12Specialty and Industry-Specific

    Account Type Code 12: Education (Student) Loan

    Account Type Code 12 means "Education (Student) Loan". A loan financing post-secondary education, whether federal or private. The Appendix A source lists this code with two permitted Portfolio Types, I and O. It is reported in Account Type (Field 15) of the Base Segment, 2 characters at position 84.

    Specification

    Code12
    MeaningEducation (Student) Loan
    FieldAccount Type (Field 15)
    RecordBase Segment
    Length / position2 chars · 84–85
    CategorySpecialty and Industry-Specific
    CRRG referenceCRRG Exhibits 1 & 2 (Account Type Codes)

    What Account Type Code 12 means

    • Covers the whole education-lending space in this code set: federal programme loans, private education loans, and consolidations of either.
    • The lifecycle is what makes it distinctive. An education loan spends time in school, in grace, and often in deferment or forbearance before it ever enters repayment.
    • Does NOT cover a general-purpose personal loan a borrower used for tuition. Without an education-loan product designation, that is 01.
    • Does NOT cover a tuition payment plan administered by the school as an open obligation unless the furnisher reports it as an education loan product.
    • Deferment and forbearance are not delinquency. They are carried in Account Status and Special Comment, and the account type never changes because of them.

    When to report 12

    • 1A federal loan servicer reports a Direct Loan in an in-school deferment status, with the balance capitalizing.
    • 2A private education lender reports a fixed-term signature student loan with a cosigner.
    • 3A servicer reports a consolidation loan that paid off several underlying education loans, with each underlying loan closed at a zero balance.
    • 4A lender reports an income-driven repayment loan where the scheduled payment changes annually with recertification.
    • 5A servicer reports a Parent PLUS-style loan where the parent, not the student, is the borrower on the tradeline.

    Reporting rules

    • Report in-school, grace, deferment, and forbearance periods through Account Status and Special Comment, never by suppressing the tradeline.
    • Recertify the Scheduled Monthly Payment when an income-driven plan changes the payment. A stale payment amount is a common education-loan data error.
    • When a consolidation pays off underlying loans, close each underlying tradeline with a zero balance rather than deleting it.
    • Report the cosigner through ECOA and a J1 or J2 segment. Cosigners are the norm on private education loans.
    • Keep the Date of First Delinquency anchored to the actual first missed payment in the repayment period, not to a date recalculated after a forbearance.

    Codes and fields that must agree

    A file can be structurally valid and still be wrong. These are the cross-field conditions Account Type Code 12 has to satisfy.

    • The Appendix A source permits Portfolio Type I (Installment) OR O (Open) for this code, and the product shape drives the choice. A loan in a fixed repayment schedule with a defined number of remaining payments is Installment. A loan still in school or otherwise not yet on an amortization schedule is sometimes furnished as Open, because there is no meaningful month count or scheduled payment to report yet.
    • If you report Portfolio Type I, you must populate Scheduled Monthly Payment Amount and a numeric Terms Duration in months. That is precisely the pair an in-school loan cannot supply, which is why the Open option exists.
    • If you report Portfolio Type O, the balance is treated as due rather than amortizing, and Terms Duration is not a multi-year month count.
    • Pick one convention per programme and hold it. Flipping a single loan between I and O across cycles makes the tradeline look like two different obligations.
    • Credit Limit is zero-filled under either Portfolio Type. An education loan is not a line of credit.
    • The K3 segment is absent under either option.
    • Capitalized interest raises Current Balance above Highest Credit / Original Loan Amount, which is expected on education loans and should not be suppressed to satisfy a naive validator.

    Common errors involving 12

    B012
    Portfolio Type Mismatch
    The portfolio type does not match the account type or terms
    B018
    Scheduled Monthly Payment Missing on Installment Account
    An installment or mortgage account has no Scheduled Monthly Payment Amount
    B026
    Date of First Delinquency Missing on Delinquent Account
    A delinquent or charged-off account has no Date of First Delinquency

    Vocabulary

    Account TypePortfolio Type

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    Source: CRRG Exhibits 1 & 2 (Account Type Codes). Last reviewed 2026-08-25.

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    Metro 2 Account Type Code 12: Education (Student) Loan