Administrative forbearance is a period during which payments to federally held student loans have been automatically paused or suspended, and interest rates set to 0%. It is a pause that keeps your loans exactly as they were at the beginning of this forbearance: if you take no action, your loan and interest balances will neither increase nor decrease. During forbearance, your suspended $0 payments will count toward your forgiveness progress, as long as you still meet all other eligibility criteria for your loan forgiveness program. Administrative forbearance is granted by the lender in certain cases, such as when a deferment was granted but the lender later learns that you did not qualify for the deferment, or when payments were overdue before your deferment began. Administrative forbearance can be granted for up to 1 year if you agree to this in writing, or up to 3 months for a natural disaster.

It is important to note that interest will accrue on your loan balance while in administrative forbearance and will show as outstanding accrued interest. This accrued interest will not capitalize, meaning it will not be added to your principal balance once this forbearance ends, but it will still be required to be paid. While payments during administrative forbearance are automatically paused, you can choose to make manual payments to your loans. If you do so, the payment will first be applied toward any interest accrued from your last payment until March 13, 2020. Once that interest is paid, all additional payments will be applied toward principal on your loans. Administrative forbearance also counts for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) and Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) forgiveness under new regulations finalized in July 2023.