How Many Times Can You File Bankruptcy? Wait Times by Chapter

There is no limit on how many times you can file bankruptcy in your lifetime. Federal law instead controls how often you can receive a discharge, the court order that actually wipes out your debts, and the waiting periods between discharges run from two to eight years depending on which chapters are involved.¹ Every one of those clocks starts on the filing date of the earlier case, not the date it closed. Repeat filers also lose some of the creditor protection the first filing gave them, and each new case leaves its own mark on your credit report.

Waiting Periods at a Glance

Chapter 7 after Chapter 7: 8 years, filing date to filing date¹
Chapter 13 after Chapter 13: 2 years, filing date to filing date²
Chapter 13 after Chapter 7: 4 years, filing date to filing date²
Chapter 7 after Chapter 13: 6 years, filing date to filing date (shorter if you repaid 100% of unsecured claims, or 70% with best effort)¹
After a dismissal without prejudice: immediate refiling allowed, though the automatic stay may be limited
After a dismissal for misconduct: 180-day bar on refiling³

Chapter 7 After a Previous Chapter 7

Eight years is the longest waiting period in the bankruptcy code. If you received a Chapter 7 discharge, you have to wait eight years from that case’s filing date before you can file another Chapter 7 and receive a discharge.¹ File a single day early and the court will deny the discharge. When the first case actually closed, or when the judge signed the final order, is irrelevant.

Chapter 7 cases usually resolve within four to six months, so you can be eligible on paper long before the credit damage from the first filing has faded.

Chapter 13 After a Previous Chapter 13

The gap between two Chapter 13 discharges is only two years, again measured filing date to filing date.² Most Chapter 13 repayment plans run three to five years, so the two-year clock usually runs out before the first plan even finishes.⁴ In practice, anyone who completes a Chapter 13 plan is immediately eligible to file another.

Judges do pay close attention to back-to-back Chapter 13s with similar debts, and they will look hard at whether the new plan is realistic or a stall.

Chapter 13 After a Chapter 7

Switching from a Chapter 7 liquidation to a Chapter 13 repayment plan requires four years between filing dates before you can receive a Chapter 13 discharge.² You can file the Chapter 13 petition sooner than that; you just will not get a discharge at the end.

Filing anyway can still make sense. The petition activates the automatic stay, which stops foreclosures and collection actions, and it lets you propose a plan to catch up on mortgage arrears or chip away at debts a Chapter 7 could not touch, such as tax obligations and past-due support.

Chapter 7 After a Chapter 13

The wait is six years from the Chapter 13 filing date to the Chapter 7 filing date.¹ Two exceptions can shorten it:

Your Chapter 13 plan paid every allowed unsecured claim in full.
Your plan paid at least 70% of allowed unsecured claims and the court finds it was proposed in good faith and represented your best effort.¹

Either threshold requires verified accounting through the bankruptcy trustee. If you completed a Chapter 13 plan and paid a meaningful percentage of your debts, pull the trustee’s final report before assuming you have to wait the full six years.

Filing Again After a Dismissal

If your earlier case was dismissed rather than completed, the multi-year discharge waiting periods generally do not apply, because you never got a discharge. What governs refiling instead is the reason the case was dismissed.

h3>Dismissal Without Prejudice

Most dismissals are “without prejudice,” so you can refile right away. This typically happens for administrative reasons like unpaid filing fees or a missing form.³ The automatic stay limits below still apply if you refile within a year.

The 180-Day Bar

Federal law blocks refiling for 180 days in two situations: the court dismissed your case because you willfully failed to follow court orders or appear at hearings, or you voluntarily dismissed your own case after a creditor moved to lift the automatic stay.³ The rule exists to stop filers from killing a case on the eve of a foreclosure order and immediately filing a new one to reset the stay.

Dismissal With Prejudice

In more serious cases a court can dismiss “with prejudice” and impose a refiling bar well beyond 180 days. Bankruptcy judges have broad discretion here, and courts have imposed two-year and even five-year bans when they find a pattern of abusive filings designed to delay creditors. In rare cases a court can bar the discharge of specific debts in any future filing.

The Automatic Stay Shrinks for Repeat Filers

The automatic stay is the immediate freeze on creditor collection, wage garnishment, and foreclosure that kicks in the moment you file. For first-time filers it lasts the whole case. Repeat filers get far less, and this is where filing more than once gets genuinely risky.

One Dismissed Case in the Past Year

If one of your cases was dismissed within the past year and you file again, the automatic stay expires after 30 days instead of lasting the whole case. You can ask the court to extend it, but the motion must be filed and the hearing completed before the 30-day window closes. The court will only extend the stay if you show the new case was filed in good faith, and the law presumes it was not. You need clear and convincing evidence to overcome that presumption.⁵

Thirty days is not much time to prepare a motion, assemble evidence of changed circumstances, and get on the court’s calendar. Miss it and creditors can resume collection as if you never filed.

Two or More Dismissed Cases in the Past Year

If two or more of your prior cases were dismissed within the past year, the automatic stay does not take effect at all when you file again.⁵ You can ask the court to impose one, but the same good-faith burden applies and the presumption against you is even stronger. Without a stay in place, a third filing in a year offers almost no practical protection.

Credit Report Consequences Pile Up

Each filing creates its own entry. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act a bankruptcy can stay on your report for up to ten years from the date the court entered the order for relief.⁶ In practice the major credit bureaus usually remove completed Chapter 13 cases after seven years, though the statute allows the full ten.

The compounding is the real problem. A Chapter 7 filed in 2018 drops off around 2028. A second Chapter 7 filed in 2026 would stay until roughly 2036, which means close to two decades with at least one bankruptcy visible to lenders. Multiple filings also signal higher risk, and that can make mortgages, auto loans, and even rentals harder to secure long after the discharges themselves.

Requirements That Reset With Every Filing

A repeat filer has to clear the same hurdles as a first-time filer, and the process does not get easier with experience.

Credit Counseling and Debtor Education

You have to complete a credit counseling session with an approved nonprofit agency within 180 days before each filing. It is not a one-time step. Every new petition requires a new certificate.⁷ A separate debtor education course is required before the discharge is entered. Courses are available by phone or online and generally cost between $50 and $100 combined, with fee waivers available for people who cannot afford them.

Filing Fees, Attorney Costs, and the Means Test

Court filing fees apply to every case; the current schedule is published by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.⁸ Attorney fees are often higher on a repeat case because the lawyer has to deal with the timing rules, the stay issues, and the good-faith questions that come with a prior case on the record. If you are filing Chapter 7, you also have to pass the means test again, no matter how you qualified before. Income, household size, and allowable expenses are all reassessed from scratch.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 727 – Discharge
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 1328 – Discharge
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 109 – Who May Be a Debtor
4
United States Courts. Chapter 13 – Bankruptcy Basics
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 362 – Automatic Stay
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 109 – Who May Be a Debtor
8
United States Courts. Bankruptcy Court Miscellaneous Fee Schedule