Updated
· 7 min read · Built from the official USCIS question lists
The 128 civics questions are the question bank for the 2025 version of the naturalization
test. You take this version if you filed Form N-400 on or after 20 October 2025. At the
interview a USCIS officer asks up to 20 of the 128 out loud, and you need 12 correct
to pass.
USCIS publishes the list as document M-1778. It replaced the 100-question 2008 list for new filers,
keeping much of the old material, rewording a lot of it, adding new questions, and dropping the
Geography section entirely.
System of Government alone is 47 questions — over a third of the whole test. It covers Congress, the
presidency, the courts, and the split of power between federal and state government. If you only have
time to master one sub-section, master that one.
What is new compared with the 100
Roughly a quarter of the 2025 bank is new material or a substantially reworded version of an old
question. The genuinely new themes are:
The Federalist Papers — who wrote them and why they mattered (questions 83 and 84).
The Electoral College — why it is important (question 49).
The rule of law and the form of government — asked directly (questions 1 and 13).
Reasoning questions. Why there are three branches, why each state has two senators,
why representatives serve shorter terms, why justices serve for life.
American innovation — name one example (question 118).
More detail on the wars — separate questions on why the US entered World War I,
World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War.
And the notable removal: the old Geography questions about the longest rivers, the oceans on each
coast, states bordering Canada and Mexico, and naming a US territory are not in the 128.
How the 20-question interview is scored
The officer asks questions one at a time, out loud, and stops as soon as the outcome is decided. Get
your first 12 right and the civics test ends at question 12. Get 9 wrong and it ends early the other way,
because 12 correct is then impossible.
There is no partial credit and no multiple choice. There is also no penalty for taking a moment to
think, and you may ask the officer to repeat a question.
The 20 starred questions
Twenty of the 128 are marked with an asterisk in the official document. These are the questions used
for the 65/20 special consideration: if you are 65 or older and have been a lawful
permanent resident for 20 years or more, you study only those 20, the officer asks 10 of them, and you
need 6 correct. You may also take the test in the language of your choice.
If you do not qualify for 65/20, the asterisks are still useful — they mark the questions USCIS
considers most fundamental, which makes them a sensible place to start. Read the full rules in our
65/20 test guide.
Study the whole bank on your phone
All 128 questions of the 2025 version and all 100 of the 2008 version, offline, with mastery
tracking per category and study in your own language. Free on iPhone and Android.
How to get through 128 questions
128 is a lot, but the bank is far more repetitive than it looks. Learn these anchors and a surprising
number of questions answer themselves:
The President is the answer to who signs bills, who vetoes bills, who is Commander
in Chief, who appoints federal judges, and who becomes president is the Vice President.
Congress writes laws, declares war and makes the federal budget. The Senate has 100
members on 6-year terms; the House has 435 voting members on 2-year terms.
The Civil War is the answer to the war between North and South and the war that
ended slavery.
"To stop the spread of communism" answers both the Korea and Vietnam questions.
Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence; James Madison
is the Father of the Constitution; George Washington is the Father of Our Country.
Work through the whole bank in the free practice test above, then use the app's category quizzes to
attack whichever section your mastery score says is weakest. The app carries all 128 offline and tracks
each question separately, so the ones you keep missing keep coming back until they stop being a problem.
Frequently asked
How many of the 128 civics questions are asked at the interview?
Up to 20. You must answer 12 of them correctly to pass. The officer stops asking as soon as you have either reached 12 correct or can no longer reach it.
Who has to take the 128-question civics test?
Anyone who filed Form N-400 on or after 20 October 2025. Applicants who filed before that date take the older 100-question 2008 version instead.
Are the 128 questions harder than the 100?
Yes. There are 28 more of them, twice as many are asked, and several require you to explain why something is the case rather than recall a single fact. The pass mark is still 60%, but you need 12 correct answers instead of 6.
Is there an official 128 civics questions PDF?
Yes. USCIS publishes the complete list with accepted answers as document M-1778, free to download from uscis.gov. Every question and answer used on this site comes from that document.
