Overview

You can always start paying off student debt earlier than scheduled, or make an additional payment. This can have the following benefits:

• reduced interest
• lower monthly instalments during the repayment phase
• earlier clearance of the entire debt.

You will not be fined for making early or additional payments.

Early repayments

The preliminary phase is an initial 2 year period in which you do not have to make any repayments. DUO is not allowed to debit any payments from your account during this period.

However, you can opt to make voluntary repayments during the preliminary phase. If you want to do this monthly, you can set up a standing order with your bank. You need to cancel this once the mandatory repayment phase begins, otherwise you will pay twice. For payment details, see Additional repayments.

A lifelong learning credit does not have a preliminary phase. The repayment phase starts in January, following the end of the lifelong learning credit. As soon as you receive a notice about this, you can pay using iDEAL.

Increasing your monthly instalments

If you are already making mandatory repayments, you can voluntarily increase the amount of your monthly instalments in Mijn DUO.

Additional repayments or full clearance

You can always make an one-off additional repayment or clear your entire debt with us in one go.