The PSLF Buyback program lets federal student loan borrowers pay for months spent in deferment or forbearance so those months count toward the 120 qualifying payments needed for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. It only works if buying back those months brings your total to 120 and triggers immediate forgiveness. If you’d still be short after purchasing every eligible month, you can’t use it yet.
Who Qualifies
The buyback is not a way to slowly accumulate credit. You need enough certified months of full-time public service employment that purchasing the deferment or forbearance months takes your qualifying payment count to at least 120. This is a gap-closing tool, not a shortcut for borrowers early in the process.
Your loans must be Direct Loans serviced by the Department of Education. FFEL and Perkins loans that haven’t been consolidated into a Direct Consolidation Loan aren’t eligible for PSLF at all, and the buyback doesn’t change that.
If you’ve consolidated, the buyback applies only to the current consolidation loan. Months on the underlying loans that were rolled into the consolidation cannot be purchased, and no period before the consolidation loan’s first disbursement date is eligible. You also cannot buy back earlier months as a way to reverse more recent payments and get a refund.
You do not need to be enrolled in an income-driven repayment plan right now to request a buyback. If you weren’t on IDR before or after the forbearance, the Department will request your tax information to calculate what you would have paid.
Which Months You Can Buy Back
Most deferment and forbearance periods after October 2007 are eligible, as long as you were working full-time for a qualifying public service employer during those months. The regulation covers months where a borrower “postponed monthly payments under a deferment or forbearance and was employed full-time at a qualifying employer.”1eCFR. 34 CFR 685.219 Economic hardship deferments, unemployment deferments, and general forbearance periods all fall within the buyback’s scope, provided they don’t already count under the payment count adjustment.
Some periods are permanently excluded. In-school status and the post-graduation grace period cannot be purchased. Months before October 2007, when PSLF took effect, are also off the table.2Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness
SAVE Plan Forbearance
Borrowers placed into administrative forbearance during the SAVE plan litigation do not automatically get PSLF credit for those months, but the buyback covers them. If you were in qualifying public service employment while your loans sat in SAVE-related forbearance, those months can be purchased. As of March 2026, a federal court order prevents the Department of Education from implementing the SAVE Plan, and borrowers still in SAVE-related forbearance must select a new repayment plan.3Federal Student Aid. IDR Court Actions
How Much It Costs
There’s no flat fee. Your buyback cost for each month equals the payment you would have owed under a qualifying repayment plan during that specific deferment or forbearance period.
If you were on an income-driven repayment plan immediately before or after the forbearance, and the forbearance lasted less than a year, the Department uses the lower of your two IDR payment amounts from those adjacent months. For forbearance stretching across multiple tax years, the Department will request tax information for each year to recalculate what you would have owed.4Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Buyback
If you weren’t on IDR before or after the buyback period, the Department requests your tax returns and family size information for those years to determine what your IDR payment would have been. The calculation uses the lowest IDR amount you were eligible for at the time. If the 10-year standard repayment amount is lower than the calculated IDR payment, the standard amount is used instead.4Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Buyback
Watch this deadline: if you don’t send the requested tax and family size information within 30 days, the Department defaults to the 10-year standard repayment amount. That is almost always higher than an IDR calculation, so respond quickly. Parent PLUS borrowers work under a separate rule; the buyback amount is based on the 10-year standard plan, or the ICR/IBR calculation if the Parent PLUS loan was included in a Direct Consolidation Loan.4Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Buyback
If your income during the forbearance qualified you for a $0 IDR payment, you can receive credit without paying anything. The regulation explicitly allows credit for months where the borrower “otherwise qualified for a $0 payment on an income-driven repayment plan.”1eCFR. 34 CFR 685.219
How to Submit the Request
The buyback uses the existing PSLF Reconsideration process, not a separate application. The order matters.
- Certify all qualifying employment first. Use the PSLF Help Tool to submit a PSLF form covering every unreported period of qualifying employment. Do this before submitting the buyback request, because the Department needs to verify that your employment overlaps with the months you want to buy back.4Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Buyback
- Verify the months you want to buy back. Check your account on StudentAid.gov to confirm which months show as deferment or forbearance and that each is covered by approved qualifying employment.
- Submit through PSLF Reconsideration on StudentAid.gov. Select “PSLF Buyback” as your reconsideration type and confirm that you have 120 months of qualifying employment.4Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Buyback
- Wait for the buyback agreement. If eligible, the Department sends you an agreement specifying the exact amount and payment instructions.
The 90-Day Payment Window
Once you receive the buyback agreement, you have 90 days from the date of the agreement letter to pay the full amount to your loan servicer. You do not have to make a single lump-sum payment; the Department allows multiple payments within that window, as long as the total arrives by the deadline.4Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Buyback
If the full amount isn’t received in 90 days, the agreement is voided and you have to start over. Payments you already made won’t be refunded; they’ll be credited as regular monthly payments on your loan.4Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Buyback
Another trap: submitting a PSLF form after you’ve received the buyback agreement voids it.4Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Buyback That’s why employment certification has to happen before the reconsideration request goes in.
Keep making your regular student loan payments throughout the review. Your payment obligation doesn’t pause while you wait for approval. If the buyback goes through and you end up having overpaid, the excess is first applied to any other outstanding federal loans; only after those are satisfied will the Department issue a refund.4Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Buyback
Taxes on the Forgiven Balance
PSLF forgiveness is excluded from federal gross income. The Internal Revenue Code provides that discharged student loan amounts don’t count as income when the discharge results from working in certain professions for qualifying employers, which is how PSLF operates.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 108 – Income From Discharge of Indebtedness Completing a buyback and receiving forgiveness should not trigger a federal tax bill, regardless of how large your forgiven balance is.6Taxpayer Advocate Service. What to Know about Student Loan Forgiveness and Your Taxes
State taxes are separate. Most states follow federal treatment, but a handful have historically taxed certain loan forgiveness. Check your state’s conformity with federal tax law before assuming you owe nothing at the state level.
Mistakes That Derail a Buyback
The most common failure is incomplete employment certification. Every month you want to buy back must be covered by verified qualifying employment in the Department’s system before you submit the reconsideration request. A buyback request with uncertified months won’t be processed until the gap is closed.
Missing the 30-day window to send income documentation is the next expensive mistake. The Department will default to the 10-year standard repayment calculation, which can be dramatically higher than an IDR-based amount for borrowers who had modest incomes during the forbearance years.
Some borrowers assume they can buy back months from loans that were later folded into a consolidation. Those pre-consolidation months are not recoverable through the buyback. Only months on the current loan structure, after the consolidation’s disbursement date, qualify.4Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Buyback
Watch the 90-day clock. The deadline runs from the date of the agreement letter, not the date you open it. If the letter sits in your inbox for two weeks, you’ve already burned through nearly a quarter of your window.