PSLF Buyback Delays: Timeline & Updates

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Buyback program lets borrowers pay for past months spent in deferment or forbearance so those months count toward the 120 payments needed for forgiveness. The program popular due to the SAVE forbearance and remains badly backed up.

As of the most recent court-filed data, about 88,000 buyback requests were pending with the Department of Education. That’s up from 49,318 when court-ordered reporting began in mid-2025, and it peaked at 89,720 in March 2026. The department now says a meaningful share of the queue (an estimated 18,000 to 19,000 requests) are duplicates from borrowers who submitted more than once while waiting, which would put the true number of borrowers in line closer to 69,000 to 70,000.

There is one piece of real progress: April 2026 was the first month on record where the department decided more buyback requests than it received. Whether that pace holds is the question that will determine how long borrowers keep waiting.

What The Numbers Look Like

For most of the program’s existence, borrowers had no visibility into the buyback queue. That changed because of a lawsuit.

The American Federation of Teachers sued the Department of Education over stalled income-driven repayment (IDR) and PSLF processing. Under the resulting agreement in AFT v. U.S. Department of Education, the department must file status reports with the federal court showing exactly how many IDR and buyback applications it received, processed, approved, and denied each month. The agreement also protects delayed borrowers from an unexpected tax bill — more on that below.

The most recent report, filed May 19, 2026, covers April and shows:

• 4,790 new buyback requests received
• 6,870 requests processed — 6,600 approved, 200 denied, and 70 closed without a decision
• 11,500 loan discharges completed
• ~88,000 requests still pending

The approval rate has climbed sharply. In February 2026, about 81% of decided requests were approved. By April, that figure hit 96%,a sign the department is clearing eligible requests rather than working through denials.

One caveat: some of those denials and closures are hitting borrowers who reached 120 qualifying payments on their own while waiting, making their buyback requests moot by the time they were reviewed.

Judge Reggie B. Walton held a status conference in the case on August 5, 2026, and the next one is set for September 2, 2026. Data covering May, June, and July had not been publicly filed as of this update.

It’s also likely the queue of pending requests has dropped to the 60,000 range as the duplicates were removed en-masse in June and July 2026.

How Does PSLF Buyback Work?

PLSF Buyback allows borrowers seeking Public Service Loan Forgiveness to make payments for time in forbearance as a lump sum.

Borrowers interested in PSLF Buyback must submit a request through PSLF Reconsideration and specify that they are seeking to buy back months. If approved, they must make a lump-sum payment equivalent to what they would have owed under an Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plan for the months they are buying back.

Key details on eligibility:

• Borrowers must have 120 approved months of qualifying employment before applying.
• Only deferment or forbearance periods tied to eligible employment can be bought back.
• The buyback amount is calculated based on what the borrower’s IDR payment would have been at the time.
• Payments must be completed within 90 days of receiving the buyback agreement.

Once the payment is made, the borrower’s loan is processed for PSLF forgiveness.

How Long Does PSLF Buyback Take?

The process still follows five stages, but the wait at stage two is where borrowers get stuck:

1. Request submitted through StudentAid.gov
2. Review — a manual eligibility check by Federal Student Aid staff. This is the bottleneck. Based on reader reports to The College Investor, average processing time is now 20 to 24 months, and borrowers who submitted in December 2024 are still waiting as of August 2026.
3. Buyback agreement sent with the amount owed
4. Payment window — 90 days to pay
5. Final processing — forgiveness and discharge, which can take several additional weeks to show on your account

When this article was first published in early 2025, the department was quoting 60 to 90 days for processing. That guidance is gone.

The department no longer publishes an official timeline, and the math explains why: even at April’s record pace of 6,870 decisions per month, working through 88,000 pending requests would take about 13 months — or roughly 10 months if the duplicate requests are stripped out first. And that math only covers the current queue, not the borrowers already deep in it. The department says it plans to identify and remove duplicates up front rather than catching them later in the process, which should help.

If you’re close to 120 payments, it may pay to compare buyback against simply resuming payments — many borrowers in the queue will hit 120 through regular monthly payments before their request is ever reviewed.

What This Means For Your Household

If you’re waiting on buyback, your loans stay in their current status until the request is decided — and for many borrowers, that means payments continue. Here’s the practical fallout:

Keep making payments if you’re in repayment. Months you pay while waiting still count toward PSLF if you’re in a qualifying plan and job. If forgiveness comes through later, payments made beyond your 120th qualifying month should be refunded.

Don’t count on forgiveness for near-term financial planning. If you’re budgeting around loan forgiveness — for a home purchase, a career change, or retirement timing — build in about two years of cushion. Borrowers who submitted in December 2024 are still waiting.

Don’t submit a second request. Duplicate submissions don’t speed anything up. The department has flagged roughly one in five pending requests as duplicates, and they’ve clogged the queue for everyone.

Watch your email and StudentAid.gov account. The 90-day payment clock starts when your agreement arrives. Missing that window means starting over. Our PSLF checklist covers what to track while you wait.

Is Buyback Protected In The Future?

Despite all the proposed changes to student loans, PSLF buyback does appear safe for now. It has bipartisan support because borrowers are making payments towards their loans, and that’s viewed as a good thing.

However, it’s not guaranteed to exist forever. While PSLF was created by Congress (and thus would require Congressional action to eliminate), PSLF Buyback was created through rulemaking. This means that the current administration could create new rules to change the program or eliminate it.

Since borrowers are making lump sum payments, this currently doesn’t appear to be under threat. But with the layoffs at the Department of Education, the manual process of PSLF buyback may be facing serious delays.

If you are eligible for PSLF buyback, you should submit your reconsideration request as soon as possible to make sure you’re in the queue. 

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