Which Student Loan Repayment Plans Can You Choose in 2026?

Which federal student loan repayment plans you can choose in 2026 comes down to a single date: when your loans were first disbursed. That date, rather than your balance or your income, now decides which menu you are looking at. Two things changed the picture this year. SAVE ended by court order, and two new plans arrived on 1 July 2026: the Repayment Assistance Plan, usually written RAP, and a new tiered standard plan whose term depends on how much you owe.

Why does one date decide everything?

The 2026 rules split borrowers into two groups by first disbursement date, and the split is not something you can opt out of or appeal.

• Loans first disbursed before 1 July 2026 generally still see the established plans - standard, graduated, extended where you qualify, and income-driven plans such as IBR, PAYE and ICR, depending on your loan types and your history.
• Loans first disbursed on or after 1 July 2026 see the new pair: RAP on the income side, and the new tiered standard plan on the fixed-payment side.

Borrowers with loans on both sides of the date are the ones who get confused, because one account can hold loans with different menus attached. The dates in your own record are the only thing that settles it, and you can read them on StudentAid.gov.

What happened to SAVE?

SAVE was struck down in litigation and is no longer a plan you can enrol in or stay on. If you were on it, you have to end up somewhere else, and that is a choice to make rather than something to wait out. Note too that advice written while SAVE existed still sits high in search results and now describes a plan that is gone. Treat any page recommending SAVE as out of date, whatever its date stamp says.

How does RAP calculate a payment?

RAP follows your income rather than your balance. The scale runs from 1% to 10% of adjusted gross income, with the percentage rising as income rises, and the result is reduced by $50 per dependent.

Here is the arithmetic, with one caution attached. Suppose an adjusted gross income of $50,000 that lands at the 5% point on the scale, and one dependent. Five per cent of $50,000 is $2,500 a year, which is $208.33 a month; subtract $50 for the dependent and the payment is about $158 a month. The 5% is the part to be careful about: the percentage attached to any particular income is set by the published scale, so read your own figure off the official tables rather than off an example.

What is the new tiered standard plan?

The new fixed-payment plan sets your term by your balance instead of defaulting to ten years for everyone: the published terms are 10, 15, 20 or 25 years. Payments are level, so the figure on your statement does not move when your income moves. A larger balance buys a longer term and a smaller monthly payment, and a longer term means more interest in total. Confirm the band that sets your own term on the official site.

Are IBR, PAYE and ICR still available?

For loans disbursed before the cut-off, income-driven repayment has not disappeared, and IBR in particular remains a live option for many borrowers. All three work from discretionary income - broadly, the part of your income above a threshold tied to the federal poverty guidelines for your family size - rather than from a flat percentage of everything you earn. That is the mechanical difference from RAP, and it is why two people on the same salary can owe very different amounts under the two systems.

Eligibility depends on your loan types and, for some plans, on when you first borrowed. The (Nelnet Student Loans) Pointer app runs the IBR, PAYE and ICR arithmetic against the 2026 poverty guidelines offline and lists every plan with who qualifies and who does not - as an independent, unofficial guide, not as a servicer.

How do you choose between a fixed plan and an income-driven one?

A fixed plan over a short term costs the least in total interest and the most each month. An income-driven plan costs the least each month and, by stretching the term, usually the most in total interest - while protecting you in a year when your income falls. Two questions usually settle it.

1. Can you afford the fixed payment in a bad month, not just a good one? If not, the income-driven plan is doing a job the fixed plan cannot do.
2. Are you working toward forgiveness? Public Service Loan Forgiveness is counted in 120 qualifying payments, and qualifying payments generally come from qualifying plans, so the plan choice and the forgiveness plan are one decision rather than two.

What should you do before you switch anything?

1. Read your first disbursement dates loan by loan, because that is the gate.
2. Check whether a consolidation would change your plan eligibility or any payment count first. It creates a new loan and is not reversible.
3. Estimate the payment under each plan open to you, and look at the total, not only the monthly figure.
4. File the change through your own servicer or the official site, and keep the confirmation.

Frequently asked questions

I was on SAVE. Do I have to do anything?

Yes. SAVE ended by court order, so you need to move to a plan that still exists. Start from your disbursement dates, estimate the payment under each plan open to you, then file the request with your servicer.

Can I choose RAP if I borrowed in 2023?

The new plans are tied to loans first disbursed on or after 1 July 2026, so older loans generally sit on the older menu. The interaction with consolidation and with different loan types gets technical quickly, so confirm your own position on the official site.

Does a different plan change how much I owe in total?

It changes the total you pay, not the principal you borrowed. A longer term means more days of interest, and federal daily interest follows (balance times rate) divided by 365.25 - so the plan you pick is mostly a decision about time.

Where can I compare two plans side by side?

The repayment simulator in the free app on Google Play puts paying the minimum next to paying a little more and states the difference in months and in dollars. It is an estimate, and the figures your servicer shows always win.

Start with the date, not with the plan. Pull your first disbursement dates, work out which menu each loan sits on, then compare only the payments you are allowed to choose. This site and the app it describes are independent and unofficial. The app is not a lender; it cannot process or check an application, see a balance or change a plan, and it is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to Nelnet, the U.S. Department of Education or any government body. Manage your loans only through your own servicer and StudentAid.gov, and never give your FSA ID, password or a one-time code to anyone else.