Tiered Standard Repayment Calculator
What you owe, and what you can add each month
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 total outstanding principal you will owe when repayment begins. This is the figure the law reads the term from, and the example uses $45,000.
- 02
Enter the interest rate on the loans. The example uses 6.52%, the fixed rate for undergraduate loans first disbursed in 2026-27.
- 03
Enter anything you would add to the required payment each month. The example adds $100. Federal loans carry no prepayment penalty, so there is no downside to testing a figure here.
- 04
Read the term and the fixed payment at the top. The term comes straight from the balance: under $25,000 is ten years, $25,000 to under $50,000 is fifteen, $50,000 to under $100,000 is twenty, and $100,000 or more is twenty-five.
- 05
Compare the total interest with what a balance just under the next boundary down would have cost, and read the insight explaining why that comparison only helps before repayment begins. The table below follows the loan year by year.
Formula
Two steps, the first statutory and the second ordinary amortization. 1. Term from the balance (P.L. 119-21, HEA 455(d)(7)(A)(i)), read from total outstanding principal when repayment begins: under $25,000 gives 10 years $25,000 to under $50,000 gives 15 years $50,000 to under $100,000 gives 20 years $100,000 or more gives 25 years 2. Payment = P x i / (1 - (1 + i) raised to the power of -n), where P is the balance, i is the annual rate divided by 12, and n is the term in months. Total interest = payment x n - P. The extra-payment figures run the same balance against payment plus extra, month by month, until it clears, and report the difference in months and in total interest. The boundary comparison takes the highest tier boundary at or below your balance, prices a balance one dollar under it over that shorter tier, and reports the difference.
Example
A borrower will owe $45,000 at 6.52% when repayment begins, and can add $100 a month. $45,000 falls between $25,000 and $50,000, so the statutory term is fifteen years and the fixed payment is $392.49 a month. Over the full term the loan costs $25,649 in interest and $70,649 repaid in all, so interest comes to 57% of what was borrowed. In the first year $2,880 goes to interest and $1,830 to principal, leaving $43,170 outstanding. Adding $100 a month clears the loan in ten years and seven months instead of fifteen years, saving $8,291 of interest. The borrower is $20,001 above the $25,000 boundary; had they entered repayment just under it, the term would have been ten years at $284.11 a month with $9,095 of interest, which is $16,554 less than their tier costs.
Definitions
- Total outstanding principal
- The combined principal on all the loans entering repayment, measured at the moment repayment begins. It is the figure the statutory tier is read from, and capitalized interest that has already joined principal counts toward it.
- Tier boundary
- One of the three balances at which the term steps up: $25,000, $50,000 and $100,000. Because the tiers are steps rather than a slope, a single dollar can separate two very different schedules.
- Statutory term
- The repayment period the law assigns to your tier. It is fixed when repayment begins and does not change as the balance falls or rises afterwards.
- Prepayment penalty
- A fee some lenders charge for repaying a loan early. Federal student loans carry none, so any extra payment goes to work with no charge attached.
- Applying extra to principal
- An instruction to the servicer that a payment above the amount due should reduce the balance rather than advance the due date. Without it, a surplus is commonly treated as paying next month's bill early, which saves very little.
Good to know
A term set once, by a number that stops mattering afterwards
The standard plan for loans made from 1 July 2026 works in a way that is easy to describe and easy to misunderstand. Public Law 119-21 sets the repayment term by reading it off the total outstanding principal at the moment repayment begins. A balance under $25,000 is repaid over ten years. From $25,000 to under $50,000 the term is fifteen years. From $50,000 to under $100,000 it is twenty years. A balance of $100,000 or more gets twenty-five. There is no negotiation, no application and no income test: the balance names the term, and the term names the payment. The example on this page uses a $45,000 balance at 6.52%, which falls in the fifteen-year tier, giving a fixed payment of $392.49 a month for the whole term. The detail that catches people is the phrase 'when repayment begins'. The tier is decided once, at that moment, and it does not move afterwards. Paying your balance down from $45,000 to $20,000 over the following years does not promote you into the ten-year tier and does not change your required payment. What it does is finish the loan early, which is a different and perfectly good outcome, but the schedule you are measured against was fixed at the start. The reverse is also true: a balance that grows through capitalization after repayment has begun does not push you into a longer tier. This has one genuinely actionable consequence, and its window is narrow. If you are close to a boundary and have not yet entered repayment, a payment made before that moment can move you into a shorter tier. In the example the borrower is $20,001 above the $25,000 boundary. Entering repayment just under it would mean a ten-year term at $284.11 a month, with $9,095 of total interest instead of $25,649. That is $16,554 saved, in exchange for a payment that is $108 a month higher and a lump sum paid up front.
What the steps between tiers really cost
Because the tiers are steps rather than a smooth slope, two borrowers whose balances differ by a single dollar can end up on very different schedules, and the difference compounds over decades. Understanding the shape of that effect is more useful than memorising the boundaries. Consider what happens as a balance crosses from just under $50,000 to just over it. The term jumps from fifteen years to twenty. The monthly payment falls, which feels like relief, and the total interest rises sharply, which is the part that does not announce itself. A longer term is not a concession the law makes out of generosity; it is an acknowledgement that a very large balance cannot be repaid over ten years on an ordinary income. The price of that accommodation is five more years of interest on a balance that is already larger. The example makes the scale visible. On $45,000 at 6.52% over fifteen years, total interest is $25,649 against $45,000 borrowed, so interest comes to 57% of the original debt and the borrower repays $70,649 in all. Push the same borrower into the twenty-year tier and both the number of payments and the interest climb again. This is the arithmetic behind a piece of advice that sounds counter-intuitive: if you can afford the payment, the shorter tier is almost always the better place to be, even though it demands more each month. The other implication is about borrowing itself. A student deciding whether to take an additional $2,000 in a final year, where that $2,000 would push a total balance from $48,000 to $50,000, is not really deciding about $2,000. They are deciding about crossing a boundary that adds five years of payments to every dollar they have borrowed. Boundaries are worth knowing about while you are still borrowing, because that is the only period in which the decision is genuinely yours to make.
Paying more than the schedule asks
Federal student loans carry no prepayment penalty of any kind. You may pay more than the required amount in any month, pay a lump sum at any time, or clear the balance outright, and no fee or interest adjustment is charged for doing so. On a fifteen or twenty-five year term that freedom is the most powerful tool available to a borrower on the standard plan, because the statutory term is long and interest accumulates for the whole of it. The example shows what a modest addition does. Adding $100 a month to the required $392.49 takes four years and five months off the term and saves $8,291 in interest, finishing the loan in ten years and seven months instead of fifteen years. That is a return earned simply by refusing to use the full term the law allows. The larger the balance and the longer the tier, the more dramatic this effect becomes, because a twenty-five year schedule front-loads an enormous amount of interest. There is an administrative trap that quietly undoes much of this, and it is worth handling deliberately. When a servicer receives more than the amount due, the common default is to treat the surplus as an early payment of next month's bill. That advances your due date, which sounds helpful and achieves almost nothing: the balance is barely affected and the interest keeps accruing at the same rate. What you want instead is for the extra to be applied to principal, and you generally have to say so. Most servicers accept a standing instruction to apply any overpayment to principal, and many allow you to direct it at a specific loan. Where you hold several loans at different rates, directing the extra at the highest-rate loan saves the most money. Check your statement the month after you start, confirm the balance moved by the amount you expected, and keep the instruction on file. Your servicer is the only party who can set this, and studentaid.gov will show the resulting balances.
When the standard plan is the right choice
For a loan made on or after 1 July 2026 the choice is narrow: the standard plan or the Repayment Assistance Plan, and nothing else. Knowing when the fixed-payment option is the better of the two is therefore worth a few minutes. The standard plan wins most clearly for a borrower whose income is comfortable relative to their debt. RAP charges a banded percentage of every dollar of adjusted gross income with no exemption, so a borrower earning well can find the income-based payment is larger than the fixed one, and paying more for longer is the worst of both worlds. In the example the RAP payment at $52,000 of income is $216.67 against the standard plan's $392.49, so RAP is cheaper monthly there, but at a higher income or a smaller balance the ranking reverses quickly. The standard plan also has the merit of ending. It finishes on a known date, it requires no annual recertification of income, and it produces no cancelled balance and therefore no tax event. RAP requires you to document your income every year, and a borrower who fails to provide the information is moved to a payment based on a ten-year standard schedule, which can be a shock. Some people simply prefer a fixed obligation they can plan around to a payment that moves with their earnings and a thirty-year horizon. The standard plan is also the only option for borrowers RAP excludes. Parent PLUS loans and consolidation loans that repaid them cannot go into RAP at all, so a parent borrower is on this plan whether it suits them or not. Where the standard plan fails is the case it was never designed for: a borrower whose income is genuinely too low to carry a fixed payment. For them the fixed schedule is not a discipline but a trap, and an income-based plan with a waiver and a floor of $10 a month is the appropriate answer. Your servicer can switch you between the two.
Frequently asked questions
How is the term decided?
Public Law 119-21 reads it directly off the total outstanding principal at the moment repayment begins. Under $25,000 is ten years, $25,000 to under $50,000 is fifteen years, $50,000 to under $100,000 is twenty years, and $100,000 or more is twenty-five years. There is no application, no income test and no negotiation.
If I pay my balance down, do I move into a shorter tier?
No. The tier is fixed once, when repayment begins, and does not move afterwards. Paying the balance down finishes the loan early, which is a good outcome, but it does not change the schedule you are measured against or reduce the required payment. The reverse is also true: a balance that grows through capitalization after repayment starts does not push you into a longer tier.
So when does the boundary actually matter?
Only before repayment begins. In the example the borrower is $20,001 above the $25,000 boundary. A borrower who entered repayment just under it would get a ten-year term at $284.11 a month with $9,095 of total interest, instead of a fifteen-year term at $392.49 with $25,649 of interest. That is $16,554 saved, in exchange for a payment $108 a month higher.
Is a longer term a good thing?
Not financially. The law gives a larger balance more years because the payment would otherwise be unaffordable, but every additional year is another year of interest on a balance that is already larger. In the example, $25,649 of interest on $45,000 borrowed is 57% of the original debt, and the borrower repays $70,649 in all.
What does paying extra actually save?
In the example, adding $100 a month to the required $392.49 takes four years and five months off the term and saves $8,291 in interest, finishing in ten years and seven months instead of fifteen years. There is no prepayment penalty on a federal student loan, so the whole of that saving is real.
Why did my extra payment not reduce my balance?
Because servicers commonly treat a surplus as early payment of next month's bill, which advances the due date and barely touches the principal. You generally have to instruct the servicer to apply overpayments to principal, and where you hold several loans you can usually direct the extra at the highest-rate one. Check the following statement to confirm the balance moved by the amount you expected.
When is the standard plan better than RAP?
Mainly when your income is comfortable relative to your debt, because RAP charges a banded percentage of every dollar of income with no exemption and can ask more than the fixed payment. The standard plan also ends on a known date, needs no annual income recertification and produces no cancelled balance and therefore no tax event. It is also the only option for parent PLUS borrowers, whom RAP excludes.