Finding government assistance can be overwhelming if you don’t know where to begin, but Benefits.gov is here to help. To discover what benefits you may be eligible for, we encourage you to spend time on our site. Our Benefit Finder questionnaire and new benefit eligibility feature can help you locate government benefits based on your situation.
Benefit Finder Questionnaire
The Benefit Finder questionnaire is the site’s main feature and a great place to start when visiting Benefits.gov. Here are some things to know about the Benefit Finder:
- Based on questions you answer in the Benefit Finder about your personal situation, a list of benefits will return that you may be eligible for, along with next steps for how to apply.
- Our prescreening technology compares the answers you submit in the questionnaire with eligibility criteria of the more than 1,200 federally-funded benefits on Benefits.gov.
- The more questions you answer, the better we can prescreen your eligibility for the benefits in your results list.
- The questionnaire takes around 10 to 20 minutes to complete, but you can save time by having basic information on hand like your education and financial history.
- Benefits.gov never asks for any personal information such as a phone number, address, or Social Security number and does not save your answers in the Benefit Finder.
New Eligibility Feature
The same prescreening technology used on the Benefit Finder was recently extended to a new eligibility feature on Benefits.gov. If you know what benefit you are looking for, you can go directly to the Browse Benefits page or locate it through our search bar, and find the questionnaire to check eligibility for the specific benefit. Here are some things to know about the eligibility feature located at the bottom of our benefits pages:
- This feature uses the same prescreening technology as the Benefit Finder, so your answers to the questionnaire will be compared to the benefit’s eligibility requirements to check eligibility.
- This shortened questionnaire should take under 5 minutes to complete.
- While Benefits.gov does not accept benefit applications at this time, the results tab will help guide you on the next steps in the application process.
- Your results tab will also display a list of other benefits you may be eligible for based on the questions you answered.
Benefits.gov strives to provide information on government benefits in an easy-to-use, personalized format. With information on over 1,200 programs, the assistance you’re looking for could be just a few steps away. We invite you to use our eligibility prescreening questionnaires and send us feedback on your experience through our Help Center so that we can continue to improve the features on our site.
