Is PSLF Still Available? 2026 Changes and the SAVE Plan Pause

Yes — Public Service Loan Forgiveness is still available. PSLF was created by the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 and written into permanent federal law at 20 U.S.C. § 1087e(m), so it does not expire and does not need Congress to reauthorize it.¹ If you make 120 qualifying monthly payments on eligible Direct Loans while working full-time for a qualifying public service employer, the remaining balance is forgiven.²

The Department of Education continues to run the program through StudentAid.gov, and MOHELA services the loans for most borrowers on the PSLF track.²³ Two things have changed the shape of the program recently, though: new regulations take effect on July 1, 2026, and the SAVE repayment plan is caught up in litigation. Neither ends PSLF.

What’s Changing in 2026

The Department of Education published final PSLF regulations that take effect July 1, 2026. According to the Department, the rules are meant to return the program to its original statutory purpose rather than to eliminate or scale it back.⁴

The main substantive change: the Department may disqualify an otherwise eligible employer if it determines the employer engages in activities with a substantial illegal purpose. The Department has said this is expected to affect very few employers, and no new action is required of borrowers based on the regulatory changes.²

Who and What Still Qualifies

The core eligibility rules are unchanged. You need three things lined up together: the right employer, the right kind of loan, and the right repayment plan.

Employer

Qualifying employers include any U.S. federal, state, local, or tribal government entity (military service counts), 501(c)(3) nonprofits, and certain other nonprofits that provide qualifying public services such as emergency management, public health, law enforcement, public education, or public interest law.⁵ Full-time means at least 30 hours per week, or your employer’s definition of full-time if higher.⁶ Multiple part-time positions at qualifying employers can be combined to hit 30 hours.²

Contracted employees generally don’t qualify. The narrow exception: if you work as a contractor for a qualifying employer in a role that, under applicable state law, cannot be filled by a direct employee of that employer, your service may count. This most often applies in public health and public interest law.⁷

Loans

Only loans from the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program are eligible: Direct Subsidized, Direct Unsubsidized, Direct PLUS, and Direct Consolidation Loans. FFEL and Perkins Loans aren’t directly eligible, but you can bring them in by consolidating into a Direct Consolidation Loan.⁸

Consolidation timing matters. If you consolidate Direct Loans on or after September 1, 2024, prior qualifying PSLF payments on those Direct Loans carry over to the new consolidation loan through a weighted average; prior payments on FFEL or Perkins Loans are not included in that average.⁹ A separate one-time payment count adjustment does let qualifying payments from all loans included in a Direct Consolidation Loan (including FFEL and Perkins) count toward PSLF without a weighted average.² Certify all qualifying employment before you consolidate so the counts transfer correctly.

Parent PLUS Loans can qualify only after being consolidated, and once consolidated, the only income-driven repayment plan available for them is Income-Contingent Repayment — the least generous IDR option. IBR, PAYE, and other IDR plans are not available for a consolidated Parent PLUS Loan.¹⁰

Payments

Each of the 120 payments must be made under a qualifying plan while you work full-time for an eligible employer. Qualifying plans are the income-driven plans (IBR, PAYE, ICR, and SAVE) and the 10-year Standard Repayment Plan. Payments under a Direct Consolidation Loan’s own standard repayment plan generally do not count, so if you consolidate, repay on an IDR plan.¹⁰

The 120 payments don’t have to be consecutive. If you leave public service and come back, your existing count is preserved; months worked outside public service simply don’t count.² There is no partial forgiveness — you need all 120.¹⁰

And a helpful detail: a calculated IDR payment of $0 still counts each month, provided you’re employed full-time by a qualifying employer that month.¹⁰

The SAVE Plan Pause

This is the part of PSLF that is genuinely disrupted right now. The SAVE plan is currently unavailable because of ongoing court action, and as of late 2025 the Department of Education announced a proposed settlement that would end SAVE entirely. Borrowers who were enrolled in SAVE have been placed in a general forbearance, and time spent in that forbearance does not count toward PSLF.¹¹

If that’s you, contact your loan servicer about switching to IBR, PAYE, or ICR so your payments start counting again. Staying in the SAVE forbearance means adding months that will never count toward the 120.

What to Do Now to Stay on Track

Certify your employment annually, and whenever you change employers. Certification confirms the employer qualifies and locks in your payment count, so you don’t want to leave it until you hit 120. You’ll need the employer’s Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN), which appears in box b of your W-2, plus your exact start and end dates.¹²

The PSLF Help Tool at StudentAid.gov walks you through generating the form, checks your employer against a database of qualifying organizations, and pre-fills your loan information. An authorized official at your employer (usually in HR) must sign, and you can request electronic signature through DocuSign inside the tool.¹³ Accepted signatures include handwritten signatures in dark ink, hand-drawn electronic signatures made with a mouse or finger, and digitized images of handwritten signatures; certificate-based digital signatures and typed names (even in cursive-style fonts) are not accepted.¹²

If a former employer has closed or won’t sign, you can certify with alternative documentation that shows both the employer’s EIN and your dates of employment. W-2s for every calendar year of the employment, or pay stubs for every month worked, are the usual substitutes.² Any month without supporting documentation cannot be certified.

If your payment count comes back wrong, or your employer is classified as ineligible when you believe it qualifies, you can file a reconsideration request through StudentAid.gov. You have 90 days from the date on the letter you received from the PSLF servicer, and you should submit one combined request rather than several.¹⁴

Forgiveness Is Still Tax-Free

Amounts forgiven through PSLF are permanently excluded from federal taxable income. Under 26 U.S.C. § 108(f)(1), a student loan discharged because the borrower worked for a required period in certain professions for qualifying employers is not treated as gross income.¹⁵

This matters because a separate, broader tax exclusion under the American Rescue Plan Act — which covered all types of student loan forgiveness — expired on January 1, 2026. PSLF’s tax exclusion is its own permanent provision and was not affected by that expiration.¹⁵ State tax treatment varies; some states follow the federal exclusion, others don’t, so check your state’s rules in the year your loans are forgiven.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 20 U.S. Code 1087e – Terms and Conditions of Loans
2
Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF)
3
Federal Student Aid. MOHELA Home Page
4
U.S. Department of Education. Restoring Public Service Loan Forgiveness to Its Statutory Purpose
5
Federal Student Aid. Qualifying Public Services for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program
6
Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Infographic
7
eCFR. 34 CFR 685.219 – Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLF)
8
eCFR. 34 CFR Part 685 – William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program
9
Federal Student Aid. Do the Qualifying Payments I Made Before Consolidating My Direct Loans Count Toward PSLF
10
Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness FAQ
11
Federal Student Aid. IDR Plan Court Actions – Impact on Borrowers
12
Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) and Temporary Expanded PSLF (TEPSLF) Certification and Application
13
Federal Student Aid. Tackling the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Form – Employer Tips
14
Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness Reconsideration
15
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 108 – Income From Discharge of Indebtedness