How to Fill Out and Submit the Economic Hardship Deferment Request Form

The Economic Hardship Deferment Request form (OMB No. 1845-0011) is the federal form you file with your student loan servicer to pause payments when money is tight. Download it from StudentAid.gov or your servicer’s site, confirm you meet one of four eligibility paths, attach the supporting documents that match your path, sign it, and submit it to each servicer that holds your loans. An approved deferment runs up to one year at a time, with a 36-month lifetime cap, and it covers Direct Loans, FFEL Program loans, and Perkins Loans.¹

Who Qualifies

You only need to meet one of four paths spelled out in federal regulation:

You’re receiving payments under a federal or state public assistance program such as TANF, SSI, SNAP, or state general public assistance.²
You work full-time and your monthly income doesn’t exceed the greater of the federal minimum wage ($7.25 per hour, calculated monthly) or 150 percent of the federal poverty guideline for your family size.²
You’re serving full-time in the Peace Corps.³
You’ve already been granted economic hardship deferment on a loan in one federal program (Direct, FFEL, or Perkins) and want the same deferment applied to loans in another program for the same time period.²

2026 Income Thresholds

For the income-based path, compare your monthly earnings against 150 percent of the poverty guideline for your household. For the 48 contiguous states and D.C., the 2026 figures at that level are:

1 person: $23,940 per year ($1,995/month)
2 people: $32,460 per year ($2,705/month)
3 people: $40,980 per year ($3,415/month)
4 people: $49,500 per year ($4,125/month)
5 people: $58,020 per year ($4,835/month)

If your monthly income falls below the applicable threshold, you qualify. The minimum-wage comparison rarely matters for households larger than one because 150 percent of the guideline is higher.⁴

Which Loans the Form Covers

The form works for nearly every federal student loan:¹

Direct Loan Program: Direct Subsidized, Direct Unsubsidized, Direct PLUS, and Direct Consolidation Loans
FFEL Program: Federal Stafford, Federal PLUS, Federal Consolidation, and Supplemental Loans for Students
Perkins Loan Program: Federal Perkins, National Direct Student Loans, and National Defense Student Loans

If more than one servicer holds your loans, submit a separate form to each. One form only covers the loans held by the servicer that receives it.

Filling Out the Form

The form carries an expiration date of December 31, 2027. Pull the current version from StudentAid.gov or your servicer’s website; outdated forms can cause processing delays.¹

Section 1: Borrower Information

Enter your name, Social Security number, date of birth, address, phone, and email. Check the box for updated information if anything has changed since you last contacted your servicer.

Section 2: Determining Your Eligibility

Complete only the questions for the path that applies to you.

Public assistance: indicate that you’re receiving qualifying payments and attach documentation. You can skip the income questions.
Income-based: report your monthly income. The form lets you use either your gross taxable income from all sources or one-twelfth of the adjusted gross income from your most recent federal tax return, whichever is more favorable. Enter your family size so the servicer can apply the correct threshold.¹
Peace Corps: use the separate path the form provides for volunteers.

Section 3: Certifications and Signature

Read the borrower understandings, then sign and date. Your signature certifies the information is accurate and authorizes processing. Unsigned forms are one of the most common reasons requests come back.

Documents to Attach

The form alone will not be accepted. Match your evidence to your eligibility path:

Public assistance: an official eligibility notice or benefit verification letter from the agency providing the assistance.⁵
Income-based: recent pay stubs, a W-2, or a copy of your federal tax return showing AGI.¹
Peace Corps: a certification from the Peace Corps that shows your beginning and anticipated ending dates of service, signed and dated by a Peace Corps official. Volunteers typically receive this during pre-departure orientation.⁶

Where to Send It

Send the completed form and documentation to your loan servicer, not to the Department of Education. Servicers such as Nelnet, MOHELA, and Aidvantage each publish their own submission channels:

Online upload through the servicer’s borrower portal is the fastest route.
Mail to the servicer’s processing address, printed on your monthly billing statement or on the servicer’s website.
Fax, where the servicer accepts it. Check the contact page for the correct number.

Keep a copy of everything you send along with your upload confirmation, certified mail receipt, or fax transmission report. If the servicer later says nothing arrived, that receipt is what keeps your account from going delinquent.

After You Submit

Reviews usually take several weeks. While your servicer evaluates the paperwork, federal regulations let them grant an administrative forbearance for up to 60 days to collect and process the documents. Interest that accrues during that processing window is not capitalized.⁷

When the review is done, your servicer sends written notice confirming the start and end dates of the deferment or explaining a denial. A denial doesn’t bar you from trying again with corrected or additional documentation.

How Long It Lasts and How to Renew

The deferment is granted in one-year increments. To keep it going, reapply each year, with the same form and fresh documentation. The cumulative lifetime cap is 36 months.¹

Peace Corps volunteers are the exception to the one-year increment: they can receive a deferment covering their full term of service, though it still counts against the 36-month cap.²

When a deferment period ends without renewal, payments resume at the amount in your repayment plan. Servicers do notify you, but not always with much lead time. Mark your calendar for 30 days before expiration and start the paperwork then.

Interest During Deferment

Whether the government pays your interest during deferment depends on the loan type.

Subsidized loans (Direct Subsidized, subsidized Stafford, subsidized portion of Consolidation Loans): the federal government pays the interest that accrues. Your balance stays the same.⁵
Perkins Loans: you’re not responsible for interest during deferment, and unpaid interest on Perkins Loans never capitalizes.⁸
Unsubsidized loans and PLUS Loans: interest keeps accruing and you owe it. You can make interest-only payments to keep the balance from growing. If you don’t, unpaid interest capitalizes (gets added to your principal) when the deferment ends.⁵

If you can afford even partial interest payments during deferment on unsubsidized or PLUS loans, they’re worth making. Capitalization compounds the cost of the loan for the rest of the repayment term.

Effect on Forgiveness and Credit

Months in economic hardship deferment generally do not count as qualifying payments toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness or income-driven repayment forgiveness.⁸ If you’re working toward either program, deferment pauses your payments and your progress toward forgiveness. For borrowers in qualifying public-service jobs, enrolling in an income-driven repayment plan with a $0 monthly payment (if your income is low enough) delivers the same financial relief while the months still count toward the 120 payments needed for PSLF.

The Department of Education did conduct a one-time IDR account adjustment that credited certain economic hardship deferment periods from 2013 onward toward IDR and PSLF payment counts.⁹ That was a retroactive fix, not an ongoing policy.

A loan in deferment is reported to credit bureaus as “deferred” rather than delinquent, and no payments are due, so nothing is missed. The credit risk sits in the window before approval: if your account goes 90 or more days past due while you’re gathering paperwork, the servicer may report the delinquency before the deferment takes effect.¹⁰ Submit as early as you can, and if you’re close to that 90-day line, call your servicer to ask about forbearance while your deferment request is being reviewed.

1
Federal Student Aid. Economic Hardship Deferment Request
2
eCFR. 34 CFR 685.204 – Deferment
3
eCFR. 34 CFR 682.210 – Deferment
4
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 2026 Poverty Guidelines
5
Federal Student Aid. Economic Hardship Deferment Request
6
Federal Student Aid. GEN-98-16
7
eCFR. 34 CFR 685.205 – Forbearance
8
Federal Student Aid. Student Loan Deferment
9
Federal Student Aid. Payment Count Adjustments Toward Income-Driven Repayment and PSLF
10
Nelnet. Credit Reporting