LDP Rates Explained: Calculation, 2026 Rates, and Eligibility

A Loan Deficiency Payment rate is the per-unit cash payment USDA’s Farm Service Agency makes to an eligible producer when a commodity’s local market price falls below its county loan rate. LDP rates change daily for grains and oilseeds and weekly for several other commodities, and they equal the difference between the county loan rate and the posted county price on the day the producer requests the payment. For the 2026 crop year, loan rates rose across every eligible commodity under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which means LDPs can now trigger at higher market prices than before.

How an LDP Rate Is Calculated

For grains and oilseeds, the LDP rate on a given day is the county loan rate minus the posted county price, or PCP. The county loan rate is a fixed price floor USDA sets for each commodity in each county. The PCP is a locally adjusted market price USDA calculates daily using bids from major terminal markets such as the Gulf export terminal or Kansas City, adjusted back to the county level using a “county differential” that reflects transportation and basis.¹

USDA runs the PCP two ways: a 30-calendar-day moving average of terminal prices adjusted for the gap between national and county loan rates, and a 5-calendar-day moving average adjusted by the county differential. The agency takes the higher result from the assigned terminal markets.²

An LDP is only available when the PCP sits below the county loan rate. If a county’s adjusted corn loan rate is $2.42 per bushel and the PCP that day is $2.36, the LDP rate is $0.06 per bushel. The producer’s payment equals that rate multiplied by the bushels claimed.¹ When market prices sit at or above the loan rate, the LDP rate is zero.

Upland cotton works differently. USDA compares the base quality loan rate against the adjusted world price, or AWP, derived from global cotton market data. When the AWP is below the loan rate, the shortfall is the LDP rate. In January 2026, the AWP was 51.17 cents per pound against a loan rate of 52.00 cents, producing an LDP rate of 0.83 cents per pound.³ By late June 2026, the AWP had climbed to 63.88 cents, well above the loan rate, and the cotton LDP rate was zero.⁴

2026 National Loan Rates

Loan rates are the ceiling on any LDP rate: your payment can never exceed the gap between the loan rate and a market price of zero, and in practice it tracks much smaller daily differences. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed July 4, 2025, reauthorized the LDP and Marketing Assistance Loan programs through the 2031 crop year and raised the statutory loan rates starting with the 2026 crop.⁵

National 2026 loan rates for major commodities, with 2025 rates for comparison:

Wheat: $3.72 per bushel, up from $3.38⁵
Corn: $2.42 per bushel, up from $2.20
Grain sorghum: $2.42 per bushel, up from $2.20
Barley: $2.75 per bushel, up from $2.50
Oats: $2.20 per bushel, up from $2.00
Soybeans: $6.82 per bushel, up from $6.20
Other oilseeds: $11.10 per hundredweight, up from $10.09
Upland cotton: $0.55 per pound, up from $0.52⁶

Wool and mohair rose sharply. Graded wool now ranges from $1.36 to $4.67 per pound depending on micron class, with the base rate up from $1.15 to $1.60. Ungraded wool went from $0.40 to $0.55 per pound, and mohair from $4.20 to $5.00.⁷ Honey saw the biggest percentage jump, more than doubling from $0.69 to $1.50 per pound.⁶

Because county loan rates are derived from the national rate using a differential, higher national rates lift the county floors too. Corn producers in many counties will now see LDPs trigger at market prices that would have produced nothing under the old $2.20 national rate.

Where To Find Today’s LDP Rate

USDA does not publish a single static table because rates move with the market. The Farm Service Agency posts daily LDP rates for grains and oilseeds through its online rate lookup tool. Weekly rate files in spreadsheet format cover pulse crops, peanuts, wool and mohair, cotton, and rice.⁸ Monthly honey survey prices, used to compute the 30-day repayment rate for honey, are published separately.⁹ County loan rate schedules for each crop year are available for download from USDA.

Which Commodities Qualify

Grains: wheat, corn, grain sorghum, barley, and oats
Oilseeds: soybeans, canola, crambe, flaxseed, mustard seed, rapeseed, safflower seed, sesame seed, and sunflower seed
Pulse crops: dry peas, lentils, small chickpeas, and large chickpeas
Upland cotton (extra-long staple cotton qualifies for loans only, not LDPs)¹⁰
Rice: long grain and medium/short grain
Graded and ungraded wool, mohair, and unshorn pelts (pelts are eligible for LDPs only)¹¹
Honey and peanuts

Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, LDP coverage also extends to hay, silage, and wheat, barley, oats, or triticale used for grazing.⁶

Eligibility and How To Claim an LDP

To collect an LDP, you must qualify for a Marketing Assistance Loan on that commodity but choose to take the payment instead. The core requirements:

Beneficial interest. You must hold title, possession, control, and risk of loss from planting through the date you request the LDP. Selling the commodity before you file forfeits eligibility.¹²
Acreage report. A complete report covering all cropland on the farm must be on file for the crop year.¹³
Conservation compliance with Sodbuster and Swampbuster, plus a completed AD-1026.
Forms CCC-902, CCC-941, and, for cotton, CCC-633EZ.
Income limit. Producers with average adjusted gross income above $900,000 are generally ineligible, with an exception for those earning 75% or more of their income from farming-related activities.¹⁴
Quality. The commodity must be in storable, merchantable condition and meet minimum Commodity Credit Corporation grade requirements.¹¹

You submit the request through your local Farm Service Agency office by mail, fax, hand delivery, or electronic means, or online with a USDA eAuthentication account. A service fee applies, based on the quantity claimed.¹³ Credit scores play no role.

One other point worth knowing before you plan around these payments: marketing loan gains and LDP benefits are not subject to the per-person payment limitation that caps programs like Price Loss Coverage and Agriculture Risk Coverage.¹⁴

Application Deadlines

Deadlines fall in the calendar year after harvest and vary by commodity:

January 31: peanuts, mohair, wool, and unshorn pelts¹⁵
March 31: wheat, barley, oats, canola, flaxseed, crambe, rapeseed, sesame seed, and honey
May 31: rice, corn, grain sorghum, cotton, soybeans, safflower, sunflower seed, mustard seed, chickpeas, lentils, and dry peas

LDP or Marketing Assistance Loan?

If your crop qualifies, you can take an LDP or place the crop under a nine-month Marketing Assistance Loan. They are different tools.

With a loan, you pledge the harvested crop as collateral and receive an interest-bearing advance. The crop goes into storage. If prices rise, you sell, repay the loan, and keep the gain. If prices stay low, you can repay at the posted county price and keep the marketing loan gain, or forfeit the crop to the government as full satisfaction, because the loans are nonrecourse.¹⁰

An LDP is a one-time payment. Nothing to repay, no storage requirement, no interest. You get cash on the day you request it and you are free to sell the crop immediately. In exchange, you give up any later price recovery on that quantity, and once an LDP is paid on a portion of the crop, that quantity cannot later be pledged as collateral for a loan.¹² LDPs also do not account for quality premiums or discounts the way loans do.

For producers short on storage or needing immediate cash flow, the LDP is usually the simpler route. For producers with storage and a view that prices will recover, the loan preserves more marketing flexibility.

1
CropWatch (University of Nebraska–Lincoln). Marketing Loans and Loan Deficiency Payments
2
USDA Farm Service Agency. Notice LP-2113, Loan Repayment Rate Methodology
3
USDA Farm Service Agency. Upland Cotton Announcement, January 16–22, 2026
4
USDA Agricultural Marketing Service. Cotton World Market Report
5
USDA Farm Service Agency. USDA Announces 2026 Marketing Assistance Loan Rates for Wheat, Feed Grains
6
Congressional Research Service. One Big Beautiful Bill Act Agricultural Provisions
7
USDA Farm Service Agency. USDA Announces 2026 Wool Mohair Marketing Assistance Loan Rates
8
USDA Farm Service Agency. Price Support
9
USDA Farm Service Agency. Commodity Loan Rates
10
Congressional Research Service. Farm Bill Primer: Marketing Assistance Loans and LDPs
11
Farmers.gov. Ask the Expert: Q&A on Commodity Loans
12
USDA Farm Service Agency. Marketing Assistance Loans and LDPs Fact Sheet
13
USDA Farm Service Agency. Loan Deficiency Payments
14
USDA Farm Service Agency. Wool and Mohair Program
15
SAM.gov. Loan Deficiency Payment Program Listing