RAP Calculator
Your loans, your income and the family you support
Your result will appear here
Fill in the fields on the left and this updates as you type.
Know what this estimate is based on
- Jurisdiction
- General mathematical model
- Scope and limitations
- Educational estimate only. Confirm the assumptions, current rules, fees, and rounding that apply to your situation before making a decision.
- Source links checked
- Jul 30, 2026
Built and regression-tested by Smart Tools Lab. It has not been individually reviewed by a licensed financial, tax, or legal professional.
How to use
- 01
Enter the federal loan balance you would repay under RAP and the interest rate on it. The example on this page uses $45,000 at 6.52%, which is the fixed rate for undergraduate loans first disbursed in the 2026-27 year.
- 02
Enter the adjusted gross income from your most recent tax return. This is the figure that sets your payment, so it matters more than the balance. The example uses $52,000. A married borrower who files a separate return uses their own income rather than the couple's.
- 03
Enter the number of dependents you claim under section 152 of the tax code. Each one takes $50 a month off the payment, and the reduction cannot push the payment below the $10 floor.
- 04
Set the income growth you expect each year and how many years you want the table and chart to cover. The example assumes 3% growth, which recalculates the payment every twelve months as your income rises.
- 05
Read the payment at the top, then the stats for how the first payment splits, how much interest is waived and what the matching principal payment adds. The table below follows the balance year by year, and the insights explain the month the balance clears or the 360th payment arrives.
Formula
The payment is built in four steps, all from Public Law 119-21, HEA section 455(q)(4)(B): 1. Base payment from adjusted gross income. At or below $10,000 it is a flat $120 a year. Above that it is a percentage of ALL your adjusted gross income: 1% to $20,000, 2% to $30,000, 3% to $40,000, 4% to $50,000, 5% to $60,000, 6% to $70,000, 7% to $80,000, 8% to $90,000, 9% to $100,000, and 10% above $100,000. 2. Monthly payment = base payment divided by 12, minus $50 for each section 152 dependent, with a floor of $10 a month. A final payment is capped at the remaining balance. 3. Each month the payment is applied to interest first, then fees, then principal. Interest the payment cannot cover is WAIVED and never charged (455(q)(2)(A)). Principal due and not paid is deferred, not capitalized. 4. Matching principal payment (455(q)(2)(B)): if the payment reduced principal by less than $50, the government adds the lesser of $50 and the payment, minus whatever the payment already put toward principal. The net effect is that the month's total principal reduction equals the lesser of $50 and the payment. Repayment ends at the earlier of a zero balance or 360 qualifying monthly payments.
Example
A borrower owes $45,000 at 6.52% with an adjusted gross income of $52,000, no dependents, and expects 3% income growth. $52,000 falls in the band above $50,000 and not above $60,000, so the rate is 5%: a base payment of $2,600 a year, or $216.67 a month. In the first month the loan accrues $244.50 of interest, so the whole $216.67 goes to interest and $0.00 to principal. The $27.83 shortfall is waived rather than charged, and the matching principal payment supplies $50.00, so the balance still falls by $50.00. The balance clears after 220 payments, which is 18 years and 4 months, well inside the 360-payment cap, so nothing is cancelled and no tax arises. Across the plan the borrower pays $80,259, of which $38,049 is interest, while $595 of interest is waived and the match contributes $2,791 of principal. For contrast, the standard plan would charge $392.49 a month on the same balance, because $45,000 sits in the fifteen-year tier.
Definitions
- Adjusted gross income
- Your income after certain deductions, taken from your most recent federal tax return. It is the only income figure RAP uses. A married borrower filing separately uses their own adjusted gross income rather than the couple's combined figure.
- Base payment
- The annual figure the statute produces from your income band, before it is divided by twelve and reduced for dependents. At $52,000 of income the base payment is $2,600 a year.
- Interest waiver
- The rule at section 455(q)(2)(A) that unpaid interest on an on-time payment is not charged to the borrower. It is why a RAP balance cannot grow from unpaid interest, unlike the plans RAP replaced.
- Matching principal payment
- The rule at section 455(q)(2)(B) under which the government tops up a small principal reduction so that at least the lesser of $50 and your payment comes off principal each month you pay on time.
- Qualifying monthly payment
- A month that counts toward the 360 needed for cancellation. The statute includes on-time RAP payments, standard-plan payments, payments at or above the ten-year standard amount under other plans, IBR payments, pre-2028 income-contingent payments, and months in certain deferments.
Good to know
How the law turned income into a payment
The Repayment Assistance Plan does something none of the plans before it did: it sets your payment from a band of income rather than from a percentage of the income above a poverty threshold. Public Law 119-21 wrote eleven bands into the statute. At or below $10,000 of adjusted gross income the base payment is a flat $120 a year. Above that it becomes a percentage of your whole adjusted gross income, starting at 1% between $10,001 and $20,000 and stepping up one point for each additional $10,000 of income, until it reaches 10% for anyone earning more than $100,000. That annual figure is divided by twelve, then reduced by $50 for each dependent you claim under section 152 of the tax code, and the result is never allowed to fall below $10 a month. The example on this page uses an adjusted gross income of $52,000, which lands in the band for income above $50,000 and not above $60,000, so the rate is 5%. Five percent of $52,000 is $2,600 a year, and $2,600 divided by twelve is $216.67 a month. With no dependents claimed, that is the payment. The most important consequence of this design is what is missing from it. Your loan balance appears nowhere in the calculation. A borrower earning $52,000 pays $216.67 whether they owe $12,000 or $120,000, and two people with identical incomes and wildly different debts are asked for exactly the same amount each month. The balance decides how long you will be paying, not how much. That is a genuine break from the standard plan, where the balance sets both the term and the payment, and it is why a page like this one asks for your income first and your balance second.
The waiver and the match, the two subsidies inside the plan
Two provisions buried in section 455(q)(2) do more for a struggling borrower than the payment formula itself, and neither is well known. The first is the interest subsidy. In any month when you make your payment on time and that payment is not enough to cover the interest that accrued, the statute says the unpaid interest shall not be charged to you. It is not added to your balance, it is not tracked as a debt to be collected later, and it does not come back when your income rises. In the example on this page the loan accrues $244.50 of interest in the first month against a payment of $216.67, so $27.83 goes unpaid and simply disappears. Across the whole plan that comes to $595 of interest never charged. This is the provision that makes it impossible for a RAP balance to grow, which is the single most common complaint about the income-driven plans that came before. The second provision is the matching principal payment, and it is stranger. When an on-time payment reduces your principal by less than $50, the Secretary reduces the principal by the difference between $50 and whatever your own payment managed. The arithmetic works out to something clean: in any month where your own payment cannot clear $50 of principal, the total principal reduction for that month is exactly the lesser of $50 and your payment. In the example the first payment covers the interest and leaves nothing for principal, so the borrower's own contribution to principal is $0.00 and the match supplies the whole $50.00. Over the life of the plan the match adds $2,791 of principal reduction that the borrower never paid for. Taken together, the waiver stops the balance rising and the match forces it down, which is why the example clears in 18 years and 4 months rather than running to the end.
Three hundred and sixty payments, and the tax bill at the end
RAP ends in one of two ways. Either the balance reaches zero, or you make 360 qualifying monthly payments and the Secretary cancels whatever is left. Thirty years is a long horizon, and for a borrower whose income rises steadily the loan usually clears well before it: the example on this page finishes after 220 payments, with nothing outstanding and no cancellation at all. For a borrower whose income stays low, the 360-payment cap is the backstop that matters. What counts as a qualifying payment is broader than most people assume, and the statute lists the categories explicitly. On-time RAP payments count. So do on-time payments under the standard plan, and payments under any other repayment plan that were at least as large as the ten-year standard amount would have been. Payments under the Income-Based Repayment plan count, including payments at that plan's minimum. Income-contingent payments made before 1 July 2028 count. And some months in which you paid nothing at all count too: months spent in a cancer-treatment deferment or an economic-hardship deferment are qualifying months. That breadth matters because it means years already behind you may already be on the board. The sting is at the end. Public Law 119-21 rewrote section 108(f)(5) of the tax code so that the exclusion for discharged student debt now covers only discharges on account of death or total and permanent disability. The broad exclusion that ran from 2021 to 2025 is gone. A balance cancelled after 360 RAP payments is therefore ordinary income in the year it is cancelled, and a borrower who reaches the end with a large balance should expect a large tax bill in that single year. Public service forgiveness under the separate 120-payment programme remains tax-free, which is one reason it is worth checking whether your employment qualifies before settling into a thirty-year plan.
Who cannot use this plan, and what they do instead
RAP is not open to every federal student loan, and the exclusions catch people who assume they are covered. Parent PLUS loans are excepted loans, and so is any consolidation loan that repaid a parent PLUS loan. A parent who borrowed to put a child through college cannot bring that debt under this plan, however low their income falls, and the standard plan is what remains to them. That is worth knowing before a parent takes on a PLUS loan in the first place, because it removes the safety net that a student borrower takes for granted. Private loans are outside all of this entirely. A private lender sets its own terms, and no federal waiver, match, cancellation or income test reaches a loan that was never made under Title IV. If a page like this one gives you a comfortable number and your actual debt is private, the number is meaningless for that debt. The other boundary worth understanding is the date. RAP governs loans made on or after 1 July 2026, and for those loans it is one of only two options: the standard plan or this one. Nothing else is available, and the Secretary is forbidden from offering anything else. Loans made before that date keep access to the older income-driven plans, principally Income-Based Repayment, and borrowers moved off the SAVE plan are being asked to choose. That choice is a real one, and it is the subject of the RAP versus IBR page rather than this one. Two practical notes to finish. Your payment is recalculated annually from your adjusted gross income, so a year of lower earnings lowers the payment, and a married borrower filing separately uses their own income rather than the couple's. And the final payment is capped at whatever is actually left, so the plan never asks for more than the balance. Your servicer is the authority on your own loans, and studentaid.gov is where your official record lives.
Frequently asked questions
How is the RAP payment actually calculated?
Public Law 119-21 sets a base payment from eleven income bands. At or below $10,000 of adjusted gross income it is a flat $120 a year. Above that it is a percentage of your whole adjusted gross income, starting at 1% and rising one point for each $10,000 band until it reaches 10% above $100,000. That annual figure is divided by twelve, reduced by $50 for each dependent, and never allowed below $10 a month. At the example's $52,000 of income the band is 5%, so the base is $2,600 a year and the payment is $216.67 a month.
Does my loan balance change my payment?
No. The balance appears nowhere in the calculation. A borrower earning $52,000 pays $216.67 a month whether they owe $12,000 or $120,000. What the balance changes is how long you pay: a larger balance simply takes more months to clear, and at some point runs into the 360-payment cap where the remainder is cancelled.
Can my balance grow under RAP the way it did under the older plans?
No, and this is the plan's most important feature. Section 455(q)(2)(A) says that when you make an on-time payment that is not enough to cover the month's interest, the unpaid interest shall not be charged to you. In the example the loan accrues $244.50 of interest against a $216.67 payment, so $27.83 is waived and simply disappears. Across the whole plan $595 of interest is never charged.
What is the matching principal payment?
It is a second subsidy, at section 455(q)(2)(B). When an on-time payment reduces your principal by less than $50, the government makes up the difference, so the month's total principal reduction is the lesser of $50 and your payment. In the example the first payment is entirely consumed by interest, leaving $0.00 for principal, and the match supplies the whole $50.00. Over the plan the match adds $2,791 of principal reduction the borrower never paid for.
What happens at 360 payments, and is the forgiven amount taxed?
After 360 qualifying monthly payments the Secretary cancels whatever is left. Under current law that cancelled balance is ordinary income in the year it happens, because Public Law 119-21 rewrote the tax exclusion so it now covers only discharges for death or total and permanent disability. In the example the question does not arise: the balance clears after 220 payments, so nothing is cancelled and there is no tax event.
Which months count toward the 360?
More than you might expect. The statute counts on-time RAP payments, on-time standard-plan payments, payments under any other plan that were at least the ten-year standard amount, Income-Based Repayment payments including the minimum, income-contingent payments made before 1 July 2028, and months you paid nothing because you were in a cancer-treatment or economic-hardship deferment. Your servicer holds the official count and studentaid.gov displays it.
Can a parent PLUS loan go into RAP?
No. Parent PLUS loans, and consolidation loans that repaid a parent PLUS, are excepted loans and cannot be repaid under RAP at any income. A parent borrower is left with the standard plan. Private loans are outside the federal system altogether, so no waiver, match or cancellation reaches them.