Ginnie Mae will temporarily exclude loans in Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Trial Payment Plans (TPPs) from issuer delinquency calculations, responding to higher reported rates, the corporation announced last week. 

In 2025, the FHA updated its single-family loss mitigation waterfall and reinstated required TPPs before certain workout options, such as partial claims, can be approved. Under that structure, delinquent borrowers must first complete a TPP before receiving a final loss mitigation solution.

As servicers have evaluated more delinquent FHA loans for assistance under the new waterfall, the volume of loans in TPP status has increased and pushed issuer delinquency rates higher, Ginnie Mae said.

“However, as the new loss mitigation policy matures, the volume of TPPs is expected to normalize,” Ginnie Mae president Joseph Gormley said in a memorandum on April 24. “Therefore, Ginnie Mae will temporarily exclude loans on TPPs when calculating delinquency ratios for compliance purposes until the volume of TPPs returns to expected levels.” 

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE)’s April 2026 Mortgage Monitor shows that the national delinquency rate reached 3.72% in February, up 7 basis points from January and up 20 bps from a year earlier. FHA mortgages account for more than 80% of the recent rise, with seriously delinquent FHA loan volumes up more than 40% over that period.

Ginnie Mae’s March report shows FHA delinquencies averaged 9.2% from October 2025 through February 2026 — up 90 basis points from the prior year. But early-stage metrics remain stable: new delinquencies averaged 5.2%, and 60-day delinquencies held around 1.8%. Meanwhile, the ratio of pooled FHA loans that are seriously delinquent has increased by 128 basis points.

“A meaningful deterioration in mortgage credit performance would typically be reflected in a rapid increase in loans rolling from current or early‑stage delinquency into 90+ day delinquency. The data does not show such a shift,” the report says. “The data suggests that the recent increase in reported delinquency levels for FHA loans in Ginnie Mae pools is driven primarily by the longer resolution timeline created by the TPP requirement.”

Ginnie Mae’s policy change is effective with the monthly reporting due April 2, 2026, which covers March 2026 data. 

For issuers, this means loans in TPPs will not count as delinquent for purposes of ratio compliance, even though they remain reported as delinquent in standard monthly loan-level reporting.

Ginnie Mae said it will regularly monitor the impact of TPP loans on issuer delinquency performance and will give at least 60 days’ notice before returning to its standard calculation through a future memorandum.

Looking ahead, Ginnie Mae also said it expects to review its delinquency threshold policy more broadly in the context of today’s marketplace, signaling potential longer-term changes to how delinquency risk is measured and enforced for issuers.

Flávia Furlan Nunes reported and wrote this article with drafting assistance from HousingWire Automation, an editorial tool that helps transform announcements and industry data into HousingWire-style news coverage.