Form N-400 Processing Time — Application for Naturalization

What the numbers say right now

Across all 90 field offices publishing a range, the median window is 12.5–15.5 mo. Your office is what actually matters — find it in the table, then read the +N mo / −N mo marker to see whether it is getting better or worse.

"Inquire after" is USCIS's service-request threshold for that office: if your receipt date is older, a case inquiry through official channels is reasonable. Sort any column; numbers show months.

What the N-400 clock does and does not include

The published window covers filing through decision at your field office. It does not include the oath ceremony that actually makes you a citizen — that scheduling varies locally and adds time after approval. It also does not include the three-or-five-year eligibility period that got you here; the green card timeline puts the whole arc in one picture.

The interview itself

An officer reviews your application, confirms your answers, and runs the English and civics test: reading one of three sentences aloud, writing one of three, and up to ten civics questions from the official hundred — six correct passes. Study materials are free on USCIS's own citizenship resource center. Standard age-and-residence and disability accommodations exist; the officer applies them, you do not have to argue for the common ones.

Reading the table like an insider

Three habits make this table genuinely useful. First, compare your office against neighbors in the same state — local interview capacity dominates, and the directory makes the spread visible in one screen. Second, watch the trend marker rather than the raw range: an office that improved two months in a row is a different animal from one that slipped, even at the same window. Third, sanity-check your own file hygiene before blaming the queue: address changes reported, notices answered, biometrics attended — a lost notice is the most common self-inflicted delay.

None of this requires a lawyer. But if your case is well past the upper bound, your inquiry went nowhere, or an RFE turned into something worse, that is the moment a licensed immigration attorney earns their fee — and this site, again, is not one.