When is my student loan written off?

The rules differ by plan - which country you studied in and when your course started. These are the current terms, as used by our model:

• Plan 1: written off 25 years after the first April repayments were due.
• Plan 2: written off 30 years after the first April repayments were due.
• Plan 4 (Scotland): written off 30 years after the first April repayments were due.
• Plan 5: written off 40 years after the first April repayments were due.
• Postgraduate loan: written off 30 years after the first April repayments were due.

The counting does not start when you take the loan out, or when you graduate. It starts from the first April on which you were due to repay - normally the April after you finished or left your course. Someone who finished in summer 2020 was first due to repay in April 2021, so a 30-year plan would reach write-off in 2051.

Note that it is about when repayments were due to start, not when you actually started paying. Years spent earning below the threshold - paying nothing at all - still count down the clock. Career breaks, time abroad and periods out of work all count too, although repayment obligations can follow you overseas.

The same start date anchors the longer plans. A Plan 5 borrower who finished in 2027 and was first due to repay in April 2028 carries the loan until 2068 unless it is repaid sooner - a 40-year horizon that stretches across most of a working life.

It depends heavily on the plan. Independent researchers, including the Institute for Fiscal Studies, have repeatedly estimated that a large share of Plan 2 borrowers will never repay in full before their 30 years are up - write-off is the expected ending for many, not a rare edge case. Plan 5 was designed with a lower threshold and a longer, 40-year term precisely so that more borrowers repay in full.

For any individual, though, the group statistics settle nothing. Whether your balance reaches write-off depends on your starting balance, how your salary grows, and decades of inflation - and small differences in salary growth can flip the ending.

Your online repayment account with the Student Loans Company shows the plan type and the expected cancellation date for your loan, and GOV.UK's repayment guidance sets out the rule for every plan and start year. If you have loans from more than one period of study, each can carry its own date.

Two groups follow an age rule rather than a fixed term. English and Welsh loans taken out before September 2006, and Scottish loans from before the 2007/08 academic year, are cancelled when the borrower turns 65. GOV.UK sets out the exact rules for each start year.

When the term ends, the remaining balance is cancelled automatically. There is nothing to apply for, nothing more to pay, and no consequence to carry: write-off is not a default and UK student loans do not appear on credit files. The payroll deductions simply stop, and the Student Loans Company closes the account.

Loans are also cancelled early in some circumstances - if the borrower dies, or is permanently unable to work because of illness or disability (evidence requirements apply, and GOV.UK sets them out).

Write-off is the reason paying extra off a student loan is a genuinely hard question rather than an obvious win. Every pound paid voluntarily towards a balance that later reaches write-off changed nothing: the balance was going to be cancelled anyway, and voluntary payments are normally not refundable.

The same logic applies to clearing a student loan with other borrowing. A student loan repaid using a commercial loan swaps a debt that could have been written off for one that cannot be, and swaps income-linked payments that pause automatically for fixed ones that do not.

Whether your balance reaches write-off depends on the race between your repayments (driven by salary) and the interest being added (driven by inflation) over decades - which is unknowable in advance.