Autumn is here, and once again, warnings are going up about the spread of the covid-19 virus — along with the flu and RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus. To try to minimize the upsurge, the US government is once again restarting a program that was last canceled in May 2023 and is again offering free home rapid antigen tests to each US household. According to the government website, orders will start shipping the week of October 2nd.

As before, it’s extremely simple to put in your order. You will not need to submit a credit card or any other financial information.

• Go to COVIDTests.gov.
• Tap on the button reading Order Free At-Home Tests.
• If you don’t see the button for any reason, you can go directly to the USPS site (which is where the button would send you anyway) at special.usps.com/testkits.
• Fill in your name, email address (if you want to receive notifications), and shipping address.
• Click on the green Check Out Now button.
• A pop-up window will ask you to confirm your contact information and shipping address. If everything is correct, click on the green Place My Order button — and you’re done! You’ll get an order number and (if you entered your email address) a confirmation email with that number, along with (hopefully) updates on delivery.

By the way, if you’ve ordered tests in the past, you may want to click on the link to check to see if those tests have really expired. Apparently, the shelf life of some of those tests has been extended by the FDA.

Unfortunately, the program offering reimbursement from private health insurance for purchased tests is no longer available — and since the price of a pair of covid tests can hover around $25, this could be an issue for households with low budgets. There is some information on community-based testing sites here.

Update September 26th, 2023, 8:45AM ET: This article was originally published on December 15th, 2022, and has been updated to describe the most recent testing program.