fyllyoWhich government PDF forms are XFA? We checked 32
Some government PDF forms open fine in Preview. Others show only “Please wait… If this message is not eventually replaced…”. The difference is XFA, and the kind of XFA. We checked the official PDFs of 32 forms to see which is which.
The short answer
Of the 32 forms we checked, 26 carry XFA, including almost every IRS and USCIS form. But they also carry ordinary form fields, so they open and fill in Preview, browsers and every PDF app. 5 have no XFA at all. Only 1, Canada’s IMM 1344, is dynamic XFA: the kind that shows “Please wait…” everywhere except in apps that can build the form.
Two kinds of XFA
XFA is an Adobe format that describes a form in XML inside the PDF. It comes in two kinds, and they behave very differently:
- XFA with ordinary fields too (often called static or hybrid). The PDF has the XFA description and a normal page with normal fields. Apps that don’t read XFA simply use the normal fields. This is what the IRS and USCIS do.
- Dynamic XFA. The PDF holds only the XFA description and a one-page placeholder that says “Please wait…”. The app has to build the form from the XFA. Preview, Chrome, Safari and Firefox can’t, so you see the placeholder. Canada’s immigration forms work this way.
The forms we checked
| Form | Agency | XFA | Opens in Preview |
|---|---|---|---|
| Form I-765 | USCIS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form I-130 | USCIS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form N-400 | USCIS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form I-90 | USCIS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form I-485 | USCIS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form I-131 | USCIS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form I-864 | USCIS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form I-129F | USCIS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form I-751 | USCIS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form G-1145 | USCIS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form I-9 | USCIS | No XFA | Yes |
| Form 1040 | IRS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form 1040-X | IRS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form W-4 | IRS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form W-9 | IRS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form 1099-NEC | IRS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form SS-4 | IRS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form 2848 | IRS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form 8821 | IRS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form 4506-C | IRS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form 941 | IRS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form W-7 | IRS | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form DS-11 | U.S. Department of State | No XFA | Yes |
| Form DS-82 | U.S. Department of State | No XFA | Yes |
| Form DS-5507 | U.S. Department of State | No XFA | Yes |
| Form SSA-44 | Social Security Administration | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Form SSA-455 | Social Security Administration | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| Standard Form 15 | OPM | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| SF-86 | OPM | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| SF-3112 | OPM | No XFA | Yes |
| VA Form 21-526EZ | U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs | XFA with ordinary fields too | Yes |
| IMM 1344 | IRCC (Canada) | Dynamic XFA | No: shows “Please wait…” |
Agencies update their PDFs. A form can change kind with a new edition, so check the file you have.
How we checked
We downloaded each form’s current PDF from the agency on October 23, 2026 and inspected it with qpdf, an open-source PDF tool. A form counts as XFA when the PDF has an XFA form description. It counts as dynamic when the PDF also says it needs rendering, which tells apps to build the form from the XFA instead of showing the page. A few agency sites blocked automated downloads, so for the State Department and SSA forms, Standard Form 15 and IRCC’s IMM 1344 we checked the copies we downloaded in October 2026.
You’re welcome to use this list, with a link back to this page.
How to open a “Please wait…” form
Save the PDF to your computer first; don’t open it in the browser. Then open it in an app that can build dynamic XFA forms: Adobe Acrobat Reader, free, or on a Mac, Fyllyo, also free, which opens, fills and saves most XFA forms and can save one as an ordinary PDF.