Chapter 7 vs. Chapter 13 in Florida: What’s the Difference?

A side-by-side comparison from a Florida consumer bankruptcy attorney. Written in plain English — with the law cited underneath, so you can check every word.

Here is the whole difference in one sentence:

That’s it. Everything else on this page is detail.

Most people arrive at this question already worried they’ll pick wrong. You won’t, for two reasons. First, for the majority of people the right answer is fairly clear once someone looks at four or five facts about your situation. Second, this is not your decision to make alone — it’s the single most important legal judgment in your case, and it’s what you hire an attorney to get right.

So read this to understand the landscape. Don’t read it to diagnose yourself.

The short version

	Chapter 7	Chapter 13
What it does	Erases debt	Reorganizes debt so you can catch up
Nickname	“Fresh start,” liquidation	“Reorganization,” wage earner’s plan
How long	About 3–4 months	3 or 5 years
Monthly payment to court	None	One payment, every month
Court filing fee	$338	$313
Attorney fee	Usually paid before filing — but not with us if you qualify	Mostly paid through the plan
Income limit	Yes — must pass the means test	No income limit
Debt limit	None	Under $526,700 unsecured / $1,580,125 secured
Can it save a house from foreclosure?	Delays it only	Yes — this is what it’s for
Can it lower a car loan balance?	No	Sometimes, yes
Can it erase a divorce property settlement?	No	Yes
Does it protect a co-signer?	No	Yes
Non-exempt property	Trustee may sell it	You keep it and pay for its value
Odds of finishing	Very high	Meaningfully lower — see Part 7
Credit report	Up to 10 years	Usually removed at 7 years
Wait before doing it again	8 years	2 years

Jump to a section

1. The core difference, explained simply
2. Who qualifies for each?
3. How your house is treated — the biggest difference
4. How your car is treated
5. What each chapter erases
6. Cost and timing compared
7. The risk difference nobody tells you about
8. What to be careful about — in either chapter
9. Can you switch? Can you do one, then the other?
10. So which one do you need?

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Part 1: The core difference, explained simply

Short answer: Chapter 7 asks “what do you own that isn’t protected?” Chapter 13 asks “what can you afford to pay each month?” Those two questions lead to two completely different processes.

Chapter 7 in plain terms

You hand the court a complete picture of your finances. A trustee looks at everything you own and checks it against Florida’s list of protected property — the legal word is “exemptions.” The trustee’s job is to find anything not protected, sell it, and pay creditors with the money.

Then, about three to four months later, the court erases your debts.

In most Florida cases, the trustee finds nothing to sell. Florida’s exemptions are unusually generous — your home has no dollar limit at all, your car is protected up to $5,000, your retirement is fully protected. Cases where nothing is sold are called “no-asset cases,” and they are the norm rather than the exception.

Think of Chapter 7 as a one-time settling of accounts. Everything unprotected gets dealt with at once, and then it’s over.

Chapter 13 in plain terms

Nothing is ever sold. Instead, you propose a plan: one monthly payment to a trustee for three or five years. The trustee distributes that money to your creditors in the order the law requires. At the end, whatever unsecured debt is left over is erased.

Think of Chapter 13 as a court-enforced catch-up program. While you’re in it, the law holds every creditor completely still — no foreclosure, no repossession, no garnishment, no interest piling up on most debts. You get years of protected breathing room to fix what’s broken.

The single insight that makes this click

Here’s something most explanations skip, and it explains almost everything else:

In Chapter 7, exemptions decide what you get to keep. In Chapter 13, you keep everything — and exemptions instead set the minimum your unsecured creditors have to receive.

That’s why Chapter 13 is the answer for someone with more equity than the exemptions cover. In Chapter 7, the trustee would sell the property. In Chapter 13, you keep it and pay its value into the plan over five years instead. Same creditors, same money, completely different outcome for you.

The law behind this: 11 U.S.C. § 704(a)(1) (Chapter 7 trustee’s duty to collect and liquidate non-exempt property); 11 U.S.C. § 541 (property of the estate); 11 U.S.C. § 522 and Fla. Stat. § 222.20 (Florida opted out of the federal exemption scheme); Fla. Const. art. X, § 4 (unlimited-value homestead exemption); Fla. Stat. § 222.25(1) ($5,000 motor vehicle exemption, raised from $1,000 by SB 158, ch. 2024-110, Laws of Fla., effective July 1, 2024); Fla. Stat. § 222.21 (retirement accounts); 11 U.S.C. § 1321 (debtor files a plan); 11 U.S.C. § 1325(a)(4) (best-interests test — unsecured creditors must receive at least Chapter 7 liquidation value); 11 U.S.C. § 1327 (a confirmed plan binds all creditors).

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Part 2: Who qualifies for each?

Short answer: Chapter 7 has an income ceiling. Chapter 13 has a debt ceiling. Most people qualify for one, many qualify for both.

Chapter 7: you must pass the means test

Step one: Is your income at or below the Florida median for your household size? If yes, you qualify — no further math.

Florida median family income — cases filed on or after 15 July 2026:

Household size	Florida median income
1	$69,876
2	$86,523
3	$97,540
4	$114,761
Each additional person	add $11,100

Two details that help far more people than they hurt:

Income is measured over the six full calendar months before the month you file — not your current paycheck. So a job loss last month doesn’t help you yet, but three months from now it will.

Social Security is excluded entirely from the calculation. Many Florida retirees who look like they earn too much pass easily once Social Security comes out.

Step two: If you’re above the median, you’re not disqualified — you subtract a long list of allowed expenses (IRS standards for food and clothing, IRS local standards for housing and transportation by Florida county, your actual mortgage and car payments, taxes, health insurance, childcare, support obligations). If what’s left is under $10,275 over 60 months, you qualify. In our experience most above-median Florida filers still pass, because a Florida mortgage plus a car payment plus insurance consumes a lot of income on paper.

Chapter 13: you must have income, and debt under the limits

No means test. In most respects Chapter 13 is easier to qualify for.

You need regular income — and “regular” is broad. Wages, self-employment, Social Security, pension, disability, rental income, even reliable family contributions all count. You don’t need a W-2 job. What you can’t have is no income, because nothing would fund the plan.

Your debts must be under both limits (cases filed April 1, 2025 through March 31, 2028):

Type	Limit
Unsecured	Less than $526,700
Secured	Less than $1,580,125

If you read an article citing a $2,750,000 combined limit — that was a temporary pandemic-era provision that expired June 21, 2024.

Both chapters also require: a credit counseling course within 180 days before filing. Chapter 13 additionally requires that your tax returns be filed for the past four years, and that you be current on child support and alimony.

The practical upshot

If you…	Then…
Are below the Florida median	You likely qualify for both. The choice is strategic.
Are above the median and fail the means test	Chapter 13 is your route.
Have very high debt	Chapter 13 may be unavailable; Chapter 7 has no debt cap.
Have no income at all	Chapter 7 only.

The law behind this: 11 U.S.C. § 707(b)(7) (below-median safe harbor); 11 U.S.C. § 101(10A) (current monthly income; six-month lookback); 11 U.S.C. § 101(10A)(B) (Social Security excluded); 11 U.S.C. § 707(b)(2)(A)(i) (presumption of abuse thresholds of $10,275 and $17,150, as adjusted April 1, 2025); 11 U.S.C. § 707(b)(2)(A)(ii) (IRS National and Local Standards); 11 U.S.C. § 707(b)(2)(B) (special circumstances); 11 U.S.C. § 109(e) (Chapter 13 regular income requirement and debt limits); 11 U.S.C. § 101(30) (individual with regular income); Bankruptcy Threshold Adjustment and Technical Corrections Act, Pub. L. No. 117-151 (combined $2,750,000 limit, expired June 21, 2024); 11 U.S.C. § 109(h) (credit counseling); 11 U.S.C. § 1308 (four years of tax returns); 11 U.S.C. § 1325(a)(8) (support obligations current); U.S. Trustee Program, Census Bureau Median Family Income by Family Size (cases filed on or after 15 July 2026).

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Part 3: How your house is treated — the biggest difference

Short answer: If you are behind on your mortgage and want to keep your home, Chapter 13 is almost certainly your answer. This is the difference that decides most cases.

Both chapters stop a foreclosure sale the moment you file — even a sale scheduled for tomorrow morning. That part is identical.

What happens next is not.

Chapter 7 and your house

Chapter 7 erases debts. It does not fix a default.

Picture two ropes. One ties the mortgage to you. One ties it to the house. Chapter 7 cuts the rope tied to you — but the rope tied to the house stays exactly where it was.

So if you were $22,000 behind when you filed, you are still $22,000 behind when your case closes four months later. The lender must pause during your case, then can resume the foreclosure. Chapter 7 buys you a few months and erases your other debts, which sometimes frees up enough money to negotiate directly with the servicer. But it has no mechanism to force the lender to accept a catch-up schedule.

Chapter 7 is the right choice for a house only when you’re current on the mortgage (and just need the credit cards gone), or when you’ve decided to let the house go — in which case Chapter 7 also erases any deficiency balance.

Chapter 13 and your house

Chapter 13 has the mechanism Chapter 7 lacks. You take everything you’re behind — missed payments, late fees, the lender’s foreclosure attorney fees — and pay it back over three to five years while making your regular payment going forward.

The lender does not get to refuse. That’s the power of it.

And there’s more available:

A second mortgage may be strippable. If your home is worth less than what you owe on the first mortgage, a Chapter 13 can sometimes remove the second mortgage entirely and treat it as ordinary unsecured debt — often paid pennies, then erased. This does not work in Chapter 7.

Mortgage modification mediation. Florida’s bankruptcy courts run structured programs putting you and your lender at the table with real deadlines the lender must meet. Many clients emerge with a lower payment than they had before falling behind.

A formal finding that you’re caught up. When you finish, the court determines your default is cured — so your servicer can’t resurface years later claiming you still owe pre-bankruptcy amounts.

One hard limit worth knowing: you cannot reduce the principal balance on the first mortgage on your primary home in either chapter. You can cure the arrears in Chapter 13; you cannot cram the loan down to the home’s value.

The law behind this: 11 U.S.C. § 362(a) (automatic stay halts foreclosure in both chapters); 11 U.S.C. § 522(c)(2) (liens survive discharge); 11 U.S.C. § 1322(b)(5) (curing default over the life of the plan); 11 U.S.C. § 1322(c)(1) (right to cure until the foreclosure sale is conducted); 11 U.S.C. § 1322(b)(2) with § 506(a) (stripping wholly unsecured junior liens in Chapter 13); Bank of America, N.A. v. Caulkett, 575 U.S. 790 (2015) (no strip-off in Chapter 7); Nobelman v. American Savings Bank, 508 U.S. 324 (1993) (anti-modification of a first mortgage on a principal residence); Fed. R. Bankr. P. 3002.1(f)–(h) (determination that the default has been cured).

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Part 4: How your car is treated

Short answer: Both chapters let you keep a car you’re current on. Only Chapter 13 can catch you up if you’re behind, or reduce what you owe.

Chapter 7 options

Option	What it means
Keep paying	Stay current, sign a reaffirmation, keep the car. Most common.
Redeem	Pay the lender a lump sum equal to the car’s actual value — not the balance — and own it outright. Powerful when you owe $14,000 on a $7,000 car, but you need the cash.
Surrender	Give it back. The remaining balance is erased.

What Chapter 7 cannot do: force the lender to let you catch up on missed payments.

Chapter 13 options

Everything above, plus two things Chapter 7 can’t do:

Cure the arrears. Behind three payments and facing repossession? Spread the arrears across the plan and keep the car.

Cram it down. If you bought the car more than 910 days (about two and a half years) before filing, and it’s for personal use, you may reduce the loan balance to the car’s actual value and often lower the interest rate too. You pay the reduced amount through the plan and own it free and clear at the end.

In Florida, $5,000 of car equity is protected in either chapter, plus $4,000 more from the wildcard exemption if you aren’t claiming the homestead exemption.

The law behind this: 11 U.S.C. § 521(a)(2) (statement of intention); 11 U.S.C. § 524(c) (reaffirmation); 11 U.S.C. § 722 (redemption); 11 U.S.C. § 1322(b)(5) (curing arrears); 11 U.S.C. § 1325(a)(5) with § 506(a) (bifurcation and cramdown) and the “hanging paragraph” following § 1325(a)(9) (910-day rule); Fla. Stat. § 222.25(1), (4).

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Part 5: What each chapter erases

Short answer: Chapter 13 erases slightly more than Chapter 7. The headline difference is divorce property settlements.

Erased by both chapters

Credit cards, medical bills, personal and payday loans, deficiency balances after repossession or foreclosure, most money judgments, old utility bills, broken leases, collection accounts, personally guaranteed business debts, and older income taxes that meet the timing rules.

Erased by Chapter 13 but NOT Chapter 7

Debt	Why it matters
Divorce property settlements	Your obligation to pay an ex for their share of the marital home. Survives Chapter 7. Erased in Chapter 13.
Willful, malicious damage to property (no personal injury)	Chapter 13’s exception is narrower than Chapter 7’s.
Certain non-criminal government penalties	Chapter 13 excepts only criminal fines and restitution.

This is not a technicality — it changes which chapter people file. If your decree requires you to pay your ex $30,000 for the house equity, Chapter 7 cannot touch it and Chapter 13 can erase it. Actual child support and alimony are never dischargeable in either chapter, and courts examine the substance of the obligation rather than the label the decree uses — so this takes real analysis.

Survives both chapters

Child support and alimony. Recent income taxes. Most student loans (unless you win a separate undue hardship case — which got substantially easier after 2022, and is worth asking about). Debts from fraud. Fiduciary fraud and embezzlement. Death or injury from drunk driving. Criminal fines and restitution. Debts you failed to list. 401(k) loans.

And in both chapters: liens survive

Discharge erases your personal obligation. It does not erase a lien. Want the collateral? Deal with the lien.

One exception available in both: a judicial lien — one a creditor got by suing you and winning — can often be stripped off exempt property entirely. If a creditor recorded a judgment against you, ask about this specifically. It gets missed constantly.

The law behind this: 11 U.S.C. § 727(b) (Chapter 7 discharge scope); 11 U.S.C. § 1328(a) (Chapter 13 discharge upon plan completion); 11 U.S.C. § 1328(a)(2) (incorporating only § 523(a)(1)(B), (1)(C), (2), (3), (4), (5), (8), and (9) — the omission of § 523(a)(15) is why divorce property settlements are dischargeable in Chapter 13); 11 U.S.C. § 1328(a)(3) (criminal fines and restitution); 11 U.S.C. § 1328(a)(4) (willful or malicious injury causing personal injury or death — narrower than § 523(a)(6)); 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(1) with § 507(a)(8) (tax timing rules); § 523(a)(5) (support); § 523(a)(8) (student loans); § 523(a)(9) (intoxicated driving); 11 U.S.C. § 522(c)(2) (liens survive); 11 U.S.C. § 522(f) (avoidance of judicial liens impairing exemptions, available in both chapters).

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Part 6: Cost and timing compared

Short answer: Chapter 7 costs less overall and is over in months. Chapter 13 usually costs less upfront — which is why it’s often the only option for someone facing foreclosure with no savings.

	Chapter 7	Chapter 13
Court filing fee	$338	$313
Credit counseling course	$10–$50	$10–$50
Financial management course	$10–$50	$10–$50
Attorney fee	Flat fee — at most firms paid in full before filing; with us, zero down if you qualify	Flat fee, mostly paid through the plan
Trustee fee	None from you	A percentage of plan payments, up to 10%
Time to relief	Immediate (day of filing)	Immediate (day of filing)
Time to discharge	About 3–4 months	3 or 5 years

The counterintuitive part — and why it may not apply to you

At most firms, Chapter 7 fees must be paid in full before filing. That isn’t a preference — a fee still owed at the moment of filing gets erased along with everything else, so it can’t be collected afterward.

Chapter 13 fees mostly ride inside the plan. So at a traditional firm, someone with a foreclosure sale in three weeks and $200 in the bank can often start a Chapter 13 immediately and cannot start a Chapter 7. The chapter that costs more in total ends up being the only one that’s reachable.

We took that problem off the table. Qualifying clients file a Chapter 7 with nothing down under a bifurcated fee structure that the bankruptcy court reviewed and approved — the full explanation is here.

Which matters for this page more than it might seem. If money is not what decides which chapter you can start, then nothing should decide it except which chapter actually solves your problem. That’s the whole point of everything above: pick the chapter that saves your house or erases your divorce debt or gets you finished in four months — not the one you can scrape together the retainer for.

If cost is what’s stopping you: the Chapter 7 filing fee can be waived entirely if your household income is below 150% of the federal poverty guidelines, or paid in four installments over 120 days. Both required courses reduce or waive fees for low-income filers — by law they must serve you regardless of ability to pay. Just ask.

Timelines side by side

Chapter 7	What happens	Chapter 13	What happens
Day 0	File. Collection stops.	Day 0	File. Collection stops. Co-signer protected.
—	—	Day 14	Plan filed.
—	—	Day 30	First plan payment due — before approval.
Day 21–40	Meeting of creditors (Zoom, 5–10 min).	Day 21–40	Meeting of creditors (Zoom, 5–10 min).
—	—	~Month 2–4	Plan confirmed by the judge.
Day 90–120	Discharge. Debts gone.	Month 36 or 60	Discharge. Remaining debt gone.

The law behind this: 28 U.S.C. § 1930(a) and the Judicial Conference Bankruptcy Court Miscellaneous Fee Schedule (filing fees); 28 U.S.C. § 1930(f) and Official Form 103B (Chapter 7 fee waiver); Fed. R. Bankr. P. 1006(b) and Official Form 103A (installments); 11 U.S.C. § 109(h) and §§ 727(a)(11), 1328(g) (the two courses); 11 U.S.C. § 1326(b)(1) (attorney fees through the plan); 28 U.S.C. § 586(e) (trustee percentage fee); 11 U.S.C. § 1326(a)(1) (first payment within 30 days); Fed. R. Bankr. P. 2003(a) (meeting timing); 11 U.S.C. § 1324(b) (confirmation within 45 days after the meeting); Fed. R. Bankr. P. 4004(c) (Chapter 7 discharge).

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Part 7: The risk difference nobody tells you about

Short answer: Chapter 7 almost always works. Chapter 13 asks you to succeed at something for three to five years, and a substantial share of cases don’t reach the finish line. You should know this before you choose.

We’d rather tell you this now than have you discover it in year two.

Chapter 7 is short and mechanical. File, attend one Zoom meeting, take a course, receive your discharge. The overwhelming majority of consumer Chapter 7 cases end in discharge. The risk isn’t failing — it’s the pre-filing mistakes described in Part 8.

Chapter 13 is a multi-year commitment, and the completion figures are sobering. Depending on the study and how “success” is measured, somewhere between roughly a third and roughly half of cases reach discharge.

Three things make that number less alarming than it looks:

The commonly quoted “one in three” understates it. A 2025 empirical study identified a methodological flaw: dismissed cases close quickly while successful cases take three to five years, so counting only cases closed in a given year systematically undercounts successes. Corrected estimates run meaningfully higher.

Some recorded “failures” were wins. A client who files, stops a foreclosure, negotiates a modification through mediation, permanently fixes the house, then voluntarily dismisses — that’s logged as a dismissal. She got exactly what she came for. The statistics can’t see the difference.

And the variable that dwarfs everything else is representation. That same study found the plan completion rate for people filing without a lawyer is about 1.2% — roughly one in eighty, not one in three. Chapter 13 is procedurally dense and deadline-heavy over a span of years, and it is very nearly unwinnable alone.

What actually causes cases to fail: income instability (job loss during a multi-year window is the leading cause), plans built on optimistic budgets with no margin for a car repair, missed tax filings during the plan, and attorneys who file a case and then disengage.

What this means for your decision. If you qualify for both chapters and your goals can be met by either, the shorter and more certain path has real value. Choose Chapter 13 because it does something Chapter 7 can’t — save your house, strip a lien, erase a divorce debt, protect a co-signer — not because it sounds more responsible.

And if a Chapter 13 does run into trouble, it isn’t a cliff. You can modify the plan, suspend payments temporarily, convert to Chapter 7, seek a hardship discharge, or dismiss and keep the ground you gained. Every one of those tools is far easier to use before you fall behind. Call your attorney early — the clients whose cases fail are usually the ones who went quiet for three months out of embarrassment.

The law behind this: 11 U.S.C. § 727 (Chapter 7 discharge); 11 U.S.C. § 1307(c) (dismissal or conversion for material default); 11 U.S.C. § 1329 (plan modification); 11 U.S.C. § 1307(a) (near-absolute right to convert to Chapter 7); 11 U.S.C. § 1307(b) (voluntary dismissal); 11 U.S.C. § 1328(b) (hardship discharge); 11 U.S.C. § 1328(c) (hardship discharge subject to the full § 523(a) exceptions). On completion rates: Hynes, Chapter 13 Outcomes, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (2025) (discharge rate higher than the commonly cited one-third figure; plan completion rate of approximately 1.2% for pro se filers); American Bankruptcy Institute analysis of cases closed 2010–2016 (approximately 38.8% completed with a discharge); Federal Judicial Center district-level dismissal data.

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Part 8: What to be careful about — in either chapter

Most of what goes wrong in a bankruptcy happens before anyone calls a lawyer. These apply to both chapters, and several are very hard to undo.

Do not pay back family or friends. If you repay your mother $8,000 before filing, the trustee can sue her to get it back. The lookback is 90 days for ordinary creditors and a full year for insiders — family, business partners, close associates. She did nothing wrong and can still be sued.

Do not transfer, sell, or gift property — especially to relatives. Taking your name off a deed or title to “protect” something is among the most damaging things you can do. Transfers for less than fair value can be unwound going back 2 years under federal law and 4 years under Florida’s fraudulent transfer statute. Worse, a transfer made within 1 year with intent to hinder creditors can cost you your entire discharge — not one debt, all of them.

Do not run up balances or take cash advances. More than $900 in luxury goods within 90 days, or $1,250 in cash advances within 70 days, creates a legal presumption that the debt was fraudulent and may not be erased.

Do not touch retirement money. Your 401(k) and IRA are fully protected sitting where they are. Withdraw, and that protection vanishes — plus taxes and usually a 10% penalty. We have watched people destroy twenty years of savings to buy a few months of breathing room, then file anyway.

Mind your tax refund. An unreceived refund is an asset. In Florida only the Earned Income Tax Credit portion is specifically protected. Filing in January with a $6,000 refund coming can mean handing it over; timing matters enormously.

Disclose everything. The forgotten account, the side gig, the crypto, the LLC that never made money, the pending injury claim, the car titled in your name that your brother drives. Concealment is what actually costs people their discharge — far more often than owning too much. In 17 years we have never had a client harmed by telling us too much.

Watch the timing rules. Moved to Florida within 730 days? You may be stuck with your old state’s exemptions. Bought your home within about 40 months? Equity gained in that window is capped at $214,000 rather than Florida’s unlimited protection.

Prior cases follow you. A case dismissed in the past year can limit the automatic stay to 30 days — or eliminate it entirely — unless we act promptly. Disclose every prior filing.

Don’t wait for the foreclosure sale. A case filed before the sale takes place stops the sale — the automatic stay is effective the moment the petition is filed, so a filing tomorrow morning can stop a sale tomorrow afternoon. After the sale, the options narrow sharply.

The law behind this: 11 U.S.C. § 547(b) (preferences; 90 days, 1 year for insiders under § 101(31)); 11 U.S.C. § 548 (fraudulent transfers, 2 years); 11 U.S.C. § 544(b) with Fla. Stat. §§ 726.105, 726.110 (4-year Florida reachback); 11 U.S.C. § 727(a)(2) (transfer with intent to hinder within 1 year); 11 U.S.C. § 727(a)(4) (false oath); 18 U.S.C. § 152 (bankruptcy fraud); 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(2)(C) ($900 / $1,250 presumptions, as adjusted April 1, 2025); 11 U.S.C. § 541(a)(5) (inheritances within 180 days after filing); 11 U.S.C. § 522(b)(3)(A) (730-day domicile rule); 11 U.S.C. § 522(p) ($214,000 cap); Fla. Stat. § 222.25(3); 11 U.S.C. § 362(c)(3), (c)(4).

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Part 9: Can you switch? Can you do one, then the other?

Short answer: Yes to both, with rules.

Switching mid-case

Chapter 13 → Chapter 7: you have a nearly absolute statutory right to convert. If your plan becomes unaffordable, this is a real exit.

Chapter 7 → Chapter 13: you may convert if you’re eligible for Chapter 13, though the Supreme Court has held this isn’t absolute — a court can refuse where the debtor acted in bad faith.

Conversion is common and routine. It is not a failure.

Filing again later

The waiting periods depend on which chapter you had and which you want next. All are measured from filing date to filing date:

You received	You now want	Wait
Chapter 7 discharge	Chapter 7	8 years
Chapter 7 discharge	Chapter 13	4 years
Chapter 13 discharge	Chapter 7	6 years (waived if you paid unsecured creditors in full, or 70% in a good-faith best-effort plan)
Chapter 13 discharge	Chapter 13	2 years

One nuance that helps people more than you’d expect: these bars apply to receiving a discharge, not to filing. Someone who just received a Chapter 7 discharge can still file a Chapter 13 to save a house or strip a lien — they simply won’t get a second discharge. Practitioners call this a “Chapter 20.” It is a legitimate strategy, not a loophole, and it rescues homes.

The law behind this: 11 U.S.C. § 1307(a) (conversion to Chapter 7); 11 U.S.C. § 706(a) (conversion to Chapter 13); Marrama v. Citizens Bank of Massachusetts, 549 U.S. 365 (2007) (the right to convert is not absolute where the debtor has acted in bad faith); 11 U.S.C. § 727(a)(8) (8-year bar); 11 U.S.C. § 727(a)(9) (6-year bar, with full-payment and 70% exceptions); 11 U.S.C. § 1328(f)(1) (4-year bar); 11 U.S.C. § 1328(f)(2) (2-year bar).

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Part 10: So which one do you need?

Here’s an honest guide. It is not a substitute for a consultation, but it will tell you which direction you’re facing.

You probably need Chapter 13 if:

• You’re behind on your mortgage and want to keep your home ← the most common reason
• Your income is above the Florida median and you fail the means test
• You owe your ex a property settlement from a divorce
• You have recent income tax debt
• Someone co-signed a loan for you and you want to protect them
• You have a second mortgage on a home worth less than the first mortgage
• You’re behind on a car loan and want to keep the car
• You have more equity or property than the exemptions cover
• You need to reduce a car loan balance
• You had a Chapter 7 discharge in the last 8 years, so a second Chapter 7 discharge isn’t available yet — though note that if that discharge was less than 4 years ago, a Chapter 13 can still save your house or strip a lien but won’t produce a discharge of its own. See the “Chapter 20” note in Part 9.

You probably need Chapter 7 if:

• Your debts are mostly credit cards, medical bills, and personal loans
• Your income is below the Florida median
• You’re current on your mortgage and car, or willing to let them go
• Your property is fully covered by Florida’s exemptions
• You want this finished in months, not years
• Your income is unstable and you couldn’t reliably commit to a multi-year payment
• There’s nothing to catch up on — you just need the debt gone

Three real-world sketches

Notice that the debt was identical in all three cases. What determined the answer was income, what needed saving, and what needed catching up on. That’s why “which chapter” isn’t something you can look up.

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Talk to us

The consultation is free, and there’s no obligation. Bring your mortgage statements, your paystubs, your questions — or bring nothing and just talk.

We’ll tell you which chapter fits and why. If neither one is right for you, we’ll tell you that too. Sometimes the answer is a head-of-family wage exemption that stops a garnishment without any bankruptcy at all.

If a foreclosure sale is on the calendar, call today rather than next week.

Debt Relief Legal Group — (813) 231-2088 — aborden@1800debtrelief.com — 14502 N Dale Mabry Hwy Ste 200, Office 304-5, Tampa, FL 33618

Serving consumer bankruptcy clients throughout Florida.

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About this article

Written by Alan Dexter Borden, a Florida consumer bankruptcy attorney with 17 years of experience in Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 cases, student loan discharge, adversary proceedings, and consumer protection litigation under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act.

Last reviewed: 29 July 2026

This article is general information about Florida and federal bankruptcy law, not legal advice about your situation. Every case is different, and the details matter enormously.

Two sets of figures on this page change on their own schedules. Federal Bankruptcy Code dollar amounts — including the means test thresholds and the Chapter 13 debt limits — adjust every three years; the amounts here apply to cases filed between April 1, 2025 and March 31, 2028. Florida median income figures are updated by the U.S. Trustee Program roughly twice a year; the amounts here apply to cases filed on or after 15 July 2026. Always verify current figures before relying on them.

Reading this article does not create an attorney-client relationship. Please speak with a licensed bankruptcy attorney before choosing a chapter — it is the most consequential decision in your case, and it is made before anything is filed.