What to have in front of you before you apply
Most of it is paperwork you already own. One question — next year's household income — is the one worth thinking about first.
The marketplace application asks for more than most people have to hand, and the awkward part is in the middle: it wants an estimate of next year's income, which is not a document you can go and find. Gathering the rest first makes that the only hard question.
For everyone on the application
- Full legal names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers — for every person who needs coverage, not only the applicant.
- Home address, and mailing address if it differs.
- Immigration document numbers for any household member who is not a US citizen. Lawfully present immigrants are eligible; the application asks which document establishes that.
Income, which is the difficult part
You are estimating your 2027 household income, before it has happened. That is genuinely hard for anyone whose income is not a steady salary, and it is also the number that decides the size of your credit.
Bring whatever you have:
- Recent pay stubs, or last year's W-2
- Your most recent tax return, as a baseline
- For self-employment: last year's Schedule C or 1099s, plus a realistic sense of how this year differs
- Other income — unemployment benefits, Social Security, alimony, rental income, investment income
Estimate honestly rather than optimistically. Understate your income and you will take a larger advance credit than you were entitled to and repay the difference at tax time. Overstate it and you pay more each month than you needed to. If your income changes during the year, tell the marketplace when it happens instead of waiting.
Household income here means the income of everyone on your tax return, not just the people who need coverage — and household size means everyone you claim, which is what the poverty guideline comparison is measured against.
If anyone has coverage available elsewhere
The application asks whether anyone in the household could get coverage from an employer, and it is not an idle question. If job-based coverage is available and counts as affordable, that person generally cannot get a premium tax credit for a marketplace plan. Bring:
- Any employer coverage notice, showing what the employee-only premium would be
- Policy numbers for coverage anyone already holds
Two things worth deciding before you start
- Your doctors and your prescriptions. Write down the doctors you want to keep and the drugs you take, with doses. Networks and formularies vary between plans in the same county and the same metal tier, and this is the detail people discover after enrolling rather than before.
- Which trade-off you want. A lower monthly premium with higher costs when you use care, or the reverse. The metal tiers are how that choice is expressed.
Ready? How to enroll, step by step.