The quick read: A hard maturity is the date a commercial real estate loan must be repaid with no contractual extension option left, so the borrower either pays off the balance or negotiates with the lender. Trepp counts $4.70 billion of private-label CMBS loans reaching hard maturity in October 2026, with 46.91% of that balance below an 8% debt yield and 19.44% already in special servicing. If your loan's final date is 6 to 12 months out, line up the takeout first, whether that is a refinance, a sale or a paydown, and treat any extra time from the lender as a fallback rather than a plan.
What is a hard maturity on a commercial real estate loan?
A hard maturity is the final due date on a commercial real estate loan after every contractual extension option has been used or has lapsed, and on that date the borrower must repay the balance or actively negotiate new terms with the lender. Trepp applies that definition in its monthly private-label CMBS maturity reports.
In its October 6, 2026 report, Trepp defines hard maturities as loans with no remaining contractual extension options and says a loan still outstanding at maturity requires either repayment or active negotiation. Its March 23, 2026 report adds that the cohort measures outcomes that cannot be deferred through structural extension features. Trepp leaves out loans already past maturity, in foreclosure or real estate owned, because those are in workout rather than approaching the date.
A hard maturity is a date, not a default. A loan can be current on every payment and still reach it; the loan becomes a maturity default only when the balance is not repaid on that date. In Trepp's October cohort, almost the whole balance was still performing as the month began:
October 2026 CMBS hard maturities (Trepp, October 6, 2026): $4.70 billion across 144 loan pieces in 118 whole loans
Performing share of the October cohort (Trepp, October 6, 2026): 99.09%
September 2026 cohort, for comparison (Trepp, October 6, 2026): $2.74 billion
How is a hard maturity different from an initial maturity?
An initial maturity is the first due date written into the loan, and on many floating-rate bridge and single-asset loans, extension options can push it out in fixed increments if the borrower passes each option's tests. The hard maturity is the last date those options can reach; after it, more time takes the lender's agreement.
The options are conditional, and a loan agreement filed with the SEC shows how the conditions work. The agreement, dated as of November 2017 and secured by a hotel, set an initial maturity of November 9, 2020 and gave the borrower two 12-month extension options, to November 9, 2021 and then November 9, 2022. Each extension required no continuing event of default, irrevocable notice no earlier than 60 days and no later than 30 days before the maturity date, a replacement interest rate cap running through the extension period, an extension fee and fully stocked reserve accounts. Each also carried a debt yield test, and a borrower who failed it could pay down principal until it passed, paying a proportionate share of the exit fee on the amount prepaid. Once both options were used, November 9, 2022 was the hard maturity.
Initial maturity date (2017 loan agreement): November 9, 2020
Extension options (2017 loan agreement): two, of 12 months each
Hard maturity if both are exercised (2017 loan agreement): November 9, 2022
Extension fee (2017 loan agreement): 0.25% of the outstanding principal
Minimum debt yield to extend (2017 loan agreement): 11% for the first option, 11.25% for the second
Illustrative example (our arithmetic, not a quote): take a $20 million loan on a property with $2.0 million of underwritable cash flow, a 10% debt yield. Under the 11% test, the largest balance that passes is $2.0 million divided by 0.11, about $18.18 million, so the first extension costs a paydown of about $1.82 million plus a 0.25% extension fee of about $45,000. The second option's 11.25% test caps the balance at about $17.78 million, another paydown of about $404,000. Each paydown also carries the share of the exit fee the agreement charges on any prepayment. An extension option is a right only for a borrower who can pass its tests, which is why we weigh each one in our guide to comparing extension options without counting on approval.
Trepp's October report shows where that road ends. Three of the five largest October 2026 hard maturities are 2021-vintage floating-rate single-asset, single-borrower (SASB) loans reaching the end of their extension options, and all five are current. Those five loans total $2.02 billion, or 43.03% of the cohort.
How much CMBS debt reaches a hard maturity in 2026 and 2027?
Trepp counts $76.6 billion of CMBS hard maturities due in 2026, with 39% of that falling in the fourth quarter alone, and $61.1 billion of private-label CMBS due in 2027, of which office accounts for $22.2 billion. Many loans with a 2027 final date are now 6 to 12 months from it.
Trepp's hard maturity playbook found that 36% of those 2026 loans carry a debt yield at or below 8%, the segment it calls most likely to face refinancing friction, with office, retail and multifamily holding the most of it. Trepp's Q3 2026 Quarterly Data Review, published October 26, 2026, found that 75% of maturing class-A CMBS office loans would need fresh equity to refinance at current rates, more than the 61% for class-B/C.
The wider market is larger. The Mortgage Bankers Association's 2025 Commercial Real Estate Survey of Loan Maturity Volumes, released February 9, 2026, puts $875 billion, or 17% of $5.0 trillion of outstanding commercial mortgages, on schedule to mature in 2026 and $652 billion in 2027. The MBA figure covers every lender group, while Trepp's hard maturity counts cover CMBS only. The MBA reports balances as of December 31, 2025, and notes that balances at maturity will generally be lower because most loans pay down principal.
2026 CMBS hard maturities (Trepp, October 6, 2026): $76.6 billion, 39% in the fourth quarter
2027 private-label CMBS hard maturities (Trepp, October 26, 2026): $61.1 billion, including $22.2 billion of office
Commercial and multifamily mortgages scheduled to mature in 2026 (MBA, February 9, 2026): $875 billion
Commercial and multifamily mortgages scheduled to mature in 2027 (MBA, February 9, 2026): $652 billion
Table: October 2026 CMBS hard maturities by property type (Trepp, October 6, 2026)
| Measure | Office | Retail | Multifamily | Industrial | Hospitality | All October |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Measure Balance | Office $1.27B | Retail $1.06B | Multifamily $877.55M | Industrial $681.41M | Hospitality $549.95M | All October $4.70B |
| Measure Share of cohort | Office 27.03% | Retail 22.60% | Multifamily 18.66% | Industrial 14.49% | Hospitality 11.69% | All October 100% |
| Measure Debt yield below 8% | Office 56.85% | Retail 26.59% | Multifamily 77.10% | Industrial 1.24% | Hospitality 75.68% | All October 46.91% |
| Measure Debt yield below 6% | Office 15.72% | Retail 0.41% | Multifamily 77.10% | Industrial 0.00% | Hospitality 75.68% | All October 27.74% |
| Measure In special servicing | Office 21.37% | Retail 25.15% | Multifamily 23.93% | Industrial 1.76% | Hospitality 20.06% | All October 19.44% |
The All October column also includes mixed-use, self-storage, hotel, manufactured housing and other loans not shown separately. Multifamily and hospitality carry the deepest impairment, but it is concentrated: Trepp says one 2021-vintage national multifamily portfolio at a 5.87% debt yield accounts for $569.2 million of the $676.6 million of impaired multifamily balance, and a $302.2 million resort loan at 5.52% leads hospitality. Both are current and neither is in special servicing. Retail shows the reverse, with 25.15% of its maturing balance in special servicing and almost none below a 6% debt yield, which Trepp calls a reminder that special servicing and severe debt yield impairment are separate measures.
Which loans pay off on time at a hard maturity?
Debt yield does much of the sorting: CRE Daily, reporting Trepp's data on October 27, 2026, says 80.63% by balance of CMBS loans with a debt yield of 12% or more paid off on time at their September 2026 final maturity, against 46.34% for loans between 6% and 8%. Property type moves the rate too.
Across all property types, 57.98% of the $1.41 billion reaching final maturity in September paid off on time, up from 51.45% in August and just below the 59.84% trailing 12-month rate. Office paid off at 12.79% on $516.9 million due, multifamily at 69.49% on $69.9 million and retail at 89.60% on $514.4 million. Loans below a 6% debt yield showed 65.89%, but one large mall loan that paid off despite a 4.82% yield inflated that figure; without it, the rate was 25.13%.
On-time payoff, all September 2026 final maturities (Trepp via CRE Daily, October 27, 2026): 57.98% of $1.41 billion
Trailing 12-month on-time payoff rate (Trepp via CRE Daily, October 27, 2026): 59.84%
Debt yield of 12% or more (Trepp via CRE Daily, October 27, 2026): 80.63% paid off on time
Debt yield of 6% to 8% (Trepp via CRE Daily, October 27, 2026): 46.34% paid off on time
Office (Trepp via CRE Daily, October 27, 2026): 12.79% paid off on time
Late is not the same as never. CRE Daily notes that refinancings and sales often close after the maturity date, so payoff rates typically climb in the months that follow: February 2026's $2.16 billion of maturities started at 45.81%, reached 52.61% by May and 53.58% in August. A loan that pays off after its hard maturity was typically in maturity default in the meantime, unless the lender or servicer granted more time.
Debt yield is net operating income (or net cash flow) divided by the loan balance, so you can place your own loan on this scale in a minute with the debt yield calculator. A loan at 7% sits in the band where fewer than half paid off on time in September.
What are your options when a hard maturity is 6 to 12 months out?
With 6 to 12 months left before a hard maturity, you have four routes: refinance into a new loan sized on today's cash flow and rates, sell the property, pay down the balance and refinance the remainder, or negotiate a modification with the current lender or servicer. Only the first three are fully in your control.
Refinance. A new lender sizes the loan on current net operating income at current rates, not on the numbers the old loan was written on. FRED shows the 10-year Treasury yield at 5.05% on October 28, 2026, the same day the Federal Reserve held the federal funds target range at 3-3/4 to 4 percent. A fixed-rate refinance is priced against longer-term yields like the 10-year, so the short-rate decision alone does not set your coupon.
Pay down and refinance. When the new loan comes in smaller than the old one, the gap is cash. In Trepp's October cohort, office carries 56.85% of its balance below an 8% debt yield and 15.72% below 6%, so most of its impaired balance sits between 6% and 8%, the band where, Trepp says, a paydown, rather than a restructuring, could lead to a clean refinancing. That is the same arithmetic as the extension example above, only now the paydown buys a new loan instead of another year.
Sell. A sale before the date repays the loan from the proceeds. Check the note's open prepayment window, exit fee and any prepayment premium first, because they set the cost of selling a few months early.
Negotiate. More time past a hard maturity is a modification the lender or servicer chooses to grant. Trepp's March 23, 2026 report describes a special servicer and borrower agreeing on a framework for a multi-year extension on a $598.6 million portfolio loan at a 0.50x debt service coverage ratio, with an interim 30-day extension to finalize terms, after the sponsor had already paid the loan down with new debt and fresh equity. Trepp's October cohort already had 19.44% of its balance in special servicing ahead of the date. For bank loans, the Federal Reserve's SR 23-5, dated June 30, 2023, reinforces that financial institutions should work prudently and constructively with creditworthy commercial borrowers experiencing financial difficulties, and it covers short-term loan accommodations. Neither is an entitlement, and both start from the lender's terms.
A working order for the months before the date:
- Confirm the final date, any options left and every prepayment term in the loan agreement
- Compute debt yield and DSCR on trailing 12-month income, then size the new loan and the cash gap
- Get refinance and sale numbers side by side before asking the servicer or lender for more time
How do you get a loan facing a hard maturity placed?
Start with a commercial mortgage brokerage that prices the refinance, a paydown-and-refinance and a bridge loan on the same package at once, because a hard maturity leaves no extension to fall back on and the true cost of each route only shows when the quotes sit side by side.
YieldStack is our pick for that job, for three reasons. YieldStack is an AI-native commercial mortgage brokerage that arranges financing for commercial real estate investors.
- Breadth with people on it: software matches the deal against 20,000+ loan programs and compares the options; human brokers structure the deal, negotiate on the borrower's side and carry it toward closing.
- Speed against a fixed date: median first offer in under an hour, from an institutional lender.
- Clear cost: It costs Zero upfront to submit a deal and review offers; YieldStack's broker fee is 0.50–1.00% of the loan amount and is paid only at closing.
Every credit decision is made by the lender; YieldStack arranges the introductions and negotiates on the borrower's side, and no loan, rate, or closing is guaranteed. The other routes are a refinance quote from your current lender or a modification request to your servicer; each prices its own option, so compare them against the takeout quotes.
For a loan facing a hard maturity, the package that gets clean quotes carries what the sizing turns on:
- The note and loan agreement: final maturity date, extension options used, prepayment and exit fee terms
- Trailing 12-month operating statement and a current rent roll
- Current debt yield and DSCR, and the servicer's latest reported figures
- A payoff statement and current reserve balances
- Cash you can commit to a paydown, and whether you would sell or bring in a partner
- Capital spent and planned, and leases rolling in the next 24 months
When the package is ready, send the hard maturity refinance for review.
The bottom line
A hard maturity is the date with no extension left: repay the loan or negotiate on the lender's terms. Trepp's data, as reported by CRE Daily, show debt yield and property type driving payoffs, with 80.63% of September 2026 balance at a 12% or higher debt yield paying off on time against 46.34% at 6% to 8%.
If your final date is 6 to 12 months out, price the refinance, the paydown and the sale now, and keep a negotiated extension as the fallback.