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You're our top priority.
We want you to be able to make decisions about your student loans with confidence. We offer objective, independent, straightforward guidance on student loans and refinancing lenders. While our site doesn't answer every question or have every lender, we are proud to provide the information and tools you need — free of charge — to make the best decisions for yourself. So how do we make money? We get paid in two ways. First, you can hire us to develop a student loan strategy for you and implement that strategy on your behalf. Second, our partners compensate us. This may influence which refinancing lenders we write about, but it doesn't affect our recommendations or advice. Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services.Recertification is the yearly update of the income and family size or number of dependents used to calculate your income-driven payment.
Start with your account. Check your recertification date under My Loans on StudentAid.gov and your servicer’s latest notice for when to submit. If you qualify for automatic recertification, check its status before submitting another request. If your income dropped, you can ask to recalculate your payment without waiting for the annual update.
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Advertiser Disclosure
You're our top priority.
We want you to be able to make decisions about your student loans with confidence. We offer objective, independent, straightforward guidance on student loans and refinancing lenders. While our site doesn't answer every question or have every lender, we are proud to provide the information and tools you need — free of charge — to make the best decisions for yourself. So how do we make money? We get paid in two ways. First, you can hire us to develop a student loan strategy for you and implement that strategy on your behalf. Second, our partners compensate us. This may influence which refinancing lenders we write about, but it doesn't affect our recommendations or advice. Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services.When Is the IDR Recertification Deadline?
Federal Student Aid currently recommends submitting a manual recertification 90 days before the recertification date shown in your account. Treat that as processing guidance, and check your servicer’s notice for your submission instructions. If the dates disagree, ask your servicer to confirm what it needs and by when, preferably in writing. Read Federal Student Aid’s recertification guidance.
How to find your recertification date
Log in to StudentAid.gov and look under My Loans on your Dashboard or the My Loans page. Check that date alongside your servicer’s latest notice. If you need to recertify manually, submit before the displayed date so your servicer has time to process the update.
If you qualify for automatic recertification, check your consent under Settings → Financial Information Access and your application status under My Activity. If the process needs information from you, follow the instructions in the notice. How automatic recertification works.
Why the deadline was extended
The Department of Education paused IDR application processing in February 2025 after the 8th Circuit upheld the injunction against the SAVE plan and questioned the Department’s authority to forgive loans under IDR plans created by regulation — ICR, PAYE, and SAVE/REPAYE. Rather than risk violating the court order, the Department stopped processing all IDR applications — including routine recertifications — and extended deadlines while the legal situation played out.
The online IDR application is available at StudentAid.gov/IDR. As of late February 2026, the Department reported over 576,000 pending IDR applications in the processing queue — down from over 734,000 in December 2025, but still enough to cause delays of 60 days or more.
When to Recertify Early — and When to Wait
You’re only required to recertify once a year, but you can submit updated income information at any time. Whether you should depends on which direction your income moved.
If your income dropped or your family size increased, recertify now. You don’t have to wait for your anniversary date. A lower AGI or larger family means a lower payment. This applies if you lost your job, reduced your hours, had a child, or got married. Contact your servicer or visit StudentAid.gov/IDR and select “Recalculate” to request an immediate payment adjustment.
If your income went up, wait. Don’t recertify before your servicer asks you to. Your current payment is based on the most recent income information your servicer has on file — which, for many borrowers, dates back to 2020 or earlier because of the pandemic pause and subsequent extensions. Voluntarily reporting a higher income before your deadline means higher payments sooner than necessary. For borrowers pursuing PSLF or IDR forgiveness, higher payments reduce the amount ultimately forgiven.
The tax extension strategy. Your IDR payment is calculated from the adjusted gross income on your most recent federal tax return. If your recertification date falls before your current-year tax return is due, your servicer will use your last filed return. If your 2025 income is higher than your 2024 income, filing a tax extension delays your 2025 return and lets your servicer use your lower 2024 AGI when calculating your payment. This is a timing strategy, not a loophole — you still file the return eventually, and the higher income gets captured at the next recertification cycle.
What income number matters
Your IDR payment is based on your adjusted gross income — not your gross pay, not your take-home pay. There are strategies to reduce it that directly lower your payment.
Related: How Do Student Loans Calculate Discretionary Income?
How to Recertify Your IDR Plan
You can recertify online, by mail, or through automatic recertification. IDR recertification is separate from PSLF employment certification, which uses the PSLF form.
Online at StudentAid.gov/IDR. Log in to manage your IDR plan and follow the recertification instructions. Provide the income and household information your plan requires. If you authorize access to your federal tax information and are eligible, the Department of Education can retrieve it from the IRS.
By mail. Download the Income-Driven Repayment Plan Request form from StudentAid.gov/forms, complete it, and send it to your loan servicer with your income documentation. Processing takes longer — sometimes 60 days or more — and servicers may place your account in a processing forbearance during that time.
Automatic recertification. For eligible borrowers, processing begins 120 days before the recertification date shown on StudentAid.gov. Check consent under Settings → Financial Information Access and status under My Activity. A completed recertification document appears there after processing. Federal Student Aid explains the process.
Automatic recertification uses the latest tax information available from the IRS. If it no longer reflects your circumstances, you can request a recalculation. If you revoke consent, you become responsible for manual recertification. If the Department cannot obtain the information it needs, it may ask you to provide documentation.
What you need to provide. Provide the information and documents the application requests. Depending on your circumstances, this may include your family size or number of dependents as your plan requires, your most recent tax return or alternative income documentation (pay stubs, unemployment records, or a signed statement explaining your income), and your spouse’s income information if the application requires it. If your income changed significantly since your last tax filing, alternative documentation can reflect your current situation instead.
Follow the submission instructions in your servicer’s notice. Federal Student Aid’s current recommendation is to allow 90 days before the recertification date shown in your account for manual processing. If you are already closer to that date, contact your servicer about what to submit and when. Check the current federal guidance.
What Happens If You Miss Your Recertification Deadline
If you don’t recertify on time, your payment is no longer calculated from your income. Instead, it reverts to the amount you’d pay under the 10-year Standard Repayment Plan, based on your loan balance when you entered the IDR plan. For most borrowers, that means a significant increase.
IBR carries the steepest consequences. If you miss recertification on IBR, your payment jumps to the standard amount and any unpaid accrued interest capitalizes — it gets added to your principal balance, increasing your total debt. Interest capitalization only happens under IBR. Once you submit updated income documentation, your servicer recalculates your IBR payment, subject to the applicable 10-year Standard payment cap.
PAYE and ICR. Your payment reverts to the 10-year standard amount, but unpaid interest does not capitalize. You remain enrolled in the plan and can return to income-based payments once you submit updated income information.
Keep the household information your plan uses up to date. IBR, PAYE and ICR use family size; RAP uses the number of dependents claimed on your federal tax return. See the annual recertification rules.
What about forgiveness credit?
Months where your payment reverts to the standard amount may still count toward IDR forgiveness — you’re still enrolled in the plan. If you have a Direct Consolidation Loan and your payment reverts to the 10-year standard amount, that payment may not count as a PSLF qualifying payment because the standard repayment period for consolidated loans is longer than 10 years. The result is that you’re paying more but not earning PSLF credit.
Related: What Payments Count Toward PSLF?
If you’ve already missed it
Submit your income documentation as soon as possible. You can recertify at any time — the deadline is not a lockout. Once your servicer processes the update, your payment will be recalculated based on your current income.
If the increased payment is unaffordable while you wait for processing, request a forbearance from your servicer. A forbearance temporarily pauses your payment obligation, doesn’t earn forgiveness credit, and allows interest to accrue. Use it as a bridge, not a solution.
If your payment spiked because your recertification date passed during the processing pause — not because you failed to act — your servicer may correct it automatically. Check your account and call your servicer to ask whether your recertification date has been extended.
If You're on the SAVE Plan
A court order ended the SAVE plan in March 2026. If your account still lists SAVE, check your current plan, billing information and the plan-selection notice from your servicer. Federal Student Aid’s SAVE transition guidance explains what to do next.
Choosing another repayment plan is a separate task from annual recertification. Read your servicer’s notice and choose an eligible plan by the deadline it gives you. If an account date is unclear or conflicts with the notice, ask your servicer to clarify it. Do not ignore a plan-selection notice or assume you can wait for automatic placement.
IBR is the primary alternative. It’s Congressionally enacted (unlike SAVE, which was created by regulation), legally stable, and open for enrollment at StudentAid.gov/IDR. Your qualifying payments made under SAVE before the forbearance period still count toward IBR forgiveness. IBR sets payments at 10% or 15% of discretionary income, depending on when your first federal loan was disbursed.
PAYE and ICR remain available, but are being phased out by July 1, 2028, under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. RAP became available July 1, 2026. The plans you can use depend on your loans and borrowing history; compare your options at StudentAid.gov’s Repayment Calculator.
If you’re pursuing PSLF, every month you stay in SAVE forbearance is a month that doesn’t count toward your 120 qualifying payments. Switching to IBR and making payments resumes your PSLF progress. If you’ve already reached 120 months of qualifying employment, you can apply for a PSLF Buyback to recover the forbearance months by making a lump-sum payment.
Related: Should You Switch from SAVE to IBR?
How Recertification Affects Forgiveness and PSLF
Recertification timing directly affects how much you pay over the life of your loans and how much is eventually forgiven.
For IDR forgiveness — where your remaining balance is discharged after 20 or 25 years of qualifying payments — a recertification extension works in your favor if your income went up. You continue making the lower payment based on your older income information, which means more is forgiven at the end. You remain enrolled in the plan and earn forgiveness credit as long as you’re making payments.
PSLF requires 120 qualifying monthly payments under a qualifying repayment plan while employed full-time by an eligible employer. If you miss recertification and your payment reverts to the standard amount on a consolidated loan, those payments may not count. The PSLF math also changes: lower IDR payments mean more balance remains to be forgiven at the 10-year mark. Recertifying with a higher income earlier than necessary reduces the forgiveness benefit.
IDR forgiveness is currently tax-free through the end of 2025 under the American Rescue Plan Act. After that, forgiven balances may be treated as taxable income unless Congress extends the exclusion. If your forgiveness lands after 2025, you may face a federal tax bill on the discharged amount.
Related: Will I Owe Taxes on IDR Loan Forgiveness After 2025?
FAQs
Is IDR recertification extended to 2026?
Earlier extensions do not give every borrower the same deadline. Check your current recertification date under My Loans on StudentAid.gov and your servicer’s latest notice for submission instructions. Federal Student Aid currently recommends allowing 90 days before the displayed recertification date for manual processing.
What happens if I don't recertify my IDR plan?
Your payment reverts to the 10-year Standard Repayment Plan amount, which is usually higher than your income-based payment. Under IBR, unpaid interest also capitalizes. Under PAYE and ICR, interest does not capitalize, but the payment increase still applies. You can recertify at any time to return to income-based payments.
Should I recertify early if my income dropped?
Yes. You can request a payment recalculation at any time by submitting updated income documentation at StudentAid.gov/IDR. You don't need to wait for your anniversary date. A lower AGI or larger family size means a lower payment.
Does my payment count toward PSLF if I miss recertification?
It depends. If your payment reverts to the standard amount and you have a Direct Consolidation Loan, the standard repayment period may exceed 10 years — which means those payments may not qualify for PSLF. Contact your servicer to confirm.
What is auto-recertification?
Eligible borrowers who authorize access to their federal tax information can have their IDR plan recertified automatically. Processing begins 120 days before the recertification date shown on StudentAid.gov. Check consent under Settings → Financial Information Access and processing status under My Activity. You may need to supply documentation if the Department cannot obtain the information it needs.
Do I need to recertify if I'm in SAVE forbearance?
Annual recertification does not renew the ended SAVE plan. Check your servicer’s plan-selection notice and choose another plan you qualify for by its deadline. If your account has already moved to another plan, review its current payment and renewal requirements. Ask your servicer to clarify conflicting dates; do not ignore its notices.
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