The great news that I’m sharing with you today is regarding the USCIS civics test for naturalization. For those of you who are going through the naturalization process, you may know that immigration introduced a change in December 1st of 2020 that expanded the civics test from 100 questions to 128 questions. They also made a change that the officer would ask you 20 questions and that you had to get at least 12 or 60% right.

USCIS just announced today that they’re getting rid of that change and they’re reverting back to the 2008 civics version of the test. This means that the test prior to this December 1st 2020 change, the civics test that has a hundred questions that you need to study, it will revert to all the prior rules that existed before. That is, you need to answer six questions correct. The officer will give you up to ten questions and you just have to get six of those questions right.

All of the rules that existed prior to December 1st, 2020, everything reverts back to that. Less questions that you have to answer and they’ll stop asking you once you get to six questions right. This is great news for all of you who have to study for the civics portion of the test.

You’re probably wanting to know exactly what this change means. When it will be implemented and how it impacts you. For anyone who filed their N400 naturalization application after December 1st, 2020, you were probably already studying the 2020 version of the civics test.

Now don’t panic. What immigration is going to do is they’re going to give you a grace period and they’re going to give you an option that you can either decide at the interview that you want to take the 2020 version or maybe you’ve already studied those 128 questions and you want to take the 2020 version. They’re going to allow that or if you’ve recently filed and you haven’t really dug into studying, they’re going to give you the option to go ahead and just study the 2008 version of the civics test.

USCIS has posted this on their website. They’ve made that update clear after they made the announcement today that you’re allowed to pick between the tests if you’ve already started studying. I imagine that a lot of people, even if you have started studying, that you’ll want to go ahead and take advantage of only having 100 questions to study and having  an easier time.

See: USCIS Official Announcement

It’s an exciting time but we know it’s stress-inducing to have to study all those extra questions. They have this grace period where they’re letting people choose between the two tests and then everything will be officially phased out after April 19th, 2021. They’ll revert back to the 2008 version of the test.

I’m so excited again to be able to share this great news with all of you. Best of luck to those of you who are on your immigration journey in the naturalization process.