification — it defines which categories of information your school must confirm before paying out aid. For 2026-27 there are three active groups: V1 (income and household), V4 (identity), and V5 (both). The code travels on your record and dictates your entire document list.
You don’t choose your group, and your school doesn’t either. Selection and group assignment happen at the federal level, in the FAFSA Processing System (FPS). When you’re selected, the 2026-27 Application and Verification Guide (AVG), Chapter 4 explains, the Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR) your school receives carries a verification tracking flag plus a group code. That same code is printed on the FAFSA Submission Summary you can see yourself. Knowing your group first keeps you from gathering documents you’ll never be asked for.
Where do you find your tracking group?
Look on your FAFSA Submission Summary for a verification tracking flag and a group code reading V1, V4, or V5. The identical code is on the ISIR your college receives, so if you can’t locate it on your own summary, your financial aid office can read it directly off your file in about a minute.
There are only three groups you’ll actually be placed in for 2026-27: V1, V4, and V5. Groups V2, V3, and V6 are reserved and are not being assigned, so you’ll never see them on a current form. If a guide, forum post, or template references one of those codes, it’s outdated — for this award year, every selected applicant lands in V1, V4, or V5.
The V1, V4, and V5 tracking groups at a glance
The table below summarizes what each 2026-27 group verifies, the documents you typically submit, and who provides or signs them. All three rows reflect the requirements set out in the 2026-27 AVG, Chapter 4.
| Tracking group | What it verifies | Documents you submit | Who signs / provides |
|---|---|---|---|
| V1 — Standard | Income and family size: adjusted gross income, income earned from work, U.S. income tax paid, untaxed IRA/pension portions, education credits, tax-exempt interest, and family size | Signed school verification worksheet; tax data (often none if you consented to the IRS FA-DDX transfer); otherwise an IRS Tax Return Transcript or signed 1040; non-filers add a non-filing statement + W-2s | Student and parent contributor sign the worksheet; the IRS or your tax data provide the income figures |
| V4 — Custom | Identity only — no income | A valid, unexpired government-issued photo ID, presented in person, by live video, before an in-person notary, or through an approved identity-proofing service | The student presents the ID; the school (or approved third party) attests it was reviewed |
| V5 — Aggregate | Both income/family size and identity (V1 + V4 combined) | Everything required for V1 plus the V4 photo-ID step, submitted as one packet | Student + parent for the income items; student presents the ID; school confirms both |
Historically, V1 and V4 were defined as the two standalone tasks; V5 is what you get when those two are combined into one group — the AVG calls the Aggregate group “essentially a combination of V1 and V4.”
V1 — Standard Verification (income and household)
V1 is the most common group, and it’s about your financial data, not your identity. Under the 2026-27 AVG, tax filers in the Standard group must verify adjusted gross income, income earned from work, U.S. income tax paid, untaxed portions of IRA distributions and pensions, IRA deductions and payments, tax-exempt interest income, education credits, foreign income exempt from federal taxation, and family size.
The verified categories are these:
- Adjusted gross income
- Income earned from work
- U.S. income tax paid
- Untaxed portions of IRA distributions and pensions
- IRA deductions and payments
- Tax-exempt interest income
- Education credits
- Foreign income exempt from federal taxation
- Family size
If you did not file a tax return (and weren’t required to), V1 is much shorter — you verify only your income earned from work and your family size. And here’s the relief most families miss: most consenting filers hand over no tax paperwork at all. The AVG states that when federal tax information is received from the IRS through the FA-DDX (Direct Data Exchange), “the FTI received is considered verified and no additional documentation is necessary.” When that transfer isn’t available, the fallback is the right transcript or a signed return — walked through in what documents you need for verification.
V4 — Custom Verification (identity only)
V4 has nothing to do with your income. It is identity verification, full stop — the 2026-27 AVG lists a single item for the Custom group: identity. You confirm you are who you said you are, using a valid, unexpired government-issued photo ID through one of the accepted methods (in person, a live video call with your school, before an in-person notary, or through an approved identity-proofing service).
One change worth knowing: the Statement of Educational Purpose that older guides paired with identity verification is not part of the 2026-27 Chapter 4 identity requirement. If a checklist tells you to sign one, that guidance predates the current rules. There’s more on the identity-specific logistics in FAFSA identity verification (V4 and V5).
V5 — Aggregate Verification (both, and the strictest)
V5 is V1 plus V4 combined — you verify your income and family-size data and your identity. The 2026-27 AVG is blunt about the stakes: “No disbursements of Title IV aid may be made for the award year in which the student is selected until the V5 verification is satisfactorily completed.” In V1 or V4 a school can sometimes make an early (“interim”) disbursement of certain aid; in V5 it cannot — nothing moves until you finish.
For 2026-27, V5 also got crowded. As part of a one-time fraud-detection screening of forms submitted before its real-time system launched, the Department of Education placed roughly 300,000 applications into V5, according to its FAFSA fraud-detection announcement. Being swept into V5 means your application matched risk indicators — it is not a ruling that you committed fraud, and legitimate students clear it the same way as anyone else: by completing verification. There’s a full walkthrough in the V5 aggregate verification deep-dive.
Can your FAFSA tracking group change?
Yes. The 2026-27 AVG states a student may move from V1 or V4 to V5 based on corrections made to their FPS record or other information available to the Department of Education. The shift is always toward more verification, never less, and you simply complete the added identity step on top of what you’d already started.
If you’re bumped to V5, don’t restart your packet — keep the V1 income documents you assembled and add the V4 photo-ID step. Whatever group you land in, the next move is identical: figure out which documents your group calls for and submit them as one complete packet to your school’s official portal. Our free Verification Tracking-Group Decoder turns your group plus a few details into a personalized checklist in about 30 seconds.
How tracking groups fit the bigger picture
Your tracking group only tells you what to prove — it does not address changed circumstances. If your family’s income dropped after you filed, that’s a separate process called Professional Judgment, and there’s a strict order of operations: a school cannot process a special-circumstances appeal while a verification hold is open. So even when your real story is “we lost income since filing,” you finish whatever V1, V4, or V5 requires first, then appeal.
Quick comparison
- V1 (Standard): income + family-size data. No identity step. Signed worksheet plus tax data (often nothing if you used FA-DDX).
- V4 (Custom): identity only. A valid, unexpired government photo ID — no income documents.
- V5 (Aggregate): both V1 and V4 — and nothing disburses until it’s done.
If you’re still not sure what selection even means or what happens next, start with selected for FAFSA verification — what it means.
Verified June 2026 for the 2026-27 award year.
Sources
- FSA Handbook 2026-2027, Application and Verification Guide, Chapter 4: Verification, Updates, and Corrections — tracking groups V1/V4/V5, items verified, V5 disbursement restriction, acceptable income/identity documentation, and group-change rule.
- Federal Student Aid — FAFSA Submission Summary — where the verification tracking flag and group code appear for applicants.
- Federal Student Aid — FAFSA Real-Time Fraud Detection (Electronic Announcement, updated May 29, 2026) — the one-time screening that placed roughly 300,000 applications into V5 for 2026-27.