Income-driven repayment.

In plain English

Income-driven repayment, often shortened to IDR, is a family of federal repayment plans that tie your monthly payment to your income and family size instead of to how much you borrowed. When you earn less, your payment is lower; when you earn more, it rises. These plans also offer loan forgiveness on any remaining balance after a set number of years of qualifying payments. The IDR plans are in transition under the 2025 law P.L. 119-21 (the One Big Beautiful Bill, signed July 4 2025), so which plan you can use depends on when your loans were taken out.

01Why it matters

IDR can make a payment you genuinely cannot afford into one you can, which is often the difference between staying current and slipping toward default.

02The math, step by step

Older IDR plans (such as SAVE, PAYE, and ICR) are being phased out. For loans taken on or after July 1 2026, the income-driven option is the new Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP), which sets payments on a sliding scale tied to your prior-year income and forgives the balance after 30 years of payments. Borrowers with no new loans after July 1 2026 may be able to stay in IBR or switch to RAP through July 1 2028. Which plan fits you depends on your loan dates, so check yours before enrolling.

03What this is NOT

04Receipts

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