USCIS Writing Vocabulary: The Full 2026 List

The USCIS writing vocabulary is the complete set of words that can appear in the writing portion of the naturalization test. Nothing outside it will ever be dictated to you.

That is a small, checkable promise, and it makes the writing test the most controllable part of the whole interview. Learn to spell roughly 70 words by hand and there is nothing left to be surprised by.

The USCIS writing vocabulary covers people, civics terms and places. It also carries the months, the holidays, a short verb list and a set of function words. Every word in a dictated test sentence comes from it. USCIS publishes it as flash cards, document M-715, and inside the pocket study guide M-1122. Both are free.

What’s New in 2026 for the USCIS Writing Vocabulary

The list did not change when the civics test did.

USCIS is implementing the 2025 naturalization civics test to align with Executive Order 14161. That change replaced the 100-question civics list with a bank of 128, for anyone who filed Form N-400 on or after October 20, 2025.

The English portion was not part of it. One writing vocabulary list still covers every applicant, on either version of the civics test.

So the USCIS study pages now show two civics tracks and a single set of English material. If a page tells you the writing words changed in 2025, it has confused the two halves of the exam.

The Complete USCIS Writing Vocabulary List

Here is the full list, in the categories USCIS uses.

People

• Adams
• Lincoln
• Washington

Civics

• American Indians
• capital
• citizens
• Civil War
• Congress
• Father of Our Country
• flag
• free
• freedom of speech
• President
• right
• Senators
• state, states
• White House

Places

• Alaska
• California
• Canada
• Delaware
• Mexico
• New York City
• United States
• Washington
• Washington, D.C.

Months

• February
• May
• June
• July
• September
• October
• November

Holidays

• Presidents’ Day
• Memorial Day
• Flag Day
• Independence Day
• Labor Day
• Columbus Day
• Thanksgiving

Verbs

• can
• come
• elect
• have, has
• is, was, be
• lives, lived
• meets
• pay
• vote
• want

Other function words

• and
• during
• for
• here
• in
• of
• on
• the
• to
• we

Other content words

• blue
• dollar bill
• fifty, 50
• first
• largest
• most
• north
• one
• one hundred, 100
• people
• red
• second
• south
• taxes
• white

What the USCIS Writing Vocabulary Leaves Out

The gaps tell you as much as the entries.

Five months are absent: January, March, April, August and December. No dictated sentence will contain them, so there is no point learning to spell them for this test.

There are no complex verb tenses. The verb list runs to ten entries, all of them present, simple past, or the infinitive. Nothing on the list can produce a perfect tense or a conditional.

There are no adjectives beyond colours and sizes, plus first and second. No adverbs at all. No punctuation beyond a full stop, since every sentence is a plain statement.

That is why the writing test is winnable in a fortnight. The whole space of possible sentences is bounded by one page.

How USCIS Publishes the Writing Vocabulary

Two free documents carry it.

The first is M-715, the USCIS Writing Vocabulary Flash Cards. One word per card, with space on the back to practice writing the word and to build a sentence with it. USCIS designed them for classroom use, but they work just as well alone.

The second is M-1122, Preparing for the Naturalization Test: A Pocket Study Guide. It carries the writing list, the reading list, the 100 civics questions for the 2008 test, and a summary of who can apply.

Both download free from the USCIS Citizenship Resource Center. Printed copies can be bought from the U.S. Government Bookstore, though nothing in them costs money online.

USCIS also gives one piece of advice worth repeating. The reading and writing lists share some words and are not the same list. Its own guidance says to keep them separate when you practice, so the overlap does not hide the differences.

How the Writing Vocabulary Is Tested

One sentence, three attempts, written by hand.

The officer reads a sentence out loud. You write it down on the form in front of you. If it is not correct, you get a second sentence, and then a third.

You must write one out of three sentences correctly to demonstrate an ability to write in English. One clean sentence is a pass.

Spelling is what gets marked, along with whether what you wrote matches what you heard. Capital letters count on names, on months and on holidays.

There is no keyboard, no autocorrect and no spellcheck. That is the detail that catches people who prepared everywhere except with a pen.

Drilling the Writing Vocabulary in Two Weeks

Ten minutes, twice a week, with a pen.

Session 1: the people, the civics terms, the place names. Write each word by hand once. Say it aloud as you write it. Circle anything you got wrong and write it five more times.

Session 2: the months, then the holidays, then the verbs. Same method. February, September, October and November are the ones that slip most often.

Session 3: function and content words. These are short and easy, which is why people skip them and then lose a sentence to “during”.

Session 4: dictation. Have someone read three sentences built from the list. Write them without seeing them, then check every word.

Repeat session 4 until three out of three come back clean. The test only asks for one out of three, so that leaves a wide margin.

The Spellings That Cost People the Sentence

A handful of entries account for most of the misses.

• February. The first R is silent when you say it, and people leave it out when they write it.
• Washington. Two Ts and an NG. It shows up three times on the list, as a person, a state and a city.
• Independence Day. Three Ns, and an E where people write an A.
• Presidents’ Day. The apostrophe sits after the S.
• Thanksgiving. One word, no hyphen, and the K is easy to lose.
• citizens. A Z, and an S on the end when the sentence needs the plural.
• freedom of speech. Three words. It is the entry people shorten.
• Congress. Two S letters at the end.
• September, October, November. All three end the same way, which is exactly what slips under pressure.

Write those nine by hand five times each. It takes ten minutes and removes the most common reasons a sentence gets marked wrong.

Numbers deserve a note. The list carries “fifty” and “50” as separate entries, and the same goes for “one hundred” and “100”. Write whichever form you were given. Do not convert between them.

How the Writing List Differs From the Reading List

The two overlap enough to be confusing and differ enough to matter.

Shared words include capital, Congress, Father of Our Country, President, right, Senators, state, White House, United States, and the holidays. Those you only have to learn once.

The writing list adds things the reading list has no use for: months, colours and numbers. It also carries state and country names like Alaska, California, Canada, Delaware and Mexico, plus the Civil War and American Indians.

The reading list adds the six question words: how, what, when, where, who, why. None of them appear on the writing list, which tells you something about the shape of each test. Reading sentences are often questions. Written sentences are plain statements.

USCIS says directly that the lists are not the same and asks you to keep them separate while you practice. Following that advice costs nothing and stops the overlap from hiding the differences.

FAQ

Where can I download the USCIS writing vocabulary?

From the USCIS Citizenship Resource Center. It is published as flash cards in document M-715, and it also appears inside the pocket study guide M-1122 alongside the reading vocabulary list.

Is the USCIS writing vocabulary the same as the reading vocabulary?

No. The two lists share some words but are not identical. The writing list adds months, colours, and numbers. USCIS advises keeping the two lists separate when you practice.

How many words are on the writing vocabulary list?

Around 70. They are grouped into people, civics terms, places, months, holidays, verbs, and a set of other words. It fits on a single page, which is why the writing test is the most bounded part of the interview.

Do I need to spell every word perfectly?

You need one correct sentence out of up to three attempts. Spelling is what is marked within that sentence, so practising the words that trip you is worth more than practising the whole list evenly.

Did the writing vocabulary change with the 2025 test?

No. The 2025 change affected the civics questions only. The writing and reading vocabulary lists are the same for applicants on either version of the civics test.

Verdict: Using the USCIS Writing Vocabulary

The USCIS writing vocabulary is the shortest study list in this whole process and the one most often skipped. Around 70 words, published free, covering every sentence you could be asked to write.

Print it. Write it out by hand rather than typing it. Drill the months and the holidays first, because those are where the misses cluster. Then have somebody dictate sentences until three out of three come back clean.

One page of words, two weeks of ten-minute sessions, and one of the four scored parts of the interview stops being a risk.