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SAVE (Formerly REPAYE) Eligibility

Save Eligibility Requirements and General Information (From Section 10 of the Income-Driven Repayment Plan Request)

Topic	Details
Payment Amount	Generally, 10% of discretionary income.
Cap on Payment Amount	None. Your payment may exceed what you would have paid under the standard repayment plan with a 10-year repayment period.
Married Borrowers	You must provide income documentation for yourself and your spouse regardless of whether you file a joint or separate Federal income tax return unless you and your spouse (1) are separated or (2) you are unable to reasonably access your spouse's income information.
Borrower Responsibility for Interest if Payment Does Not Cover All Interest That Accrues	On subsidized loans, you do not have to pay the difference between your monthly payment amount and the remaining interest that accrues for your first 3 consecutive years of repayment under the plan. On subsidized loans after the first consecutive 3 years and on unsubsidized loans during all periods, you are only responsible for paying half of the difference between your monthly payment amount and the remaining interest that accrues.
Forgiveness Period	If you only have eligible Direct Loans that you received for undergraduate study, any remaining balance is forgiven after 20 years of qualifying repayment on all of your loans. If you have any eligible Direct Loans that you received for graduate or professional study, any remaining balance is forgiven after 25 years of qualifying repayment on all of your loans. Forgiveness may be taxable. Any months when you received an economic hardship deferment are considered the equivalent of qualifying payments, but not any months you received any other type of deferment or months you received any type of forbearance.
Income Requirement to Enter Plan	None.
Borrower Eligibility Requirement	You must be a Direct Loan borrower with eligible loans.
Requirement to Re-certify Income and Family Size	Annually. Failure to submit documentation by the deadline will result in being placed on the alternative repayment plan with a payment that will ensure that your loan is paid in full over a period that is the lesser of 10 years or the remainder of 20 or 25 years.
Leaving the Plan	At any time, you may change to any other repayment plan for which you are eligible.
Interest Capitalization	Interest is no longer capitalized when you are removed from the plan for failing to re-certify your income by the deadline or when you voluntarily leave the plan. Otherwise, interest capitalizes at the expiration of a deferment.
Re-Entering the Plan	You must provide income documentation for the period when you were not on the SAVE (formerly REPAYE) plan. Your loan holder will calculate the amount you would have been required to pay under the SAVE plan during that period and compare that to the amount you were required to pay under a different plan over the same period. If the amount you would have been required to pay under the SAVE plan is more than what you actually paid during this period, your new payment amount under the SAVE plan will be increased. The increased amount is equal to the difference between what you were required to pay while not on the SAVE plan and what you would have been required to pay if you had been on the SAVE plan, divided by the number of months remaining in your 20- or 25-year forgiveness period.

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