The 65/20 special consideration

If you are 65 or older and you have been a lawful permanent resident for 20 years or more, USCIS gives you what it calls special consideration on the civics test. It is not an exemption: you still take the test, but from a much shorter list.

An older couple sitting together at home, smiling

Who it covers

Two conditions, and you need both: you are 65 years of age or older, and you have been living in the United States for periods totaling at least 20 years after being admitted as a lawful permanent resident. The rule is in the USCIS Policy Manual.

What changes

Instead of studying the full list of 128 questions, you study a designated list of 20. At the interview the officer asks 10 of them, and you need 6 correct answers to pass.

There is one more thing in the rule that is worth knowing, because it lowers the pressure a lot: you pass by giving a correct answer or an alternative phrasing of the correct answer. You are not being scored on saying it the way the list says it.

USCIS reports that 91.2% of applicants in the 65/20 group passed civics at their first interview in fiscal year 2022, before the 2025 version of the test existed. The scoring guide compares that with the other groups.

Taking the civics test in your own language

The right to take the civics test in the language of your choice, with an interpreter, comes from the exemptions to the English requirement. That is a separate provision from this one, with its own thresholds: 50 or older with 20 years as a permanent resident, or 55 or older with 15 years as a permanent resident.

The distinction matters in practice. Anyone who meets the 65/20 thresholds also meets the first of those, so the two usually arrive together. But someone who is 65 with 15 years of residence has the English exemption and not the shorter civics list, and the questions to ask about each are different. Both sets of rules are in the Policy Manual. The English test exemptions guide explains who qualifies, who brings the interpreter and how the years are counted.

It applies under both versions of the test

Two versions of the civics test are in use, depending on when you filed Form N-400, and the special consideration exists in both with the same numbers: 10 questions from a designated list of 20, 6 correct answers to pass.

For the older version the designated list is drawn from its 100 questions instead, and the numbers at the interview are the same: 10 asked, 6 correct answers to pass.

Practice with only those 20 questions

The practice test has a 65/20 setting that draws only from the designated list and asks 10 questions, so you practice the test you are actually going to take instead of the long one. This link opens it with that setting already chosen: practice the 65/20 test.

The 20 designated questions

These are the questions marked with an asterisk in the official USCIS list. Each one here has an explanation of why the answer is what it is.