IDR Waiver Wraps Up: Next Steps For Student Loan Borrowers

Federal student loan borrowers: check your studentaid.gov account. You might be years closer to loan forgiveness — or you might have already crossed the forgiveness finish line.

The income-driven repayment (IDR) waiver, also known as the “IDR account adjustment” or “payment recount,” wrapped up on Jan. 16. Under this one-time program, the Education Department reconsidered which past payment periods count toward IDR forgiveness and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) and instructed student loan servicers to update borrower accounts accordingly. (IDR plans erase your remaining debt after 20 or 25 years of payments; PSLF forgives debt after 10 years.)

Roughly 1.45 million borrowers got $57.1 billion worth of student loans erased through the adjustment, as of Jan. 16. That boils down to an average of about $39,380 in forgiveness per person.

You likely benefitted even if you didn’t get forgiveness. All federal student loan borrowers should take the following next steps:

• Check your updated IDR payment count. Borrowers have new payment trackers in their studentaid.gov accounts. 

• Screenshot your updated payment count. Keep a copy for your records, and report any potential errors to your servicer. 

• Enroll in an IDR plan if you’re aiming for loan forgiveness. You must choose an IDR plan to continue earning IDR forgiveness credit going forward.

Here’s how we got here and what comes next for student loan borrowers.

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How can I check my updated IDR payment count?

Sign in to your studentaid.gov account to check your updated payment count. The location of your new payment tracker depends on whether you’re currently enrolled in an IDR plan or not.

In either case, take a screenshot of your updated payment count and save it for your records. You can also request your account history from your servicer. If you believe the payment tracker is inaccurate, you can file a student loan complaint if your servicer doesn’t resolve the issue.

If you’re already enrolled in an IDR plan

On the right-hand side of your studentaid.gov dashboard, you’ll see a module titled “IDR End of Payment Term.” This shows how many years and months you have left until you reach forgiveness through your current IDR plan.

In this module, click “View IDR Progress.” This will take you to a page that tracks how many qualifying payments you’ve made and how many you have remaining on your current IDR plan. This page also indicates what your progress would look like on alternate IDR plans.

If you’re not currently enrolled in an IDR plan

On your studentaid.gov dashboard, click the “view details” button in the middle of the page.

This will take you to a page with your loan details. On the right-hand side, you’ll see a module labeled “Interested in IDR Plans?” Click the “Learn More” button and scroll down. You’ll see tracker modules explaining how many qualifying payments you’ve made so far and how many payments you’d have left under various IDR plans.

What are my next steps?

If you qualified for IDR account adjustment forgiveness

You may qualify for forgiveness if you’ve been in repayment for at least 20 years (if you have only undergraduate debt) or 25 years (if you have any graduate debt). The Education Department will notify you via email before your forgiveness is processed. Your servicer will notify you after it’s processed.

You don’t have to do anything, unless you want to opt out of the forgiveness. In this case, contact your servicer within 30 days of your Education Department notification.

If you don’t yet qualify for IDR forgiveness

You must enroll in an IDR plan to take advantage of the recount and continue building credit toward IDR forgiveness. Otherwise, payments you make after the account adjustment won’t count toward IDR forgiveness.

Here’s an example: Let’s say the IDR account adjustment added 60 qualifying IDR payments to your account, even though you’ve been on the standard plan until now. You enroll in an IDR plan that forgives your debt after 20 years, or 240 payments. Now, you only need to make 180 additional payments to reach forgiveness — instead of starting from 0 and needing to make 240 payments.

The government offers four IDR plans:

• SAVE. Caps your monthly bills at 10% of income, and forgives debt after 20 or 25 years of qualifying payments. 

• PAYE. Caps your monthly bills at 10% of income, and forgives debt after 20 years of qualifying payments. 

• Income-Based Repayment (IBR). Caps your monthly bills at 10% to 15% of income, and forgives debt after 20 or 25 years of qualifying payments. 

• Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR). Caps your monthly bills at 20% of income, and forgives debt after 25 years of qualifying payments. 

Use the Education Department’s loan simulator before signing up for any IDR plan. This simulator will estimate your monthly payments, overall payments and the amount and timing of forgiveness you may qualify for under different repayment plans. If your income is high enough, you might wind up paying off your debt before getting IDR forgiveness.

Call your servicer if you have questions about the best repayment option for you.

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Has the IDR account adjustment ended?

Yes. The IDR account adjustment is complete as of Jan. 16, 2025, according to the Education Department.

The government forgave student debt through the account adjustment in waves, starting in the spring of 2023. PSLF borrowers with older loans were the first to see their balances erased, followed by longtime borrowers who did not qualify for PSLF.

All other borrowers — those who did not spend enough time in repayment to get forgiveness through this program — had the recount applied to their accounts by mid-January 2025.

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How did the IDR account adjustment work?

IDR plans offer reduced payments over 20 or 25 years, depending on loan type, then forgive any remaining balance. The program was created in the 1990s to protect borrowers from financial hardship; payments are based on borrowers’ income, not the balance owed.

This account adjustment bent the rules on which payments count toward IDR forgiveness, so a greater number of months you've ever spent in student loan repayment or on pause since leaving school count toward forgiveness — even if you had never enrolled in an IDR plan before. It also counted months spent in the three-year pandemic forbearance.

Additionally, the program applied to borrowers who qualify for PSLF, which erases remaining loan balances after just 10 years of student loan payments if you work for a qualifying nonprofit employer during that time.

» MORE: Lawsuits pause student loan payments for SAVE borrowers

Why did the IDR account adjustment happen?

The Biden administration introduced the account adjustment in 2022. It was designed to address past missteps in the IDR and PSLF programs, including student loan servicers miscounting payments and needlessly putting borrowers into forbearances, which pauses payments but allows interest to rack up.

As a result of these errors, forgiveness through older IDR plans has been notoriously tricky. As of March 2021, only 32 borrowers had ever seen their debt forgiven despite decades of payments, according to a joint study from the National Consumer Law Center and the Student Borrower Protection Center.

What counted as a payment under the IDR account adjustment?

The IDR account adjustment resulted in loan discharges for:

• Borrowers who made 20 or 25 years of payments (240 and 300 monthly payments, respectively), under any payment plan, as a result of the changed qualifications outlined below.

• Borrowers who submitted a PSLF application and who reached 120 payments, as a result of the changed qualifications outlined below.

Here’s what counts as a qualifying past payment under the one-time IDR account adjustment. These changes apply to all payment periods from July 1994 through August 2023, for direct loans, direct consolidation loans and Education Department-managed FFELP loans:

• Any month a borrower was in repayment, even if the payments were late or partial. The type of repayment plan doesn’t matter.

• Time spent in forbearance, either periods lasting 12 or more consecutive months or a cumulative 36 or more months. 

• Any month spent in deferment, other than in-school deferment, before 2013.

• Any month spent in economic hardship or military deferments in 2013 or later.

• Any months in repayment, forbearance or a qualifying deferment before a loan consolidation.

• Any months spent in COVID-19-related forbearance.

Did parent PLUS loans qualify for the IDR account adjustment?

Federal parent PLUS loans were eligible for both the IDR recount and the PSLF component. The account adjustment automatically forgave parent PLUS debt that's at least 25 years old.

If your parent PLUS loans are more recent than that, you must enroll in the Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR) plan to keep making progress toward forgiveness. ICR is the only IDR option for parent PLUS loan borrowers.

If you hold parent PLUS loans that could be eligible for PSLF, update your employment certification history to reflect all periods of public service employment. You could get forgiveness in just 10 years. To qualify for PSLF, the parent who originally took out the parent PLUS loan must work in a qualifying public service job. It doesn't matter if the student or other parent holds a qualifying job.

Will I be taxed on my student loan forgiveness?

You won’t face federal taxes on IDR account adjustment forgiveness. All federal taxes on student loan forgiveness are suspended through Jan. 1, 2026.

» MORE: Should you worry about a ‘student loan forgiveness tax bomb’?

However, a handful of states may treat your loan forgiveness as taxable income. This could lead to a larger-than-expected state tax bill. To confirm your state’s policy, reach out to your state’s taxation department.

The Education Department will notify you via email before any forgiveness is processed. After that notification, you have 30 days to opt out of the forgiveness.

Can I get a student loan payment refund?

If you get your loan balance forgiven under the IDR account adjustment, it’s possible you actually overpaid. In most cases, you’ll get a student loan refund for any overpayments beyond 20 or 25 years.

The extra payments made on forgiven loans will be refunded back to the most recent of these three dates:

• The date you reached the required number of payments for IDR forgiveness — 20 or 25 years of monthly bills. 

• The date when the Department of Education acquired your loan.

• The disbursement date of your consolidation loan.