Chapter 7 vs Chapter 13 Costs and Outcomes: What Each Actually Costs in 2026

What Each Chapter Actually Costs: The Full Fee Stack

Court filing fees are uniform nationwide. Every one of the 94 federal bankruptcy districts charges the same amount, set by the Judicial Conference of the United States under 28 U.S.C. § 1930. Chapter 7 is $338, broken into a $245 base filing fee, a $78 administrative fee, and a $15 trustee surcharge. Chapter 13 is $313 — a $236 filing fee plus the same $78 administrative fee, with no surcharge.

Attorney fees are where the two chapters diverge sharply. Chapter 7 lawyers almost universally demand payment in full before filing, because any unpaid balance at the moment of filing becomes dischargeable unsecured debt. Chapter 13 lawyers routinely file for little or nothing down and collect through the plan, which is why district courts publish “no-look” or presumptively reasonable fee schedules that authorize a flat amount without an itemized fee application.

One asymmetry deserves attention. Only Chapter 7 filers can have the filing fee waived entirely, under 28 U.S.C. § 1930(f), by filing Official Form 103B and demonstrating household income below 150% of the federal poverty guidelines. Chapter 13 filers get no waiver — only the right to pay in installments under Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 1006(b).

The Trustee’s Cut: The Cost Nobody Quotes You

Ask a Chapter 13 attorney what the case costs and you will hear the filing fee and the attorney fee. You will rarely hear about the standing trustee’s percentage fee, and it is frequently the second-largest cost in the entire case.

Under 28 U.S.C. § 586(e), the standing Chapter 13 trustee collects a percentage of every dollar that flows through the plan, capped at 10%. Actual rates vary by district and by trustee, and the U.S. Trustee Program’s published trustee data shows operating rates ranging from roughly 3.6% to the statutory 10% ceiling. This fee is deducted before creditors see anything.

Run the math on a mid-sized plan. A debtor paying $650 per month for 60 months contributes $39,000 to the plan. At an 8% trustee percentage fee, $3,120 goes to trust administration. Add a $5,500 attorney fee paid through the plan, and $8,620 of that $39,000 — roughly 22% — never reduces a single creditor balance. The debtor still writes the same check every month.

Compare this to Chapter 7, where the debtor pays the trustee nothing directly. The Chapter 7 trustee receives a $60 administrative allotment out of the filing fee already paid, plus a commission on any nonexempt asset sales. In the substantial majority of consumer Chapter 7 cases there are no nonexempt assets to liquidate, so the trustee’s compensation ends at that $60.

Chapter 7 vs Chapter 13: Which Is Better for a $47,000 Unsecured Debt Load?

Consider a concrete filer. Marcus is 41, earns $58,000 annually in a two-person household, and carries $47,000 in unsecured debt: $31,000 across four credit cards, $9,000 in medical bills, and $7,000 on a personal loan. He rents. He owns a 2018 vehicle worth $11,000 with $4,000 still owed. He has no mortgage arrears and no tax debt.

Under Chapter 7, Marcus pays $338 to the court, roughly $75 for both mandatory courses, and $1,800 to a local attorney — $2,213 total. His household income sits below the state median for a household of two, so he passes the means test without the Form 122A-2 calculation. His vehicle equity of $7,000 is likely protected under his state’s motor vehicle exemption plus any wildcard exemption. Discharge typically arrives four to six months after filing. All $47,000 is wiped out. His total cost of discharge is $2,213, or roughly 4.7 cents on every dollar discharged.

Under Chapter 13, the arithmetic inverts. Marcus’s disposable income after the means-test expense allowances runs approximately $480 per month. Because his income falls below median, he qualifies for a three-year applicable commitment period, but attorney fees and the trustee percentage fee still consume the front of the plan. Over 36 months he pays $17,280. At an 8% trustee percentage fee that is $1,382; a $5,000 no-look attorney fee comes out of the same pool. Unsecured creditors receive roughly $10,900 — about 23 cents on the dollar — and the remaining balance is discharged at completion. His total cost is $17,593 plus three years of court-supervised budgeting.

Completion Rates: The Outcome Most Cost Comparisons Ignore

Cost per dollar discharged is meaningless if the case never reaches discharge. This is where Chapter 13’s economics turn hostile.

Roughly 95% of Chapter 7 cases complete successfully, according to figures published by the American Bankruptcy Institute. The case is short, the debtor’s only obligations are attending the 341 meeting of creditors and completing the debtor education course, and there is no multi-year payment stream to fail.

Chapter 13 tells a harder story, and the research does not converge on one number. The American Bankruptcy Institute’s multi-year analysis of cases closed between 2010 and 2016 found approximately 38.8% completed with a discharge. Nolo’s survey of its readers, updated in March 2026, found 52% completed their plan while 48% were dismissed. Ed Flynn’s ABI analysis reported a nationwide completion rate near 50% among confirmed cases — a materially different denominator, since a large share of Chapter 13 cases are dismissed before a plan is ever confirmed. Peer-reviewed work published in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies argues that the long-standing one-third estimate is distorted by length-based sampling bias, because dismissed cases close quickly while successful cases run three to five years.

Representation matters enormously here. Data published by the Central District of California bankruptcy court showed that over 82% of attorney-represented Chapter 13 cases closed in 2014 received a discharge, while fewer than half of self-represented cases did. Filing Chapter 13 without a lawyer is, on the available evidence, close to a coin flip weighted against the filer.

The consequence of dismissal is severe and underappreciated. A debtor dismissed at month 40 of a 60-month plan has paid roughly two-thirds of the plan, watched the trustee percentage fee and attorney fee come off the top, and received no discharge. Interest and fees that the plan suspended may be reinstated by creditors. Understanding late payment score damage and duration becomes relevant immediately, because the underlying delinquencies resume reporting.

What Most People Get Wrong About Bankruptcy Costs

Four errors recur often enough to be predictable, and each one has a measurable price.

Mistake 1: Treating the filing fee as the cost

Someone budgets $338 and believes they are prepared to file. The filing fee is typically 10% to 20% of a Chapter 7 case’s total cost and under 3% of a Chapter 13’s. Consequence: the filer stops paying creditors to save for a lawyer they have not priced, then discovers the retainer is triple their estimate. Correct action: obtain a written fee quote from two local attorneys before setting a savings target, and confirm which court your district assigns you to.

Mistake 2: Filing Chapter 13 to protect assets that were already exempt

Filers routinely choose Chapter 13 to keep a car or household goods that state exemptions would have fully protected in Chapter 7. Consequence: tens of thousands of dollars in plan payments and trustee fees spent defending property that was never at risk. Correct action: have an attorney run your exemption schedule under your specific state’s statute before choosing a chapter. Exemption amounts differ enormously between states.

Mistake 3: Assuming Chapter 13 is “better for credit”

The seven-year versus ten-year reporting difference is real but small in practice. FICO and VantageScore models weight recent behavior far more heavily than a six-year-old public record, and the distinction between the two scoring systems matters more than most filers realize — see FICO vs VantageScore and which lenders use. Consequence: paying $15,000 or more to shave three years off a notation that stopped meaningfully depressing the score years earlier. Correct action: plan an active rebuild instead. Secured credit cards for building credit and disciplined credit utilization ratios and score impact move a post-discharge score faster than chapter selection does.

Mistake 4: Trying debt settlement first

Many filers spend 12 to 24 months and thousands of dollars in settlement company fees before filing anyway. Consequence: depleted savings, additional charge-offs on the report, and possible 1099-C tax liability on forgiven balances — none of which applies to debt discharged in bankruptcy. Correct action: price the alternatives honestly against the bankruptcy numbers above. A structured look at debt settlement vs consolidation comparison and the mechanics behind minimum payment math and cost of carrying balances usually clarifies whether any non-bankruptcy path can actually close the gap.

Mistake 5: Ignoring which debts survive

Neither chapter discharges child support, alimony, most recent tax debt, or criminal restitution. Medical debt does discharge fully — but medical accounts are also subject to specific reporting protections worth understanding before filing, covered in medical debt credit reporting rules. Consequence: filing an expensive Chapter 13 to address debt that bankruptcy will not touch. Correct action: categorize every debt as dischargeable, priority, or secured before choosing.

Who Should Actually File Chapter 13?

Chapter 13 is expensive, slow, and roughly a coin flip on completion. It is also, for a specific set of filers, the only workable option — and for them the higher cost is money well spent.

File Chapter 13 if you meet any of the following conditions. You are behind on a mortgage and want to cure the arrears over three to five years while keeping the house — Chapter 7 offers no mechanism to do this. You hold significant nonexempt equity that a Chapter 7 trustee would liquidate. You owe recent priority tax debt that must be paid in full but can be spread over the plan without further penalty accrual. You fail the means test because your household income exceeds the state median and the Form 122A-2 calculation shows disposable income. Or you filed Chapter 7 within the past eight years and are barred from a second Chapter 7 discharge.

File Chapter 7 if none of those apply and you pass the means test. The cost differential is not marginal — it is typically between $10,000 and $40,000 across the life of the case, with a substantially higher probability of reaching discharge.

Neither chapter is right if your total unsecured debt is modest, your income is stable, and a disciplined payoff plan would clear the balance within three to four years. A filer with $14,000 in credit card debt and $900 of monthly surplus does not need bankruptcy — the debt avalanche vs snowball payoff comparison is the more relevant analysis, and a well-structured balance transfer offers and fee math evaluation may cut the interest cost enough to close the gap without a public record at all.

One final consideration cuts across both chapters. Post-discharge, the rebuild is what determines whether you can borrow again at reasonable rates. Knowing the credit scores needed for major financial products gives you a concrete target, and it is worth confirming that discharged accounts report correctly — errors on post-bankruptcy reports are common, and the process for disputing credit report errors is a free right under the FCRA.

How We Researched This Article

Court filing fees were verified directly against the Bankruptcy Court Miscellaneous Fee Schedule published by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, and cross-checked against a district court’s own published fee breakdown showing the component parts of each fee. These fees are set by the Judicial Conference under 28 U.S.C. § 1930 and are uniform across all 94 bankruptcy districts, so no state-level variation applies.

Filing volume figures come from the Administrative Office’s quarterly statistical release covering the twelve-month period ending March 31, 2026, available through the U.S. Courts data and news archive, with chapter-level breakdowns drawn from Judicial Business 2025 Table F-2.

Attorney fee figures were sourced from individual district court no-look fee orders rather than from vendor marketing pages, including published schedules from the Central District of California, the Western District of North Carolina, and the Western District of Wisconsin. No primary-source national survey of Chapter 7 attorney fees was available for this period, so the $1,000 to $3,000 Chapter 7 range is presented as a defensible range drawn from practitioner sources rather than as a measured national figure. Readers should obtain a written quote from a local attorney, since district practice varies substantially.

Completion rate figures are the weakest data in this analysis and are presented as a range for that reason. The American Bankruptcy Institute’s closed-case analysis, Nolo’s self-reported filer survey, and peer-reviewed work in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies use different denominators and different sampling frames, producing results between 38.8% and 52%. The JELS work specifically identifies length-based sampling bias as a source of distortion in earlier estimates. We report the range rather than a point figure.

Trustee percentage fee authority and the 10% statutory cap come from 28 U.S.C. § 586(e); operating rate ranges reference trustee data published by the U.S. Trustee Program at the Department of Justice. Credit reporting durations derive from 15 U.S.C. § 1681c and from consistently documented credit bureau policy on Chapter 13 removal at seven years.

The $47,000 debt scenario and the trustee fee table are modeled, not measured. They apply verified fee structures to a hypothetical filer to illustrate cost mechanics; actual outcomes depend on state exemptions, district practice, disposable income calculations under Form 122C-2, and case-specific facts. Research was last conducted in July 2026. All figures were verified against named primary sources before publication.