Teacher Loan Forgiveness: Who Qualifies, How Much You Get, and How to Apply in 2026

Teacher Loan Forgiveness cancels up to $17,500 of federal student loans for highly qualified secondary math and science teachers and special education teachers, and up to $5,000 for other highly qualified teachers, after five complete and consecutive years of full-time teaching at a low-income school.

• The school, not the district, has to be on the list. Eligibility runs through the federal low-income school directory, year by year.

• Only Direct and FFEL Stafford loans qualify. Parent PLUS, Grad PLUS, Perkins, and private loans are excluded.

• You apply once, after year five. Your school’s chief administrative officer certifies the service on the form, and the forgiveness is not federal taxable income.

• The same five years can’t also count toward PSLF. That trade-off decides whether this program is worth taking.

You qualify if you taught full time for five consecutive, complete academic years at a listed low-income elementary or secondary school, were a highly qualified teacher for all five years, had no federal loan balance on October 1, 1998, and hold eligible loans made before the end of year five.

A teacher means direct classroom teaching. The program counts people who provide direct classroom teaching or classroom-type teaching in a non-classroom setting, including special education teachers. School librarians, guidance counselors, and administrative staff are not teachers for this program, even at a Title I school.

Highly qualified means certified without waivers. For all five years you need at least a bachelor’s degree, full state certification (certification through an alternative route counts, and public charter school teachers meet the standard their state’s charter law sets), and no certification or licensure requirement waived on an emergency, temporary, or provisional basis. Teachers new to the profession also need to have passed the state’s subject tests for their level, or, for secondary teachers, to hold a major, graduate degree, or equivalent coursework in each subject taught. Teachers who are not new can meet the same tests or the state’s uniform evaluation standard.

A teacher at a private nonprofit school that is exempt from state certification can qualify by passing subject-competency tests recognized by at least five states.

Full time is your state’s definition. The program uses the standard your state applies to full-time teacher employment. If you split a year between two eligible schools, the combined load counts as full time when the chief administrative officers certify it.

The school has to be in the Teacher Cancellation Low Income Directory. The Department of Education publishes the TCLI Directory each year from lists the state education agencies submit. A school or educational service agency is listed when it sits in a district that receives Title I funds and more than 30 percent of its enrollment qualifies for Title I services. A whole district being Title I is not enough on its own.

Two rules soften the annual test: if the directory for a year isn’t published by May 1, the prior year’s directory applies, and if your school was listed for at least one of your five years but drops off later, the later years at that school still count. Years taught before the school was first listed do not count. Every elementary and secondary school run by the Bureau of Indian Education, or run on a reservation by a tribal group under contract with the bureau, qualifies whether or not it appears in the directory. Questions about why a school is or isn’t listed go to the state education agency, not the Department.

Five consecutive, complete academic years. An academic year is one complete school year at the same school, or two complete and consecutive half-years, with summer sessions excluded and year-round programs counted at nine months. At least one of the five years has to fall after the 1997–98 school year. Service for an educational service agency counts only if the five-year window includes service after the 2007–08 year.

A year you couldn’t finish still counts if you completed at least half of it, your employer treated you as having fulfilled your contract for pay, tenure, and retirement purposes, and the reason was one of three things: returning to postsecondary study at least half time in a field related to your teaching, a condition covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act, or a call to active duty for more than 30 days as a member of a reserve component. Time off for one of those reasons, including the time needed to resume teaching by the start of the next school year, does not break the chain; any other gap restarts the count.

No federal loan balance on October 1, 1998. You must have had no outstanding Direct or FFEL loan balance on October 1, 1998, or on the date you took out a new federal loan after that. A pre-1998 loan you paid in full before borrowing again does not disqualify you. Consolidating pre-1998 loans into a newer loan does not cure the problem; the rule looks at the date the original loans were outstanding.

Eligible loans. Direct Subsidized and Unsubsidized Loans, Subsidized and Unsubsidized Federal Stafford Loans, and the portion of a Direct or Federal Consolidation Loan that repaid those loans. Direct PLUS and FFEL PLUS loans, whether for parents or graduate students, do not qualify, and neither does the part of a consolidation loan that paid off a PLUS loan. Federal Perkins Loans have a separate cancellation program. Private loans are outside the program entirely. The loan you want forgiven has to have been made before the end of your fifth year of qualifying teaching. A defaulted loan becomes eligible only after you make satisfactory repayment arrangements with the loan holder that restore your federal aid eligibility.

The maximum is $17,500 for highly qualified full-time secondary school mathematics or science teachers and for highly qualified full-time special education teachers at the elementary or secondary level, and $5,000 for every other highly qualified full-time elementary or secondary teacher.

The subject rule is narrow. Math or science has to be taught to secondary students to reach $17,500; an elementary math specialist is in the $5,000 tier. The application form’s $17,500 categories are mathematics, science, and special education only; there is no box for technology, engineering, or other STEM-adjacent subjects. The special education tier requires that your primary responsibility was special education for children with disabilities matching your area of training.

It is a lifetime cap across both loan programs. If you hold both Direct and FFEL loans, $17,500 or $5,000 is the combined total. You cannot receive the amount twice by teaching a second five years.

The money goes to principal and interest as they stand after year five. The Department applies the forgiveness to the balance outstanding when you complete the fifth year, paying down unsubsidized loans first, then subsidized, then the qualifying portions of consolidation loans. Payments you made during the five years are not refunded, which is what the forbearance described below is for when the balance is at or below the cap.

If your service started before October 30, 2004, the $5,000 and $17,500 tiers use slightly different subject and skills tests, spelled out on the application form.

The program runs on service, not payments: you teach the five years, then apply once to each loan holder, and the loan holder pauses your payments while it decides.

During the five years. Nothing has to be filed to bank credit, and a payment pause during the five years costs you nothing under this program; months spent in the SAVE administrative forbearance, or any other forbearance or deferment, still count as service as long as you kept teaching at a listed school. If your expected forgiveness (the $17,500 or $5,000 you are working toward) would cover your whole projected balance at the end of year five, you can ask for a Teacher Loan Forgiveness Forbearance using the dedicated request form. The loan holder grants it in twelve-month increments and you reapply each year. Interest keeps accruing; it is not capitalized on Direct Loans when the forbearance ends, but may be on FFEL loans. A borrower whose balance exceeds the expected forgiveness amount does not qualify for this forbearance and stays in regular repayment, where PSLF-qualifying payments keep accruing.

Applying after year five.

1. Complete the Teacher Loan Forgiveness Application. Sections 1 through 4 are yours: identification, the type of school and teaching category you are claiming (which sets the $17,500 or $5,000 tier), any prior forgiveness applied for or received from another loan holder, and your signature. The current form is approved through December 31, 2026; a renewed version will carry a new date.

2. Have the chief administrative officer certify Section 5. The CAO is whoever has access to the employment records that establish your eligibility and is authorized to verify it: a superintendent, a district or agency HR official, or a principal or assistant principal. They enter the school (not the district), the start and end dates of the qualifying service in mm/dd/yyyy form, their printed name and title, and their signature. If you taught at more than one school, a single CAO who holds the records for all of them can certify everything on one form as long as every school is listed; otherwise each school’s CAO certifies separately on an attached page.

3. Send it to the loan holder. Direct Loans go to your federal servicer. FFEL loans go to whoever holds them, which may be a lender, guaranty agency, or the Department. If your eligible loans sit with more than one loan holder, each one needs its own completed application. Pages 5 through 14 are instructions and are omitted when mailing or faxing.

4. Payments pause automatically. From the date the loan holder receives a completed application until it approves or denies the request, it places the qualifying loans in forbearance unless you tell it you want to keep paying. Continuing to pay during that window can reduce the amount forgiven. Interest accrued during this forbearance is not capitalized on Direct Loans.

5. Decision. The loan holder notifies you either way. On approval it applies the forgiveness as described above; on denial it tells you why, and you can correct the defect and reapply. There is no published processing deadline; nonprofit advisers report waits of roughly three months or longer.

Tax. The forgiven amount is not federal taxable income, because the forgiveness is conditioned on working in a profession for a set period. That exclusion did not expire with the broader pandemic-era exclusion at the end of 2025. State treatment can differ, and Tate Esq does not give tax advice; a tax professional or your state revenue department can confirm your state’s position.

A denial means one eligibility rule failed for at least one of the five years, or the certification did not match the school’s records. The common causes:

• Applying before the fifth year ends. The form is for completed service. An application received before the last day of year five is denied.

• A school that wasn’t listed in year one. Years taught before the school entered the TCLI Directory don’t count, and no later listing reaches back.

• A gap that isn’t one of the three exceptions. A year out for a reason other than FMLA leave, related half-time study, or reserve duty over 30 days restarts the five-year count. Changing schools does not break the chain if both schools qualify and no year is skipped.

• An emergency, temporary, or provisional credential in any of the five years. Highly qualified has to hold for all five.

• The wrong loans. PLUS loans, Perkins loans, private loans, the PLUS portion of a consolidation, or a loan made after your fifth year ended.

• A balance on October 1, 1998, or on the date of any later federal loan. A loan first disbursed on October 1, 1998 is a balance on that date.

• A defective certification. “Present” instead of an end date, a missing CAO title, a district name where the school name belongs, or a school type that doesn’t match how the state classifies it (a K–8 building the state treats as secondary, for example).

• Default without repayment arrangements. A defaulted loan is outside the program until satisfactory arrangements are in place.

• Service already used for PSLF, AmeriCorps, or another loan benefit. Covered next.

You can receive both Teacher Loan Forgiveness and Public Service Loan Forgiveness, but not for the same period of service: if the five teaching years earn you $17,500 or $5,000 under this program, the payments you made during those years cannot count toward PSLF’s 120 qualifying payments, and time already credited to PSLF cannot count toward the five years.

How the bar works in practice. PSLF credits months in which you made a qualifying payment while employed full time by a qualifying employer, which includes public schools and nonprofit schools. Teacher Loan Forgiveness credits years of service regardless of payments. The Department does not undo a Teacher Loan Forgiveness decision after it is granted, so the payments from those five years are permanently outside the 120. The AmeriCorps education award works the same way: a period of teaching that earned an AmeriCorps benefit cannot also count toward the five years.

Three paths, and what each one costs.

• Teacher Loan Forgiveness only. After five years you receive up to $17,500 or $5,000 against whatever balance remains. If the balance is at or below the cap, the loans are gone in five years, and the forbearance described above keeps the balance from shrinking before then. Anything above the cap stays with you on your regular repayment plan.

• PSLF only. You keep the five years for PSLF, make 120 qualifying payments under an income-driven plan or the 10-year Standard plan, and the entire remaining Direct Loan balance is forgiven, with no dollar cap, after ten years of qualifying employment. FFEL loans have to be consolidated into a Direct Loan to count.

• Both, in sequence. Take Teacher Loan Forgiveness at year five, then make 120 new qualifying payments while still in public service. Forgiveness of the remainder arrives around year fifteen instead of year ten.

The arithmetic that decides it. The cost of taking Teacher Loan Forgiveness is up to five additional years of qualifying payments before PSLF. The benefit is $17,500 or $5,000 now, against the balance that will still be there. That five-year cost disappears in two situations: when the balance is at or below the cap, so nothing is left for PSLF to forgive, and when the teacher will not reach 120 payments in public service, so the PSLF credit was never going to pay out. Outside those two, the trade is five years of PSLF credit for a fixed amount that PSLF would have forgiven anyway, and the Loan Simulator runs both programs on your numbers.

What changed in 2026 on the PSLF side. Teacher Loan Forgiveness itself did not change, but the plans that produce PSLF-qualifying payments did. The SAVE plan is being wound down and its borrowers moved to other plans; borrowers with Direct Loans made before July 1, 2026 can use the older income-driven plans such as IBR, and the new Repayment Assistance Plan is open to most Direct Loan borrowers. Forgiveness under an income-driven plan, when it arrives after 20 to 30 years, is federally taxable again for eligibility dates on or after January 1, 2026, while PSLF and Teacher Loan Forgiveness remain tax-free. The PSLF employer rule that would have let the Department disqualify some employers was vacated by a federal court on June 30, 2026, one day before its effective date, and never took effect; the prior qualifying-employer definition still governs. Whether your school counts is covered in Are Teachers Public Service Workers?.

Perkins cancellation, state teacher programs, and the pages for loans this program never reaches sit outside the same-period bar.

Perkins Loan cancellation. Federal Perkins Loans are excluded from Teacher Loan Forgiveness but have their own teacher cancellation, administered by the loan holder, usually the school that made the loan: 15 percent of the loan canceled for each of the first two years of qualifying teaching, 20 percent for each of the next two, and 30 percent for the fifth, including the interest for each year, for full-time teaching at a low-income school or in a shortage subject. A Perkins loan that is consolidated into a Direct Consolidation Loan loses Perkins cancellation eligibility.

State teacher programs. Most states run repayment-assistance or forgiveness programs for teachers in shortage subjects or high-need districts, paid on top of federal forgiveness; the state program’s own rules decide whether federal-forgiveness years can overlap. The firm’s state guides cover them, including Texas and Mississippi, with an index at state student loan forgiveness programs.

Loans this program never reaches. Parent PLUS loans taken out for a teacher’s education belong to the parent and are ineligible even after consolidation. Private student loans held by teachers have no federal forgiveness path. Roles adjacent to teaching have their own pages: school counselors, school psychologists, and early childhood educators.

Yes. The program is in federal statute, its regulations were last amended in 2013, and neither the July 2025 budget law that reshaped repayment plans nor the Department of Education’s July 1, 2026 repayment regulations touched it. Loan holders are accepting applications on the current form.

Two bills would expand it, and neither has moved. The Teacher Debt Relief Act (H.R. 8815), introduced May 14, 2026, would end the rule that keeps the same five years from counting toward both programs. The Loan Forgiveness for Educators Act (S. 4567 and H.R. 8896), introduced May 19, 2026, would go further: the Department would make monthly payments on educators’ behalf during service, forgive the remaining balance after five years that no longer need to be consecutive, add Parent PLUS loans and early childhood educators, and let the service count toward PSLF at the same time. As of September 2026 both sit in committee, and the current rules govern any application filed now.

• How to Apply for Student Loan Forgiveness in 2026

• PSLF Qualifying Payments

• Income-Driven Repayment Plans