If you’ve fallen behind on federal student loan payments—or you can see trouble coming—you’ve probably heard that deferment and forbearance can hit pause on your bill. Both can genuinely help you get through a rough patch without defaulting on your loans. But neither one erases what you owe, and both can end up costing you more over time. Understanding exactly what happens to your balance, your interest, and your progress toward forgiveness before you request a pause can save you from an unpleasant surprise later.
The difference between deferment and forbearance
Deferment and forbearance both let you temporarily stop making payments on federal student loans, but they’re triggered by different circumstances and treated differently by the government.
Deferment is generally tied to a specific, recognized situation—like being enrolled in school at least half-time, serving on active military duty, or being unemployed. If you qualify for deferment and you have certain types of loans, such as subsidized federal loans, the government covers the interest that accrues during the pause. That means your balance doesn’t grow while you’re not paying.
Forbearance is more flexible and easier to qualify for, but it’s also less generous. Your servicer can grant forbearance for a wide range of financial hardships, even ones that don’t fit neatly into a deferment category. The tradeoff is that interest almost always keeps accruing during forbearance, regardless of loan type, and that interest gets added to what you owe.
In short: deferment is narrower but can be interest-free depending on your loan type. Forbearance is broader and more accessible but almost never interest-free. Both pause your required payments, and both prevent your account from going delinquent while approved.
Which situations typically qualify for each option
Common deferment categories include being back in school at least half-time, unemployment, economic hardship (based on income and family size), active-duty military service, and certain medical situations like being in a cancer treatment period. Some older loan types also have deferment options tied to graduate fellowship programs or rehabilitation training.
Forbearance is typically used when someone doesn’t fit a deferment category but still needs temporary relief—for example, a short-term cash flow problem, a medical bill that ate into the budget, or a gap while paperwork for another program is being processed. Servicers also sometimes place loans into an administrative forbearance automatically, such as while a deferment or income-driven repayment application is being reviewed, so your account doesn’t fall behind during that processing time.
Neither option is unlimited. Federal loans generally have caps on how much cumulative deferment or forbearance time you can use over the life of the loan, though the exact limits depend on the loan program and the type of forbearance. If you’ve already used a significant amount of pause time, ask your servicer directly how much you have left before you request more.
How interest keeps accruing during a payment pause
This is the part that catches people off guard. Even though you’re not required to make payments, interest on most federal loans continues to add up every day you’re in deferment (for unsubsidized loans) or forbearance (for nearly all loan types). If that interest isn’t paid as it accrues, it typically gets capitalized—added to your principal balance—at the end of the pause or at certain trigger points, like when you leave forbearance or switch repayment plans.
Once interest capitalizes, you’re no longer just paying interest on your original loan amount—you’re paying interest on a bigger number that now includes the interest that piled up while you weren’t paying. Over a long pause, especially on a large balance, this can meaningfully increase your total repayment cost and can even increase your monthly payment amount when you restart.
You don’t have to let interest accrue in silence. Even if you’re not required to make full payments, you can voluntarily pay just the interest that’s accruing during a pause. This doesn’t reduce your principal, but it prevents that interest from capitalizing later, which keeps your balance from growing while you’re not making full payments.
How pausing payments affects progress toward forgiveness programs
If you’re working toward a forgiveness program that requires a certain number of qualifying monthly payments, it matters a lot whether a pause counts toward that total.
Generally, months spent in deferment or forbearance do not count as qualifying payments toward forgiveness programs that require a set number of on-time payments under a qualifying repayment plan. That means every month you spend paused is typically a month that doesn’t move you closer to forgiveness—it just delays your timeline. There have been specific, temporary exceptions made in the past for certain hardship-related pauses, but you shouldn’t assume your situation qualifies without confirming directly with your servicer or checking official loan servicing information for your loan type.
By contrast, if you’re on an income-driven repayment plan and your calculated payment happens to be $0 because of your income, that $0 payment can sometimes still count as a qualifying payment for certain forgiveness tracks—which is different from being in deferment or forbearance. This is a meaningful distinction: a $0 income-driven payment and a paused loan can look similar day-to-day, but they’re treated very differently when it comes to counting toward forgiveness. If forgiveness is part of your plan, it’s worth asking your servicer specifically whether income-driven repayment is a better fit than a pause.
How to request deferment or forbearance from your loan servicer
Your loan servicer—the company that manages your billing, not the Department of Education directly—handles deferment and forbearance requests. Start by logging into your servicer’s website or calling them directly to ask what your options are based on your specific situation. Some deferments, particularly unemployment or economic hardship deferment, require you to fill out a form and may ask for supporting documentation, such as proof of job loss or income.
Forbearance requests are often simpler and can sometimes be handled with a phone call or a short online request, though your servicer may still ask you to explain your circumstances. Be direct about what’s going on—job loss, illness, a reduction in hours, a family emergency—so they can point you to the option that fits best rather than defaulting to whichever one is fastest to process.
Before you agree to a pause, ask these questions:
How long will the deferment or forbearance last, and can it be extended if needed? Will interest accrue, and on which loans? Will that interest capitalize, and if so, when? How much deferment or forbearance time have I already used, and how much do I have left? And will this period count toward any forgiveness program I’m pursuing?
Get the terms in writing or confirmed in an email or account message if possible, and keep records of when your pause starts and ends so you’re not caught off guard when payments resume.
Alternatives to consider before pausing payments long-term
A short-term deferment or forbearance can be the right call when you’re dealing with a temporary gap—a few months of unemployment, a medical recovery, or a stretch while you sort out paperwork. But if you’re looking at a longer-term affordability problem, a pause often just delays the pain and adds interest on top of it.
Before defaulting to forbearance for an extended period, ask your servicer about income-driven repayment plans, which set your monthly payment based on your income and family size and can bring your bill down to an amount that’s actually manageable—sometimes to $0—without accruing the same guaranteed capitalization risk as forbearance, and while still counting toward forgiveness in many cases. It’s also worth asking whether you qualify for a different repayment plan altogether, or whether consolidating multiple loans might simplify your situation. If your loans are already delinquent, ask specifically what your options are for getting current without a full pause, since sometimes a partial payment plan or a short grace period can keep you on track without adding to your balance.
Whatever you decide, the most useful habit is asking your servicer very specific questions rather than accepting a general offer to “pause payments.” A quick pause and a long pause can look identical on the phone but have very different consequences for what you owe and how close you are to forgiveness down the road.
