Borrowers with Perkins loans held by the Education Department will have a new servicer by December 1. Federal Student Aid says in announcement GENERAL-26-58, posted September 22, that the loans are moving from ECSI, the Federal Perkins Loan Servicer, to GCR Servicing, and that the transition is expected to finish on that date.
The change comes with a chore. The announcement says GCR will advise borrowers that they must re-establish auto-drafts, which means anyone whose Perkins payments come out of a bank account automatically has to set that up again with the new servicer.
What stays the same until December 1
Payments do not switch early. In the announcement’s words, “Borrowers will still need to send payments to ECSI before Dec. 1, 2026.” The transfer itself happens over several months, and the December 1 date is the anticipated completion of the move.
The announcement covers loans the Education Department holds. Schools can assign Perkins loans to the department at any time, whether they are in default or not, as the department’s Perkins Assignment and Liquidation Guide explains, and ECSI has been the servicer that receives those assignments and the payments on them. The announcement does not address Perkins loans that a school still holds, so a borrower who pays the school directly should not read the December 1 date as applying to that loan.
For a borrower with a department-held Perkins loan, the practical question is what to do with payments and autopay between now and the switch. Keep paying ECSI through November, expect to set up any automatic draft again with GCR once its details arrive, and treat the mid-December mailing as the point where the new payment instructions begin.
The December 1 target is one of three dates in this transfer, with ECSI’s goodbye letter due around November 1 and a hold on consolidation requests starting November 15.
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The letters and the consolidation freeze
Federal Student Aid lays out a sequence of borrower-facing steps. Around November 1, 2026, ECSI sends a goodbye letter explaining the transfer. From November 15 until mid-December, ECSI holds all loan consolidation requests, so a borrower who planned to consolidate a Perkins loan in that window should expect the request to wait.
From December 1 to mid-December, GCR moves the loans into its own system. In mid-December, GCR sends a welcome letter with its contact details, payment information and other key information. That letter is where borrowers learn where to send the next payment, and it carries the instruction to re-establish auto-drafts.
The announcement does not say how a borrower can look up which servicer holds a given loan, and it does not list a website address for either ECSI or GCR. It says the welcome letter will supply GCR’s contact information. The FSA Partner and School Relations Center number it lists, 1-800-848-0978, serves schools, and the announcement was written as a school transition notice. The center is open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern, Monday through Friday, and takes email at CODSupport@ed.gov.
The school side of the switch
Most of the announcement is aimed at schools, and its dates show how fast the old system is closing. ECSI’s website access for schools ended September 30 at 5 p.m. Eastern. Since October 1, ECSI has stopped accepting new submissions and resubmissions, and it rejects anything that arrives after that date. Between October 1 and November 1, it works through assignments already pending, and schools can expect to start submitting assignments to GCR on December 1. The department says it will update the assignment guide with GCR’s mailing address, contact information and its new electronic assignment system. Federal Student Aid also sets a review process for submissions already in the queue. If documents are missing, ECSI emails the school a pending report and calls. If the items are still not received three calendar days later, it contacts the school again by phone and email, and if they remain unresolved seven calendar days after that, ECSI rejects the assignment and returns the documentation. Anything ECSI cannot review by October 26 and cannot accept as submitted is rejected without that follow-up.
An earlier Electronic Announcement dated August 3 first told schools about the change, according to a higher-education news summary that repeats the December 1 completion target.
Setting up Perkins payments again before the December 1 switch
The first step is to keep the payment habit with ECSI until the transition ends. Anyone paying by automatic draft should note the amount and date of the current draft, since the new one will have to be created from scratch with GCR after the welcome letter arrives in mid-December. A missed payment during the gap is the risk to avoid, and the announcement states plainly that payments go to ECSI before December 1.
The second step is to watch the mail. Two letters carry the instructions, ECSI’s around November 1 and GCR’s in mid-December. A borrower who has moved should confirm that ECSI has a current mailing address now so those letters arrive.
Updates are posted at the department’s Federal Student Aid Knowledge Center, which is where the department says future information will appear. Federal Student Aid’s announcement GENERAL-26-58 sets out every date above.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Financial Wire’s editorial team.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
