Student Loan Forbearance Form: Filing, Costs, and Alternatives

The federal student loan forbearance form is a short request that asks your loan servicer to pause or reduce your monthly payments during a period of financial hardship or a qualifying life event. For most borrowers, the right document is the General Forbearance Request, available on StudentAid.gov and on every major servicer’s website. It has two sections and takes about ten minutes to complete. The harder part is choosing the correct type of relief before you sign anything, because the wrong choice can cost you money and forgiveness credit you did not know you were giving up.

Pick the Right Form Before You Fill Anything Out

Federal forbearance comes in two flavors, and they use different forms.

General (discretionary) forbearance covers broad financial hardship. Your servicer reviews the request and decides whether to grant it. The General Forbearance Request form lists four qualifying reasons: financial difficulties, a change in employment, medical expenses, or “other” circumstances you explain in writing.¹ Because approval is discretionary, a clear written explanation strengthens the request.

Mandatory forbearance means the servicer must grant the pause if you meet the criteria and supply the documentation. Qualifying situations include a medical or dental internship or residency, AmeriCorps service, certain National Guard duty, participation in the Department of Defense Student Loan Repayment Program, qualifying service for teacher loan forgiveness, and a debt burden where your total monthly student loan payments equal or exceed 20 percent of your gross monthly income (for up to three years).²

Each mandatory category has its own form. Medical residency, National Guard duty, and DoD repayment program participants share a combined document, the Service-Based Mandatory Forbearance Request, which requires certification from an authorized official (your program director, commanding officer, or DoD representative) in addition to your own information.³ If you qualify for mandatory forbearance, submitting the general form instead will delay you and could leave you with a decision the servicer was not required to make.

Filling Out the General Forbearance Request Form

Section 1: Borrower Information

Enter your Social Security number, full legal name, current mailing address, and at least one phone number. An email address is optional but worth including since many servicers send status updates electronically.¹ Make sure the name and SSN match your servicer’s records. Mismatches slow processing and sometimes bounce the form back unprocessed.

Section 2: Forbearance Request

This section asks you to make four choices:

Reason for the request. Check one box: financial difficulties, change in employment, medical expenses, or other. If you check “other,” write a brief explanation in the space provided.
Type of relief. You can ask to stop payments entirely or to make reduced payments of a specific dollar amount per month.
Start date. Specify the month and year you want the pause to begin. You can request it retroactively to cover a payment you already missed, or prospectively.
End date. Specify when you want normal payments to resume.

Sign and date the form. By signing, you agree to provide additional documentation if your servicer asks, but no specific documents (pay stubs, tax returns, medical records) are required as attachments when you first submit.¹ Having recent pay stubs or a termination letter on hand can speed things up if the servicer follows up.

How Long the Pause Can Last

A single forbearance period maxes out at 12 months. The form ends your forbearance at whichever comes first: your requested end date, 12 months from when it begins, or any limit your servicer sets.¹ If you still need relief after 12 months, you submit a new request.

Perkins Loans carry a hard cumulative cap of three years of general forbearance. For Direct Loans and FFEL Program loans, the form notes that your loan holder may set its own cumulative limit.¹ Mandatory forbearance also runs 12 months per request but has no overall cumulative cap, so a borrower in a four-year residency can renew each year.

How to Submit the Form

You have several options for getting the completed form to your servicer:

Online portal. Most servicers (MOHELA, Nelnet, Aidvantage, EdFinancial) let you upload the signed form through a secure page. Some also let you request general forbearance directly on their website without the paper form at all.
Phone. You can call your servicer and request general forbearance verbally. The servicer may process it on the call and send written confirmation afterward. This is often the fastest route.
Fax. Save the transmission confirmation page as your proof of delivery. The servicer’s fax number appears on the form and on their website.
Mail. If you want a paper trail, send the form by certified mail with return receipt requested. Mailing addresses for each servicer appear on the form itself.

Whichever method you use, keep a copy of the completed form and any confirmation number or receipt. If a dispute later arises about whether you requested the pause before going delinquent, that record is what protects you.

What Happens After You Submit

Processing timelines vary by servicer and are not standardized by regulation. When policy changes trigger a wave of applications, backlogs can stretch things out. If your request is dragging, call your servicer and ask to be placed in an administrative or processing forbearance, which pauses your payment obligation (typically up to 60 days) while your application works through the queue.

Once approved, your servicer sends a notice confirming the start and end dates. Read it carefully to confirm the pause was applied to the correct loans. If you have multiple loan sequences, it is possible for the servicer to apply the forbearance to some but not all of them. If your request is denied, the notice explains why, and you can resubmit with more documentation or a correction.

Servicers report your loan status to the credit bureaus monthly. During forbearance, your account carries a special comment indicating that status and will not show as delinquent, provided the forbearance was in place before you missed payments.⁴ Missed payments already reported before the pause was approved do not automatically disappear from your credit history.

What Forbearance Actually Costs You

Interest accrues on every federal loan type during forbearance — subsidized, unsubsidized, and PLUS loans alike.⁵ That is different from deferment, where the government covers interest on subsidized loans.

For Direct Loans, that accrued interest is no longer added to your principal balance when the forbearance ends. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau confirms that interest accruing during forbearance on Direct Loans is no longer capitalized into the principal. The unpaid interest still exists as a separate balance you owe, but it will not inflate your principal going forward. For older FFEL Program loans not owned by the federal government, capitalization may still apply.⁶

If you can afford to pay even just the monthly interest during the pause, you come out ahead. Your servicer can tell you the interest-only amount, which is often far less than the full payment.

Forbearance months also generally do not count toward the 120 payments required for Public Service Loan Forgiveness or toward the 20 or 25 years required for income-driven repayment forgiveness.⁷ If you are pursuing forgiveness, every month in forbearance is a month that does not tick down the clock.

Check Whether Deferment or IDR Fits Better

Servicers give you what you ask for. They do not redirect you to a better option, so it pays to look before you file.

Deferment is often more favorable when you qualify. Common categories include enrollment in school at least half-time, unemployment, economic hardship, and active-duty military service. During deferment, the government pays the interest on Direct Subsidized Loans and Perkins Loans, so your balance does not grow.⁸ Cancer treatment is also a deferment, not a forbearance; most loan types receive an interest subsidy during it, and it lasts through treatment plus six months.⁹

Income-driven repayment is the other option worth checking. If your income sits below 150 percent of the federal poverty level, your calculated monthly payment under an IDR plan can drop to $0. Unlike a forbearance pause, those $0 months count toward PSLF and IDR forgiveness.⁷ For anyone working in public service or expecting to pursue forgiveness, IDR keeps the clock running.

Common Mistakes That Delay a Request

Most forbearance requests that stall share the same handful of problems:

Submitting the wrong form. If you qualify for mandatory forbearance, the general form will not work. The servicer needs the specific mandatory form with the required third-party certification.³
Missing the signature or date. Unsigned forms get returned without processing.
Name or SSN mismatch. If your name has changed since you took out the loan and you have not updated it with your servicer, the form will not match their records.
Requesting forbearance when deferment applies. If you are back in school, unemployed, or in cancer treatment, deferment is available and usually cheaper. You get what you ask for.
Not backdating the start date. If you have already missed a payment, request the pause retroactively to cover that month. Otherwise the missed payment stays on your record even after the forbearance takes effect.

1
Federal Student Aid. General Forbearance Request Form
2
eCFR. 34 CFR 685.205 – Forbearance
3
Federal Student Aid. Service-Based Mandatory Forbearance Request
4
Nelnet. Credit Reporting
5
Federal Student Aid. Deferment and Forbearance
6
CFPB. Tips for Paying Off Student Loans More Easily
7
Federal Student Aid. Payment Count Adjustments Toward Income-Driven Repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness Programs
8
Federal Student Aid. Direct Loan Borrowers Rights and Responsibilities Statement
9
Federal Student Aid. Deferment for Cancer Treatment for Direct Loan, FFEL, and Perkins Loan Program Borrowers