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, and if you take no action, your loan and interest balances will neither increase nor decrease. Administrative forbearance is different from other types of forbearance, such as general forbearance, which requires the borrower to apply and qualify for it.

Administrative forbearance is granted by the lender in certain cases, and it doesnt require the borrowers approval. For example, the lender may grant administrative forbearance if a deferment was granted but the lender later learns that the borrower did not qualify for the deferment. Administrative forbearance is also applied to all federally held student loans for a certain period, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While payments during administrative forbearance are automatically paused, borrowers can choose to make manual payments to their loans. If they do so, the payment will first be applied toward any interest accrued from their last payment until March 13, 2020. Once that interest is paid, all additional payments will be applied toward principal on their loans. This is a great way to lower the principal now, so that when the forbearance expires and payments and interest do resume, the interest will be calculated on a lower principal balance.