If you are studying, you will generally only receive half of your BAföG as a grant. The other half is paid as an interest-free loan, which you must repay. If you have received a grant for graduation assistance, among other things, you repay the entire grant amount (so-called full loan).

You will receive the request from the Federal Office of Administration approximately 4.5 years after the end of the standard period of study or, in the case of training at a higher technical college or academy, 5 years after the end of the training period stipulated in the training and examination regulations. You are obliged to inform the Federal Office of Administration of your current address at all times. If you do not do this and therefore do not receive the request for repayment, the loan installments will become due by law.

Regardless of the amount of your BAföG loan, you must repay a maximum of EUR 10,000; this does not apply to the full loan. Those who received BAföG funding for the first time from 01.09.2019 or later must repay a maximum of 77 monthly installments of EUR 130.00 each (i.e. a maximum total of EUR 10,010). Repayment installments reduced on application due to low income count as full monthly installments, so the total repayment amount can also be lower.

If you want to pay at least EUR 500.00 at the start of repayment, you can receive a discount and have to repay less. With a repayment amount of EUR 500.00, the payment amount is EUR 475.00 according to the current discount table.

You will receive the largest possible discount if you pay the payment amount specified in the request from the Federal Office of Administration in one go before the start of the repayment period.

In principle, you do not have to pay interest on the BAföG loan and have up to 20 years to repay it if you make use of a deferral of the repayment obligation.

The amount of the monthly repayment installment is EUR 130.00.

The installments are paid every 3 months in the amount of EUR 390.00. If you have a low income, you can apply for a deferral of the repayment obligation of your BAföG loan or the payment of lower installments ("income-dependent repayment"). If you pay an installment more than 45 days late, reminder fees and interest will be charged.

At the end of the repayment period of 20 years, the Federal Office of Administration will automatically check whether the remaining loan debt can be waived. You can be released from the remaining debt if you

• were financially unable to repay the BAföG loan in full and
• have fulfilled your payment and cooperation obligations throughout the repayment period or
• have only breached them slightly.

A minor breach is deemed to have occurred if you have never been fined during the entire repayment period and have not incurred costs for the investigation of your address more than once or more than 150 days of interest.