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Student Loan Repayment Calculator 2026 (USA)

Free US student loan repayment calculator for 2026. Estimate Income-Based Repayment and Standard plan payments using the current HHS poverty guidelines, see total interest and the balance forgiven, and understand what replaced the SAVE plan.

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By Team GlobalCalqulate · About our editorial standards

Financial Disclaimer: This calculator estimates federal student loan repayment using the current Income-Based Repayment and Standard plan formulas and HHS poverty guidelines; it does not account for loan-servicer-specific processing, future changes to federal repayment programs, or private student loans, which follow entirely different terms. Actual payments depend on your servicer and program enrollment. This tool is for planning purposes only and is not financial advice — consult your loan servicer or studentaid.gov for exact figures. Full disclaimer.
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Student Loan Repayment in 2026: Which Plans Still Exist, and What They Cost

What Happened to SAVE, and What Replaced It

The SAVE plan is gone. A court order ended it on 10 March 2026, and the Department of Education began moving the roughly 7.5 million enrolled borrowers off it, giving each 90 days from their notification to pick another plan. If you are reading older guidance that tells you to enrol in SAVE, that guidance is out of date. Its replacement is the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP), available to borrowers with eligible Direct Loans from 1 July 2026. RAP works differently from the plans it replaces: the payment is a sliding 1% to 10% of your TOTAL adjusted gross income rather than a percentage of discretionary income, reduced by $50 a month for each dependent. Unpaid monthly interest is waived when you pay on time, and the government matches up to $50 a month toward principal if your payment would not otherwise reduce it by that much. Forgiveness comes after 360 qualifying payments — 30 years, longer than the 20 or 25 years under the older plans. Borrowers still sitting on a phased-out plan have until 1 July 2028 to choose between RAP, the tiered Standard plan, and IBR.

Income-Based Repayment (IBR): the Plan This Calculator Models

IBR is the income-driven plan that survived, and it is the one this calculator estimates. Your payment is a percentage of discretionary income, defined as your adjusted gross income less 150% of the HHS poverty guideline for your family size and state. For 2026 that guideline is $15,960 for a household of one in the 48 contiguous states and DC, plus $5,680 for each additional person; Alaska and Hawaii have higher schedules, which is why this calculator asks. Which percentage applies depends on when you first borrowed. If your first federal loan was on or after 1 July 2014 you pay 10% of discretionary income with forgiveness after 20 years. If you carried a balance before then you pay 15% with forgiveness after 25 years. One rule matters more than borrowers expect: an IBR payment can never exceed what the 10-year Standard plan would charge. A high earner with a small balance therefore gains nothing from IBR, because the cap simply returns them to the Standard payment. The Working Families Tax Cuts Act also removed the partial-financial-hardship test, so eligibility no longer depends on demonstrating hardship.

Standard 10-Year Plan vs Income-Driven Repayment

The Standard plan is a fixed, fully amortising payment over 10 years. Nothing is forgiven, because nothing is left — you repay the principal and all the interest. Income-driven repayment lowers the monthly figure by tying it to what you earn, but stretches the term to 20 or 25 years, and interest keeps accruing across that whole period. The trade-off is not simply 'lower payment is better'. Paying less each month for longer usually means paying MORE in total, unless a large enough balance survives to the forgiveness date. Work out the total cost, not just the monthly one — this calculator shows both, along with the balance actually forgiven. The honest rule of thumb: if you can afford the Standard payment without strain, it is normally the cheaper path. If you cannot, income-driven repayment exists precisely so that a payment you cannot make does not become a default you cannot escape.

Negative Amortization: When Paying Still Leaves You Further Behind

If your income-driven payment is smaller than the interest accruing that month, the shortfall is added to your balance and you owe more than you did before you paid. On a $35,000 balance at 5%, interest runs about $146 a month; a $100 payment leaves the balance $46 higher at the end of the month. SAVE's headline feature was that the government absorbed that shortfall — and SAVE is the plan that no longer exists, so borrowers should not assume they are still protected. Under IBR, unpaid interest can capitalise in certain circumstances and the balance can genuinely grow. RAP reintroduces a waiver of unpaid monthly interest for on-time payers, which is one of the stronger arguments for it. This calculator flags negative amortization explicitly when your inputs produce it, rather than quietly showing a payment that never reduces the debt.

Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF)

PSLF discharges the remaining balance after 120 qualifying monthly payments — about 10 years — for borrowers employed full time by a government body or a qualifying 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Payments made under RAP count toward PSLF, which the Department of Education confirmed when the plan was created. PSLF is far faster than the 20, 25 or 30 year timelines on the income-driven plans, so for eligible employees it usually dominates the decision. The requirement that traps people is administrative rather than financial: qualifying payments must be made on a qualifying plan while employed by a qualifying employer, and the way to prove it is to file the Employment Certification Form annually rather than reconstruct a decade of employment at the end. Amounts forgiven under PSLF are not treated as taxable income; forgiveness under the income-driven plans may be. Confirm the current tax treatment before you plan around it.

Loan Consolidation: Combining Multiple Federal Loans

A Direct Consolidation Loan combines multiple federal loans into one, giving a single payment and a single servicer, and can make otherwise-ineligible loans (such as older FFEL loans) eligible for income-driven repayment and PSLF. The new rate is the weighted average of the loans consolidated, rounded up to the nearest one-eighth of a percent, so consolidation does not save interest — averaging a 3.4% loan with a 6% loan simply moves the cheap one up. The real cost is elsewhere: consolidating can reset progress toward forgiveness on some plans, which is an expensive mistake for anyone already years into a PSLF or IDR clock. Consolidate to gain eligibility or to make several loans manageable, not in the expectation of a lower rate, and check the effect on your payment count before you file.

Monthly Payment Formula

Monthly Payment = Principal × [r(1+r)^n] / [(1+r)^n - 1]

Where Principal is total loan amount, r is monthly interest rate (annual rate ÷ 12), and n is total number of payments (months). This standard amortization formula applies to fixed-rate loans, and is the basis for the Standard 10-year plan. IBR and RAP instead compute a payment from income — see the SAVE/RAP section above for what replaced the plans this formula does not cover.

Key Terms & Definitions

Principal

Original amount borrowed before any interest

Interest Rate (APR)

Annual percentage rate charged on the loan

Deferment

Postponing payments during hardship; interest may not accrue on subsidized loans

Forbearance

Temporary pause on payments; interest continues to accrue

IBR (Income-Based Repayment)

The income-driven plan this calculator models: 10-15% of discretionary income, forgiveness at 20-25 years. SAVE, PAYE and REPAYE ended; RAP replaced SAVE on 1 July 2026 but is not yet modelled numerically here.

Consolidation

Combining multiple loans into one for simplified payment

Student Loan Payoff Strategies

Help & FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

Clear answers to common questions to help you use this calculator confidently.

Is the SAVE plan still available in 2026?

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No. A court order ended SAVE on 10 March 2026, and the roughly 7.5 million borrowers enrolled in it were moved off within 90 days of notification. If you see guidance telling you to enrol in SAVE, it is out of date. Its replacement, the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP), became available 1 July 2026.

Why doesn't this calculator estimate a RAP payment?

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RAP charges 1-10% of your total adjusted gross income on a sliding scale, reduced $50/month per dependent — but the exact percentage bands set by law could not be verified from an official Department of Education publication at the time of writing. Rather than guess, this calculator models IBR instead, the income-driven plan that survived unchanged. Use the Department's own loan simulator at StudentAid.gov for a RAP figure.

How is discretionary income calculated for IBR?

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It is your adjusted gross income less 150% of the HHS poverty guideline for your family size and state. For 2026 the guideline is $15,960 for a household of one in the 48 contiguous states and DC, plus $5,680 for each additional person; Alaska and Hawaii have higher schedules. On a $50,000 AGI with a family of one, that leaves $26,060 of discretionary income.

Can my IBR payment ever be higher than the Standard payment?

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No. IBR caps your payment at what the 10-year Standard plan would charge on the balance you owed when you entered the plan. A high earner with a small balance gains nothing from IBR — the cap simply returns them to the Standard payment.

What is negative amortization, and can it happen to me?

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If your income-driven payment is smaller than the interest accruing that month, the shortfall is added to your balance and you owe more than you did before you paid. On a $35,000 balance at 5%, interest runs about $146 a month; a $100 payment leaves the balance $46 higher at the end of the month. This calculator flags it explicitly when your inputs produce it.

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How this student loan repayment calculator works

This tool models the US federal repayment plans a borrower can actually be placed on in 2026: the Standard 10-year plan and Income-Based Repayment (IBR). SAVE ended by court order on 10 March 2026 and PAYE, REPAYE and ICR are closed to new enrolment, so none of them is offered here. The Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP), which opened on 1 July 2026, is described but not priced.

Federal student loan repayment is mid-transition: SAVE ended 10 March 2026, RAP opened 1 July 2026, and borrowers on phased-out plans must choose a new plan by 1 July 2028. Confirm your options at studentaid.gov before acting. Forgiven balances may be taxable.

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