Filed Before or After October 20, 2025: Do You Take the 100-Question or 128-Question Test?

Whether you take the 100-question or the 128-question test depends on your Form N-400 filing date. If you filed before October 20, 2025, you take the 2008 test (100 questions). If you filed on or after October 20, 2025, you take the 2025 test (128 questions).

Your interview date does not decide the test version. Someone who filed in September 2025 but is not interviewed until 2026 still takes the 100-question test. This article helps you find your filing date and compares the two tests.

How are the two tests different?

• 2008 test: for people who filed before October 20, 2025. The study list has 100 questions. The officer asks up to 10, 6 correct is a pass, 5 incorrect is a fail.
• 2025 test: for people who filed on or after October 20, 2025. The study list has 128 questions. The officer asks up to 20, 12 correct is a pass, 9 incorrect is a fail.

Both tests are oral. A USCIS system randomly selects the questions from the list, and the share of correct answers needed to pass is 60 percent on both. The officer stops once you have enough correct answers to pass, or enough incorrect answers to fail.

So with the 2025 test you study more questions and may be asked more of them. In return, you also get more chances before the officer stops.

How do you find your filing date?

After USCIS receives your Form N-400, it sends you a receipt called a Notice of Action (Form I-797). It has a box labeled Received Date. According to USCIS, the date in this box is the received date, which is also the filing date.

• Paper filing by mail: the filing date is the day your package arrives at the USCIS filing location, such as a lockbox. It is not the day you mailed it at the post office.
• Online filing: the filing date is the day you sign electronically and pay the fee in your USCIS online account. A form left as a draft does not count as filed.

If you filed on paper, USCIS also mails instructions for creating an online account to track your case. Keep your I-797 receipt in a safe place, because you will need it in later steps.

If your filing date is close to October 20, 2025

People who mailed a paper application around mid October 2025 should check the Received Date box carefully, because USCIS may have received the package a few days after it was mailed. The date on the receipt notice is the one that sets your test version, not the date on your post office receipt.

If your paperwork is unclear, or you have filed more than one Form N-400, ask an immigration attorney or a Department of Justice recognized organization to look at your specific case.

How many questions does a 65/20 applicant study?

If, when you filed, you were 65 or older and had lived in the U.S. as a Green Card holder for at least 20 years, you only need to study the 20 special questions marked with an asterisk (*) in your test version. The officer asks 10 of those 20, 6 correct is a pass, and you may take the test in the language of your choice.

This 20-question set also follows your filing date. If you filed before October 20, 2025, study the 20 starred questions from the 2008 test. If you filed on or after October 20, 2025, study the 20 starred questions from the 2025 test.

People who qualify under 50/20 or 55/15 are exempt from English and may take the civics test in Vietnamese, but they still study the full question list for their filing date, meaning 100 or 128 questions.

How to study the right version

1. Find the I-797 receipt for your Form N-400 and look at the Received Date box.
2. Compare that date with October 20, 2025 to see whether you take the 2008 or the 2025 test.
3. Study the question list for that version. Studying the wrong one wastes effort, because the two versions have a different number of questions and a different passing count.
4. Keep up with questions whose answers change because of elections or appointments. You must answer with the name of the person serving on the day of your interview.

Whichever version you take, the English test is the same: read 1 of 3 sentences out loud correctly, write 1 of 3 sentences correctly, and the officer judges your speaking during the interview. People who qualify under 50/20, 55/15, or 65/20 are exempt from the English test.

If you do not pass at your first interview, you will be scheduled to retest the part you did not pass between 60 and 90 days later. Knowing your test version early lets you spend your study time in the right place from the start.