Do you ask for my Social Security number?
No. We never collect it, never store it, and never print it — every form that asks for one arrives with that box blank for you to complete.
It is the single most sensitive thing in a name change, and holding it would be pure downside for everybody involved. So the nine digits never reach us at all. There is no field, no optional field, and no moment where the interview asks for them “just to fill the form”.
What that means on the page
- Item 2 of the SS-5 arrives blank. So do items 9.B and 10.B, which ask for your parents’ numbers — a Social Security number is a Social Security number whoever it belongs to.
- The same is true of every state form we fill in that asks for one. The passport forms ask too; your passport sheet names the form that applies to you and links to the official copy.
- The blank is loud, not quiet. Each affected document carries a callout naming the exact box, in the same register as the callouts telling you where to sign.
- When printed copies go on sale, the packet’s cover sheet will list every box you need to write in. The checklist already names them in the digital kit.
It works the same way on the files you download and on the copy that comes in the mail. There is no version of any form with the number filled in, because there is nothing to fill it in from.
It follows that no letter can carry it either, and that where a language model drafts letter text it never sees a Social Security number — not because it is filtered out, but because we do not have one to give it.
This is the one thing in the kit left to your pen beyond signatures and the date you sign. Nine digits, once per form, at your own table.
Other questions people ask
When you’re ready to do it
Two questions about your situation first, because there is one answer that means we can’t help — and we would rather tell you that before you pay than after.
One payment. No subscription.