A bankruptcy discharge bar is a federal law that prevents you from receiving a discharge in a new bankruptcy case if you filed too soon after a prior discharge. Four statutes set waiting periods of 2, 4, 6, or 8 years depending on the chapters involved. The bar does not stop you from filing -- it stops you from getting debt relief at the end.
When a bankruptcy case ends successfully, the court enters a discharge -- an order that permanently eliminates your legal obligation to pay certain debts. That is the entire point of filing.
A discharge bar is a federal rule that blocks you from receiving that discharge if you already received one in a recent prior case. The idea is straightforward: Congress decided that people who received bankruptcy relief should wait a certain number of years before getting it again.
The catch is that a discharge bar does not prevent you from filing a new case. You can still file, still pay attorney fees and filing fees, still make plan payments, and still go through the entire process. But at the end, the court cannot grant you the discharge. Your debts survive in full.
A bankruptcy case without discharge means you absorb the costs, the credit report impact, and the time commitment -- all without the debt relief that makes bankruptcy worthwhile. If you are barred from discharge and file anyway, you get the worst of both worlds.
Four separate provisions of the Bankruptcy Code set the waiting periods. The applicable rule depends on two things: the chapter of your prior case and the chapter of the new case you want to file.
| Statute | Prior Case | New Case | Wait |
|---|---|---|---|
| 727(a)(8) | Ch. 7 or Ch. 11 | Ch. 7 | 8 years |
| 727(a)(9) | Ch. 12 or Ch. 13 | Ch. 7 | 6 years* |
| 1328(f)(1) | Ch. 7, 11, or 12 | Ch. 13 | 4 years |
| 1328(f)(2) | Ch. 13 | Ch. 13 | 2 years |
*Section 727(a)(9) has exceptions: the 6-year bar does not apply if the prior Ch. 13 plan paid 100% of unsecured claims, or paid at least 70% under a plan proposed in good faith with best effort.
All four waiting periods are measured from filing date to filing date -- not from discharge date. The Ninth Circuit confirmed this in In re Blendheim, 803 F.3d 477 (9th Cir. 2015). If your prior case was filed January 1, 2020, and the required wait is 4 years, your earliest eligible new filing date is January 1, 2024.
If you received a Chapter 7 or Chapter 11 discharge, you must wait 8 years before receiving another Chapter 7 discharge. This is the longest waiting period in the Bankruptcy Code. It applies to the most common scenario: Chapter 7 followed by another Chapter 7.
If you received a Chapter 12 or Chapter 13 discharge, you must wait 6 years before receiving a Chapter 7 discharge. There are two exceptions: if your prior Chapter 13 plan paid unsecured creditors in full (100%), or paid at least 70% and the plan was proposed in good faith with best effort, the 6-year bar does not apply.
If you received a Chapter 7, 11, or 12 discharge, you must wait 4 years before receiving a Chapter 13 discharge. This was added by the 2005 BAPCPA amendments to prevent people from rapidly cycling between Chapter 7 (liquidation) and Chapter 13 (repayment plan).
If you received a Chapter 13 discharge, you must wait 2 years before receiving another Chapter 13 discharge. This is the shortest waiting period because Chapter 13 already requires years of plan payments -- Congress gave the shortest bar to people who completed a repayment plan and need to do it again.
These are two different things, and confusing them is common.
| Discharge Bar | Filing Bar | |
|---|---|---|
| What it blocks | Receiving a discharge | Filing a case at all |
| Statutes | 727(a)(8), 727(a)(9), 1328(f)(1), 1328(f)(2) | 109(g) |
| Duration | 2 to 8 years | 180 days |
| Trigger | Prior discharge within the waiting period | Prior dismissal for disobeying court orders, or voluntary dismissal after a stay relief motion |
| Can you still file? | Yes (but no discharge) | No |
A discharge bar lets you file but prevents the discharge at the end. A filing bar under Section 109(g) prevents you from filing entirely for 180 days after certain dismissals. The filing bar is shorter but more restrictive -- you cannot even begin a new case.
If you are discharge-barred, you can still get the automatic stay -- the order that temporarily stops creditor collection -- by filing a new case. You just will not get the discharge at the end. If you are filing-barred under 109(g), you get nothing: no case, no stay, no protection.
Before filing any bankruptcy case, an attorney is required to investigate whether the client received a prior discharge within the applicable waiting period. The official bankruptcy petition asks at Question 9: "Within the last 8 years, have you filed a case under any chapter of the Bankruptcy Code?"
If the answer is yes, the attorney must determine whether the timing bars apply. Filing a discharge-barred case without informing the client is, at minimum, a competence issue under professional conduct rules.
Screening of 4.9 million Chapter 13 cases across 94 federal districts found 391,951 prior filers who received discharge with zero eligibility verification. In a 7-district sample, 264 were confirmed violations within the 1328(f) window -- 114 received a discharge despite the bar. Question 9 relies on accurate disclosure and manual review. When it fails, the debtor pays the price.
No federal court system automatically checks whether a new filer is barred from discharge. The burden falls entirely on the debtor's attorney to review prior filing history -- and on the U.S. Trustee or Chapter 13 trustee to raise the issue if counsel misses it. In practice, this verification step is skipped more often than it is performed.
Enter the details of your prior case to see whether you are currently barred from discharge in a new case.
Check whether a specific prior case bars discharge under Section 1328(f).
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