Chapter 13 is a court-supervised repayment plan for a person with regular income. You propose a plan that pays some or all of your debts over 3 to 5 years, you pay a Chapter 13 trustee, and the trustee pays your creditors. Property generally stays with you. When every payment is made, the court grants a discharge of most debts the plan covered; missed payments can end the case without one. This section explains how it works, what sets the payment, how long a plan runs and what it can do for a home behind on the mortgage.
This page is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice, and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Bankruptcy law and exemption amounts vary by state and change. Ask a bankruptcy lawyer, legal aid or the court about your situation.
Free help: legal aid, your court’s self-help pages and law school clinics. Whether to file, and under which chapter, is your decision, made with someone who can look at your papers.
Start here: how Chapter 13 works
Our guide to Chapter 13 bankruptcy, from filing to discharge is the long read, and the one to open first. It covers who can file, the tests a plan must pass, the trustee, the co-debtor stay for co-signers on consumer debts, life during the plan and the discharge. The pages below go deeper on single parts.
There is no means test to “pass” for Chapter 13, but the same income figure sets how long the plan runs and how expenses are counted. Confirmation, changes to the plan, lifting the stay and dismissal are all for the court to decide; no page or tool here can promise an outcome.
Who can file Chapter 13
Chapter 13 is for an individual, or a married couple filing together, with regular income: income “sufficiently stable and regular” to make plan payments (101(30)). On the filing date, noncontingent, liquidated unsecured debts must be under $526,700 and secured debts under $1,580,125, for cases filed on or after 1 April 2025; the next adjustment is due 1 April 2028 (11 U.S.C. 109(e), as adjusted by 90 FR 8941). A couple filing together uses the same limits for combined debts.
Those limits may change. A bill to replace them with one combined limit of $2,750,000, H.R. 7730, was sent to the President on 5 November 2026; as of 7 November 2026 it had not become law. You may see “$2.75 million” elsewhere as the current limit: an earlier temporary limit of that size expired on 21 June 2024.
Most filers must also take a credit counselling briefing from a US Trustee-approved agency in the 180 days before filing (109(h)); our page on the two required bankruptcy courses explains both. Which chapter fits is a judgment for you and a lawyer; our Chapter 7 vs Chapter 13 comparison sets out the differences.
What sets the payment
No law sets “the” payment. The court confirms a plan only if it clears several floors at once:
- priority debts, such as back child support and many recent income taxes, paid in full unless the creditor agrees otherwise (1322(a)(2));
- for a secured debt on property you keep, at least the allowed secured claim, in equal monthly amounts if paid over time, unless the lender accepts the plan (1325(a)(5)); our page on your car in bankruptcy explains the rules for car loans;
- at least what each unsecured creditor would get if your property were sold in Chapter 7 (1325(a)(4)), which is where your state’s exemptions by state come in;
- if the trustee or an unsecured creditor objects, all “projected disposable income” for the commitment period, unless unsecured claims are paid in full (1325(b)(1));
- a payment you “will be able to make” (1325(a)(6)).
On top comes the standing trustee’s percentage fee, fixed by the Attorney General and capped at 10% of payments (28 U.S.C. 586(e)). The US Trustee’s district figures for the forms (cases filed on or after 15 July 2026) run from 4.2% to 10.0%, not a fee every plan pays.
The Chapter 13 payment calculator does these sums on your own figures and shows its working: the lowest payment that covers what the plan must pay, the income left after expenses, the trustee’s fee and the commitment period for your income. Its result is an estimate, not what a court will confirm.
How long a plan runs, and how it can change
Plan length starts from current monthly income: the average over the 6 full calendar months before filing, from all sources, leaving out Social Security Act benefits and certain military and VA disability and death payments (101(10A)). The debtor’s and spouse’s income count together, even if only one files. Times 12, it is compared with the US Trustee’s median family income for your state and household size. Below the median, a plan runs up to 3 years, or 5 if the court approves “for cause”; at or above it, the commitment period is 5 years; never more than 5 (11 U.S.C. 1322(d), 1325(b)(4)). Our income limits by state page lists every state’s median, dated.
Our guide to Chapter 13 payment plans: length, limits and changes covers the plan form, the first payment within 30 days, confirmation, and how a confirmed plan can be modified at the request of the debtor, the trustee or an unsecured creditor (1329). A modified plan still ends within 5 years of the first payment due under the original plan. You may read that plans can run 7 years: the pandemic-era option was removed from the Code with effect from 27 March 2022.
Many plans don’t finish. Of 183,939 nonbusiness Chapter 13 cases that closed in 2025, 82,099 completed the plan and 101,709 were dismissed, 51,333 of them for failure to make plan payments (US Courts, BAPCPA Table 6, 2025). They were filed in different years, so they are not the odds for a case filed today. A missed payment doesn’t end a case on its own: dismissal or conversion for cause needs a request, notice and a hearing (1307(c)), and the plan guide sets out the routes the Code offers, including modification, conversion to Chapter 7 and the narrower hardship discharge (1328(b)).
Chapter 13 and a home behind on the mortgage
Filing starts the automatic stay, which stops a foreclosure sale without any court order (362(a)). The stop is usually temporary: the lender can ask the court to lift it (362(d)), and a recent dismissed case can cut it to 30 days or stop it starting (362(c)(3), (4)). What Chapter 13 adds is a way to catch up. A plan may cure missed payments “within a reasonable time” while the regular payments continue (1322(b)(5)), until the home “is sold at a foreclosure sale” under state law (1322(c)(1)). The loan itself can’t be rewritten (1322(b)(2)).
Our page can bankruptcy stop a foreclosure? covers how a lender asks to lift the stay, why Chapter 7 is a delay and not a cure, the deadlines when filing in a hurry and the limits for repeat filers. When a sale counts as complete is state law: anyone whose sale is days away needs a lawyer’s view before the sale, not after.
Along the way: the meeting, the trustee and the discharge
Some steps have their own pages. The 341 meeting of creditors is held 21 to 50 days after a Chapter 13 filing (Rule 2003(a)), and the judge may not attend (341(c)). Our page on what the bankruptcy trustee does covers both chapters. After the last payment, the course and the other conditions, the court grants the discharge (1328(a)); our page on what the discharge wipes out compares the two chapters. An earlier discharge can bar a new one for 2 to 4 years (1328(f)); the how often can you file tool shows the statute’s arithmetic.
Chapter 13 court fees are $313 ($235 filing fee plus $78 administrative fee, fee schedule effective 1 December 2023), with no fee waiver but up to 4 instalments (Rule 1006(b)). Our page on what it costs to file bankruptcy sets out every fee for both chapters; we give no typical lawyer’s fee, as no national public dataset exists.
Your next step
Gather pay stubs and all other income records for the last 6 full months, for you and your spouse; tax returns for the last 4 years; a list of every debt with its creditor, balance and any co-signer; mortgage and car loan statements showing the amount behind, with any foreclosure notice and its sale date; and a monthly budget.
Ask the court clerk or self-help pages about local forms (the clerk can’t give legal advice), legal aid, a law school clinic or a bankruptcy lawyer. What can’t wait: a foreclosure sale date, a wage garnishment or a lawsuit with a court date, and any case of yours dismissed in the past year. We can’t answer questions about individual cases or recommend lawyers.
Sources checked on 7 November 2026.
