File N-400 online or paper copy?

[JohnE 57]

Good afternoon everyone,

 

  This might be a no brainer but I will put this question/survey out there anyway.  My wife had been in the US for years working under her TN (Mexico) visa...that is how we met.  Anyway to make a long story somewhat short we fell in love and moved forward with the K1, AOS, and finally the ROC.  She holds the 10 year green card.  

 

  She wants to file the N-400 for citizenship.  We went online and she is eligible to file electronically.  We started the online process this morning and are up the point where we need to upload items.  We are tired so saved the entered data to take a break.  

  

 It appears to me the online filing is the way to go and beats the pants off sending paper forms only to have someone at USCIS have to manually enter that data in their computers.  Can anyone tell me if there is any way in the world that sending paper would have any advantage over doing this process via online?  

 

Like I said earlier this might be a no brainer but I like to cover any and all bases.  

 

Thanks for reading this and any reply you might have.

 

May God bless 

John and Elizabeth

 

[Amhara 460]

I have seen some with reduced processing timelines, but others did not seem to benefit from that (or they haven’t returned to VJ to share the good news).  

 

Check out some N-400 filer threads to get an idea.  Skip all the way to the back and look at the group timeline to see who is getting processed faster!

[AK_2014 113]

From what I've seen, online filing can be a lot faster than paper filing. For my group at least (July 2017 N-400 filers), well over half of the online filers have already become citizens, while few of the paper filers have completed the process. There seem to be two different queues, and the online one is a lot shorter (don't know if this is true of all offices, or just some/most).

 

Best of luck with your filing!

 

[little immigrant 801]

If I could go back in time I would have done it online. 

[laufine 55]

I would do it online.  I see IOE filers in different month report. They are much fast than paper filers.

 

[Going through 5,674]

I filed online, and it seemed my process was quicker than paper filers around that same time/locale.  Everyone's mileage may vary, of course----a few of the advantages of online filing is that you can get real-time status updates on your application, your application is received immediately (no stressing over whether the post office lost it/delayed delivery, no cost of mailing), and should you get an RFE later on you can see/respond to it almost immediately online as well.

 

Best of luck with your filing!

[visajourneys 0]

For anyone who sees this in the future, there is one occasion where you would file n400 with paper: when you file i942 (reduced fee for n400) if your income is between 150%-200% poverty level. There is no way you can file i942 online and uscis emphasizes that n400 and i942 have to be filed at the same time (in the same packet). Hope this helps. 

[Lucky2Lucky 2,526]

We are looking at benefits of submit By online vs mail as well. When submitting the n-400 online do you upload the files as pdf?

[Going through 5,674]

3 hours ago, Luckycuds said:

We are looking at benefits of submit By online vs mail as well. When submitting the n-400 online do you upload the files as pdf?

It accepts files uploaded in PDF, JPEG, Word document and a couple of other ways.