If you work for a government agency or a nonprofit and you carry federal student loans, there is a program that cancels whatever is left after ten years of payments. It’s called Public Service Loan Forgiveness, and the amount forgiven isn’t taxed as income.
Several rules changed during 2026. Here is where the program stands now.
The basic deal
You make 120 qualifying monthly payments. That’s ten years’ worth, though they don’t have to be consecutive. After the 120th, you apply, and the rest of the balance is cancelled.
Four things have to be true for a payment to count. The loan has to be a federal Direct Loan. Your employer has to qualify. You have to be working full time. And the payment has to be made under a qualifying repayment plan.
Your employer qualifies, not your job title
PSLF looks at who signs your paycheck. A groundskeeper at a public university qualifies. A surgeon in private practice does not.
Employers that count are federal, state, local, or tribal government agencies, which includes public schools, public colleges, and public hospitals. So do 501(c)(3) nonprofits, and some other nonprofits that provide a qualifying public service. Full-time AmeriCorps or Peace Corps service counts as well.
Full time means 30 hours a week or more, or whatever your employer defines as full time, whichever is greater. Two part-time jobs can add up, as long as both employers qualify.
Only Direct Loans count
If you have older FFEL loans or a Perkins loan from a previous run at college, they don’t qualify on their own. You can consolidate them into a Direct Consolidation Loan, and only the payments you make after that consolidation count toward your 120.
The Perkins program itself ended in 2017, so there are no new ones, though plenty of people are still paying theirs off.
Which repayment plans qualify right now
Five plans can earn PSLF credit in 2026. The old 10-year Standard plan, Income-Based Repayment, and the new Repayment Assistance Plan are the three that continue indefinitely. Pay As You Earn and Income-Contingent Repayment also count, but both are being retired on June 30, 2028.
If you take out a new Direct Loan or consolidate on or after July 1, 2026, the Repayment Assistance Plan is your only income-driven option.
What changed in 2026
The SAVE plan is gone. A court vacated it on March 10, 2026, and the Department of Education began moving borrowers off it in July, giving each person 90 days to pick a new plan. If you were on SAVE, the payments you already made still count toward PSLF as long as you met the other rules at the time. You do have to choose a new plan though, and ignoring the notice is how people end up in a non-qualifying plan without realizing it.
Payments now have to be on time. As of July 1, 2026, a payment counts only if it arrives on or before the due date. The 15-day grace period that used to exist is gone.
Certify every year
Submit the PSLF form once a year and any time you change jobs. It confirms your employer qualifies and updates your official payment count.
Skipping it is how someone discovers in year nine that three years of payments never counted. Filing annually turns that into a problem you find in month four.
Whether it’s worth building a plan around
PSLF pays off when your loan balance is large compared to your income. If your balance is modest, or your salary is high enough that you’d clear the loan in ten years anyway, forgiveness may cancel very little, and you’d be choosing a job for a benefit you never collect.
Run the numbers before you make a career decision around it.
Other forgiveness programs
Teacher Loan Forgiveness covers up to $17,500 after five complete years teaching full time at a low-income public school, though the amount depends on what subject you teach. You can’t count the same years toward both this and PSLF, so if you qualify for both, work out the order.
Income-driven repayment forgiveness cancels whatever remains at the end of your plan’s full term, which is longer than ten years but doesn’t require a particular employer.
Many states run their own repayment assistance for nurses, teachers, and physicians who work in shortage areas. The military branches run their own programs too.
If you’re still weighing whether to go back to school at all, factor this in early. What you borrow and which loans you take now determines what you can have forgiven later.
