Student Loan IDR Applications Blocked: IBR Deadline and Next Steps

The SAVE plan application is permanently blocked and the plan itself has ended following a March 10, 2026 federal court order and the settlement that followed.¹ If you were enrolled or had a pending application, your loans are in forbearance and you need to choose a different repayment plan. Income-Based Repayment, Income-Contingent Repayment, and Pay As You Earn are still open, and you can apply online or on paper. The urgent part isn’t the closed SAVE portal. It’s a set of 2026 deadlines that can permanently narrow your options if you wait.

What Happened to SAVE

A coalition of states sued the Department of Education, arguing it exceeded its authority in creating SAVE. The March 10, 2026 court order blocked the Department from implementing SAVE and parts of other income-driven plans.¹ The settlement that followed required the Department to stop enrolling anyone in SAVE, deny all pending SAVE applications, and move current SAVE borrowers into a different plan. The Department also agreed not to enroll anyone in the original REPAYE plan.²

This is not a pause. SAVE is not coming back.

The 90-Day Notice From Your Servicer

Starting July 1, 2026, your loan servicer will send a notice giving you 90 days to select a repayment plan and enroll. You can also call your servicer before then and switch voluntarily. Waiting for the notice buys you nothing if you already know which plan you want.³

If you ignore the 90-day window, your servicer will automatically place you on the Standard Repayment Plan or the new Tiered Standard Plan. Neither offers forgiveness, and for most former SAVE borrowers the Standard payment is meaningfully higher than what they were paying before. You can still apply for an income-driven plan afterward, but you’ll be paying the higher amount while your application processes.

The July 1, 2026 IBR Cutoff Is the Deadline That Matters Most

After July 1, 2026, Income-Based Repayment closes to any borrower who takes out or consolidates a new federal loan on or after that date. If you borrow even a single new Direct Loan after the cutoff, the new Repayment Assistance Plan becomes the only income-driven option for all your federal loans, including the ones you already had.⁴

The difference is not small. IBR forgives remaining balances after 20 years for loans first disbursed on or after July 1, 2014, with payments capped at 10% of discretionary income. Older loans use a 15% cap with forgiveness at 25 years.⁵ RAP forgives at 30 years. That’s a full decade longer.

If you’re currently in school or considering more federal borrowing, understand what enrolling in IBR before the cutoff does and doesn’t do. It gets you into IBR now. It does not protect you from the switch to RAP if you later borrow again. To keep IBR access on existing loans, you have to stop federal borrowing after July 1, 2026.

Parent PLUS Borrowers Have Their Own Deadlines

Parent PLUS loans have never been directly eligible for most income-driven plans. The workaround has been to consolidate into a Direct Consolidation Loan and enroll in ICR. That path is closing on a tight schedule. To keep any IDR access, Parent PLUS borrowers must consolidate before July 1, 2026, and enroll in a qualifying IDR plan before July 1, 2028. Miss either deadline and the consolidation loan containing Parent PLUS debt will never qualify for income-driven repayment. RAP explicitly excludes consolidation loans that include Parent PLUS loans.⁴

Consolidation itself takes time to process, and the Department of Education had roughly 554,000 pending IDR applications at the end of March 2026. If you’re a parent borrower sitting in SAVE forbearance, start the consolidation now.

Your Remaining Repayment Options

Three income-driven plans are currently open to applications, and a fourth launches on July 1, 2026.¹

Income-Based Repayment

IBR is the closest substitute for SAVE for most borrowers. Payments cap at 10% of discretionary income with forgiveness at 20 years for loans first disbursed on or after July 1, 2014, or 15% and 25 years for older loans.⁵ IBR qualifies for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.

Pay As You Earn

PAYE remains available for applications. The settlement calls for PAYE and the original ICR to be sunsetted through future rulemaking, so its long-term future is uncertain.²

Income-Contingent Repayment

ICR sets payments at 20% of discretionary income with forgiveness at 25 years.⁵ The higher payment percentage makes it less attractive than IBR for most, but it’s currently the only IDR option for Direct Consolidation Loans that repaid Parent PLUS loans.

Repayment Assistance Plan

RAP launches July 1, 2026. Payments run on a sliding scale from 1% to 10% of adjusted gross income, climbing one point for each $10,000 in income. Borrowers earning $10,000 or less pay $10 per month. Each dependent reduces the monthly payment by $50, with a $10 floor. RAP includes an interest subsidy that keeps your balance from growing when payments don’t cover accruing interest, plus matching principal for borrowers paying less than $50 in monthly principal. Forgiveness comes at 30 years. Parent PLUS loans are not eligible.⁴

How To Apply

The fastest route is online at StudentAid.gov for IBR, ICR, or PAYE.¹ If you consent to let the Department pull your federal tax information from the IRS, you skip the income documentation upload and the application moves faster.³

Prefer paper? Download the Income-Driven Repayment Plan Request form (OMB No. 1845-0102) from the Department’s website. Section 2 is where you select IBR, PAYE, or ICR. The form asks for marital status, dependents, and income.⁶ Attach your most recent federal tax return or transcript. If your income has changed significantly, current pay stubs or an employer letter can substitute, but the documentation must be dated within 90 days of when you sign.

Send the completed form to your loan servicer, not to the Department. Current federal servicers include MOHELA, Nelnet, Edfinancial, Aidvantage, and ECSI.⁷ Each has its own mailing address and fax number. MOHELA, for example, accepts forms by fax at 866-222-7060 or by mail to 633 Spirit Drive, Chesterfield, MO 63005-1243.⁸ Log into your servicer account to confirm the address for your file. Certified mail with return receipt is worth the few extra dollars if the application is ever disputed.

Missing documents are the most common reason paper applications are rejected. Check everything twice before it goes out.

What the Forbearance Does to PSLF

The SAVE forbearance does not count toward the 120 qualifying payments needed for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, even when you’re working full-time for a qualifying employer.⁹ This is different from the pandemic-era pause.

The Department created PSLF Buyback to plug the gap. Once you hit 120 months of qualifying public service employment, you can pay retroactively for the forbearance months you missed. The steps:

Submit a PSLF form through the PSLF Help Tool covering any unreported qualifying employment.
Confirm which forbearance months you want to buy back and that they line up with approved qualifying employment.
File a PSLF Reconsideration request and select “PSLF Buyback” as the reconsideration type.
If eligible, you receive an agreement with a payment amount and have 90 days to pay in full.⁹

The buyback backlog is severe. Many borrowers have waited over a year for a determination. If you’re close to 120 payments, getting out of forbearance and into a qualifying IDR plan is the single most useful thing you can do this month. Some months of your SAVE forbearance may still count toward the 20- or 25-year IDR forgiveness clock under a rule that took effect July 1, 2024 and wasn’t disturbed by the settlement, but PSLF’s 120-month count is a separate track.²

If You’re Already on Another IDR Plan, Watch Your Recertification Date

IDR plans require annual income and family size recertification. Borrowers whose recertification dates originally fell between March 18, 2025 and February 1, 2026 received a one-year extension. Dates on or after February 1, 2026 were not extended.

Log into StudentAid.gov to check your IDR Anniversary Date. If your servicer’s site shows a different date, the servicer’s date typically drives your billing while the federal site holds the official record. Missing recertification can push your payment back to the standard amount based on your full balance, which for many borrowers means a payment several times higher overnight. With a large application backlog, submitting well before your deadline is the only real buffer.

Expect Processing Delays

The Department reported roughly 554,000 pending IDR applications at the end of March 2026. Processing runs 60 days or more for many borrowers, and paper applications generally take longer than online submissions because the data has to be entered by hand. PSLF Buyback requests are taking longer still.

Keep copies of everything you submit and the date you sent it. Certified mail receipts are your proof if a paper application disappears. Monitor your servicer account for document requests — a single missing item can stall the file. If more than 60 days pass without any update, call your servicer directly. Emails don’t always arrive.

1
Federal Student Aid. IDR Plan Court Actions: Impact on Borrowers
2
U.S. Department of Education. State of Missouri, et al. v. Donald J. Trump, et al. – Settlement Agreement
3
U.S. Department of Education. U.S. Department of Education Announces Next Steps for Borrowers Enrolled in Unlawful SAVE Plan
4
Congress.gov. The Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) in P.L. 119-21, the FY2025 Reconciliation Act
5
Federal Student Aid. Federal Student Loan Program Provisions Effective Upon Enactment Under One Big Beautiful Bill Act
6
Federal Student Aid. Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) Plan Request
7
Edfinancial Services. Finding Your Student Loans
8
MOHELA. MOHELA Forms – Section: Submitting Forms
9
Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness Buyback