Date Announced

USCIS revises civics portion of the naturalization test, increasing the number of questions applicants must answer correctly, adding more difficult questions to the question bank, and requiring interviewing officers to ask more questions.

• Starting December 1, 2020, applicants for U.S. citizenship will have to correctly answer at least 12 of 20 questions posed by interviewing officials.
• Applicants will need to study a larger number of possible questions. USCIS has increased the number of questions from 100 to 128 and revised existing questions and answers.
• Interviewing officials must ask all 20 questions, rather than stopping after an applicant has answered enough questions correctly to pass the test.

The policy alert indicates that the revised, more difficult test will not be administered to applicants who (1) are 65 years old or older; and (2) have been LPRs for at least 20 years. This policy alert bears letterhead indicating that it is issued by the USCIS Office of the Director.

[ID #1148]

See Biden administration action below.

Effective Date of Change

Biden Administration Action

This Biden administration policy revokes in its entirety the Trump-era policy identified in this entry.

On February 22, 2021, USCIS issued a policy alert providing that USCIS will revert to using the 2008 civics test.