MoneyJul 18, 2026
The SAVE Repayment Plan Has Ended. Here's What Every Borrower Should Know.
Debt Management
Rhea Lobo
Discover
The SAVE student loan repayment plan is officially over, and 7M borrowers still enrolled have a hard deadline to find a replacement.
Loan servicers started sending 90-day notices on July 1. The earliest deadline lands Sept. 29 but if you miss it, the government picks your plan for you, and it's likely to be the most expensive one available.
Borrowers who don't choose a new plan get automatically moved to either the Standard Repayment Plan or the new Tiered Standard Plan.
Both calculate payments based on loan balance, not income. For the many SAVE borrowers who had been paying $0 a month, that switch could land hard.
Standard is widely considered one of the priciest repayment options available. One borrower reported her monthly payment tripling from ~$400 to nearly $1.4K after switching to Income-Based Repayment, and IBR is still more income-sensitive than Standard.
Time in SAVE forbearance also hasn't counted toward any loan forgiveness, including Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Every month you stay parked in SAVE is another month that doesn't build toward cancellation.
You don't have to wait for your servicer's notice to switch. The Department of Education confirms you can contact your servicer at any time to move to a new plan. Here's what's currently open.
The Repayment Assistance Plan, or RAP, is a new income-driven plan that launched July 1. Monthly payments run 1% to 10% of income depending on earnings, with a floor of $10. Unpaid interest is waived if your minimum payment doesn't cover it.
Forgiveness comes after 30 years, or sooner if you're in public service. About 30% of borrowers who recently left SAVE picked RAP.
Income-Based Repayment, or IBR, caps monthly payments at 10% or 15% of discretionary income and forgives remaining balances after 20 or 25 years. About 50% of departing SAVE borrowers chose IBR.
It's no longer open to new borrowers, but if you're already a federal loan holder with loans disbursed before July 1, 2026, you can still enroll.
One catch: if you take out any new federal loan on or after July 1, 2026, all your loans (including older ones on IBR) must move to either RAP or the Tiered Standard Plan.
Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR) are also still open for now, but both are scheduled to be eliminated by July 2028. The Department of Education has discouraged borrowers from picking plans that will require another switch in two years.
Regardless of which plan you pick, there's a rate reduction sitting on the table until Sept. 30. The Department of Education announced a 1% interest rate discount for borrowers who enroll in autopay by that date.
More than 400K borrowers have already signed up. If you're already enrolled in autopay and receiving the existing 0.25% discount, you automatically get an additional 0.75% reduction. That essentially brings your total discount to 1%. The reduction applies to loans originated after July 1, 2012, and runs through June 30, 2028.
To compare your options before committing, the Department of Education has a Repayment Calculator at studentaid.gov that lets you estimate payments across available plans.
If you qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) and spent time in SAVE forbearance, also check whether you're eligible for the PSLF Buyback, which lets you make extra payments to reclaim months that didn't count toward forgiveness.
