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Even though Congress made big changes to U.S. student loan programs in 2025 with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), one perk of federally subsidized student loans that remains is the possibility of enrolling into a repayment plan that keeps your payments manageable and could offer forgiveness after a few decades.
If you haven’t borrowed money yet, or if you haven’t consolidated your loans into a legacy Income-Driven Repayment plan (IDR), you only have one option: the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP).
If you have already enrolled in Income-Based Repayment (IBR), you’re in luck! This plan will never exceed what you would owe on the standard 10-year plan, no matter how high your income gets. And it’s the only legacy plan that will survive past 2028.
If you are currently enrolled in PAYE or REPAYE, and you haven’t taken out any new loans or consolidated any old loans since July 1, 2026, you have to transfer to IBR before July 1, 2028 or your loan provider will transfer you to the program of their choice.
To use income-based repayment plans, you must recertify your enrollment annually. While it’s a relatively simple process, you’ll have to provide updated information about your income and family size every year.
A young blonde woman in a white uniform and eyeglasses fills out paperwork while standing in a warehouse. (Dusan Petkovic – stock.adobe.com) Dusan Petkovic – stock.adobe.comWhat is income-driven recertification?
Both the new RAP plan and the older IDR plan cap your payment at a percentage of discretionary income. After you make payments for 20, 25 or 30 years (again, depending on the plan), you can apply to get the remaining balance of your loan forgiven.
All income-based repayment plans require borrowers to update their income and family status yearly with the Department of Education, which is called “income-driven recertification.” Recertification not only keeps you in an income-based repayment plan, but it also determines how much you have to pay per month.
If you don’t recertify your income as required, you could face significant consequences: You could be removed from the plan, your monthly payment could increase and any unpaid interest could be capitalized — in other words, added to your loan balance.
How to recertify an income-based repayment plan
The latest changes in the student loan landscape passed by Congress preserve Income-Based Repayment (IBR), but there are important details you have to be aware of in order to maintain your income-based program.
As long as you do not take out any new federal student loans or consolidate your existing loans on or after July 1, 2026, you are considered a “legacy borrower” and have access to older plans that are closed to new students.
All new borrowers after July 1, 2026 must apply for RAP, which is less generous than the PAYE, REPAYE and SAVE plans that it replaces.
What is income-driven recertification?
Even though you must recertify your earnings and family size annually to remain eligible, thankfully, the recertification process can be completed in as little as 10 minutes.
Start by logging into the IDR portal on StudentAid.gov. After selecting the option to recertify your plan, you’ll be prompted to provide personal information, such as your:
- Contact information
- Employment details
- Family size, including the number of dependents you have
- Marital status
- Income
The Department of Education has an IRS data retrieval tool that can automatically transfer your tax information into the form. If you choose this option, you won’t need to provide additional supporting documentation. When prompted to use the tool, provide the IRS with your:
- Full name
- Social Security number
- Date of birth
- Tax filing status
- Address
Once you’ve input all required information into the IDR portal, give everything a final review before digitally signing the form.
When is the recertification deadline?
Typically, your deadline to recertify your income is 12 months from the day you enter into an IDR plan. Your loan servicer will send you reminders to recertify your information.
It can take time for your paperwork to be processed and verified. As a result, it’s a good idea to submit your recertification about two months prior to the deadline.
What happens if you don’t recertify your income?
If you don’t recertify your information by the annual deadline, you could face serious consequences.
You could be removed from your income-driven calculation, and your servicer may automatically switch you to a fixed repayment plan.
For legacy borrowers, that means you are switched to the 10-year Standard Plan, which is calculated on what your loan balance was when you originally entered the IDR plan, not what it is today. The result could be a spike in your monthly payments by hundreds of dollars.
For new borrowers who are in the RAP plan, failing to recertify puts you into the new Tiered Standard Plan, which forces a fixed monthly payment based on your loan amount.
If you are enrolled in automatic payments, the system will not pause to ask if you can afford the new payment. When your recertification lapses, your servicer will automatically withdraw the newly calculated Standard payment directly from your bank account on your next due date, which frequently leads to unexpected overdrafts.
Even more concerning for people in loan forgiveness programs, if you are pursuing the standard 20- or 30-year IDR forgiveness and are temporarily placed on a non-qualifying alternative plan because you missed the deadline, those months will not count toward your final forgiveness tally.
Can you recertify your income-based repayment early?
You can recertify your IDR plan before the annual deadline. In fact, it may be smart to do so if your income has decreased, you’ve lost your job, or your family size has grown.
If you recertify your plan after events like these, your loan servicer will adjust your monthly payment accordingly. This ensures you won’t pay more than required, helping your loans remain affordable.
On the other hand, if your income goes up, you can wait until the recertification deadline, which may save you money for a few months.
Recertification makes sure you can afford your monthly payments, but income-driven options are only available for federal loans. If you have private student debt and want to lower your payments, refinancing student loans may be a useful strategy.
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