If your student loans went into forbearance without your asking, it’s almost always for one of four reasons: your servicer is processing paperwork on your account, you qualify for a forbearance the servicer is required to grant, you were approved for a general hardship pause, or a federal policy change or court order placed a group of borrowers into forbearance at once. In every case, no payment is due for a set window, but interest usually keeps accruing on your balance.
Your Servicer Is Processing a Change on Your Account
The most common trigger is administrative. If you recently applied for an Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plan, submitted employment certification for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), or asked to switch repayment plans, your servicer pauses billing while it calculates your new payment and updates your records. Federal regulations specifically authorize forbearance during this kind of processing.1eCFR. 34 CFR 685.205 – Forbearance Your account stays in good standing during the pause, so no late fees or delinquency flags land while the servicer works.
Loan transfers do the same thing. When your loan moves from one servicing company to another, the new company needs time to load your full payment history and balance. Federal Student Aid says this can take up to 30 business days, and payments are paused during that window to prevent billing errors.2Federal Student Aid. So Your Loan Was Transferred – Whats Next
IDR processing backlogs can stretch this out. As of December 2025, the Department of Education reported more than 734,000 pending IDR applications. If your forbearance is lasting longer than you expected, check your servicer’s portal or call to confirm your application is still moving through the queue rather than sitting stuck.
You Qualify for a Forbearance the Servicer Must Grant
Federal rules require servicers to grant forbearance in certain situations. If you sent documentation showing you qualify, the servicer may apply the forbearance even if you didn’t specifically request one. Direct Loan mandatory forbearance situations include:1eCFR. 34 CFR 685.205 – Forbearance
- You’re serving in a medical or dental internship or residency you must finish before practicing, and you’ve exhausted deferment eligibility.
- You’re a National Guard member activated for state duty for more than 30 consecutive days who qualifies for a post-active duty deferment but not a military service deferment.
- You’re teaching in a qualifying low-income school or high-need subject area and pursuing teacher loan forgiveness.
- You’re in a national service position such as AmeriCorps.
- Your total federal student loan payments equal or exceed 20 percent of your gross monthly income.
The debt-burden forbearance uses a Department of Education worksheet to confirm you cross the 20 percent threshold.3Federal Student Aid. Mandatory Forbearance Request Forms – Student Loan Debt Burden Mandatory forbearances are usually granted in one-year increments and require annual recertification to remain in place.
You Were Approved for General Hardship Forbearance
If you don’t meet a mandatory category but you told your servicer you were struggling, the servicer can approve a general (discretionary) forbearance. The federal General Forbearance Request form lists financial difficulties, a change in employment, medical expenses, and other documented temporary hardships as qualifying reasons.4Federal Student Aid. General Forbearance Request
General forbearance is granted in periods of up to 12 months at a time. Perkins Loans carry a firm three-year cumulative cap; Direct Loan and FFEL servicers may set their own limits.4Federal Student Aid. General Forbearance Request If a servicer placed you into general forbearance without your explicit request, it may be because you fell behind on payments and the servicer used forbearance to keep the account from going delinquent. Check your recent mail and online messages for a notice explaining the reason.
A Federal Policy or Court Order Placed You in Forbearance
Sometimes millions of accounts move into forbearance at once because of a policy shift or court ruling. The clearest recent example is the SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education) plan. In July 2024, a federal court paused key parts of SAVE, and the Department of Education placed all SAVE borrowers into an interest-free forbearance while the case was pending.5Nelnet – Federal Student Aid. SAVE Forbearance
That forbearance has since changed. In July 2025, Federal Student Aid notified more than 7.6 million borrowers that interest would begin accruing on SAVE forbearance accounts starting August 1, 2025. In December 2025, the Department of Education announced a proposed settlement to end the SAVE plan entirely. If a court approves the settlement, borrowers still on SAVE will need to choose a different repayment plan within a limited window.6U.S. Department of Education. U.S. Department of Education Announces Agreement With Missouri to End SAVE Plan Servicers have resumed processing applications for other IDR plans like Income-Based Repayment, Pay As You Earn, and Income-Contingent Repayment.7MOHELA. Changes to the SAVE Administrative Forbearance
You don’t have to do anything to enter regulatory forbearance; it’s applied automatically. You may, however, need to act when it ends, and you should watch for communications from your servicer about picking a new repayment plan and a payment restart date.
What Forbearance Costs You
The main financial risk is interest. On both subsidized and unsubsidized loans, interest keeps accruing during forbearance even though no payment is due. This holds for administrative, mandatory, general, and (currently) SAVE forbearance.4Federal Student Aid. General Forbearance Request
When forbearance ends, unpaid interest typically capitalizes: it’s added to your principal balance, and future interest is calculated on that larger principal. On a $10,000 unsubsidized loan at 6.8 percent, six months of forbearance adds about $340 in interest to principal, and the daily interest charge climbs from $1.86 to $1.93 for the rest of the loan.8Nelnet – Federal Student Aid. Interest Capitalization On larger balances or longer pauses, that difference can reach thousands of dollars over the life of the loan. You can blunt this by paying the accrued interest as you go, even in small monthly amounts; you’re not required to, but doing so keeps the principal from growing.
What It Means for Loan Forgiveness
Forbearance can slow your path to forgiveness, and the details differ by program.
Public Service Loan Forgiveness
PSLF requires 120 qualifying monthly payments while you work full-time for a qualifying employer. Months in forbearance generally don’t count, because you weren’t making payments. If your loans were placed into forbearance during IDR processing or SAVE litigation, those months are typically lost for PSLF.
The PSLF Buyback program addresses this gap. Once you’ve reached 120 months of qualifying public service employment, you can request to retroactively buy back forbearance months by paying what you would have owed. You submit a reconsideration request after updating your Employment Certification Form; if approved, you receive a buyback agreement with the total due and 90 days to pay it. The program covers forbearance periods after 2007.
Income-Driven Repayment Forgiveness
IDR plans forgive remaining balances after 20 or 25 years of repayment, and forbearance months traditionally haven’t counted toward that clock. Under a one-time payment count adjustment, the Department of Education did count certain forbearance stretches — 12 or more consecutive months, or 36 or more cumulative months — toward IDR forgiveness.9Federal Student Aid. Payment Count Adjustments Toward Income-Driven Repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness That adjustment has largely been processed. It’s worth logging in to confirm your payment count reflects any qualifying forbearance time.
How It Shows Up on Your Credit
A loan in forbearance is reported to the credit bureaus with a special comment indicating the account is “In a Forbearance.”10Federal Student Aid. Credit Reporting The forbearance itself is not a negative mark; your loan shows as current. That protection is one reason servicers use forbearance to keep struggling accounts from going delinquent.
Forbearance does not erase delinquency that occurred before it was applied. Any prior late payments can still appear on your credit history. Once forbearance ends, missed payments are reported normally, and servicers report a loan as delinquent once it is 90 or more days past due at the end of a month.7MOHELA. Changes to the SAVE Administrative Forbearance
What to Do Before Forbearance Ends
The transition back to active repayment catches many borrowers off guard. A few things to check before your forbearance closes:
- If you had automatic payments running before forbearance, your servicer will restart them when forbearance ends. Auto-debit doesn’t run during forbearance, but you don’t need to re-enroll; confirm your bank balance can cover the payment on the restart date.11CRI – Federal Student Aid. FAQ – Auto Debit
- Your monthly payment amount may have changed, especially if forbearance was tied to an IDR application. Log in and check your updated payment before the first due date.
- If your forbearance was regulatory, particularly SAVE-related, you may need to actively select a new repayment plan. If you don’t, your loans could default to the standard 10-year plan, which usually carries the highest monthly payment.
- Look at your new balance. Any interest that accrued during forbearance may have capitalized onto your principal.
Your servicer should send notices before forbearance ends, but email and mail get lost. Logging in to your servicer’s portal every few weeks during a forbearance is the most reliable way to know what’s changing on your account and when payments will resume.