Does bankruptcy wipe out credit card debt?

Credit card debt is unsecured debt and is generally within the category a discharge reaches, because all debts are dischargeable unless the Bankruptcy Code makes them otherwise. There are limits: 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(2) creates presumptions of nondischargeability for certain consumer debts for luxury goods or services and for cash advances incurred shortly before the case is filed.

Are medical bills dischargeable?

Medical bills are ordinary unsecured claims and are not on the § 523(a) exception list, so they generally sit in the category a discharge reaches. They are listed on Schedule E/F along with other creditors who have unsecured claims. As with any debt, a bill you fail to list in your bankruptcy papers may not be covered by the discharge.

Can bankruptcy get rid of student loans?

Student loans are on the nondischargeable list in the official notice given to individual filers, so most survive a discharge. Court guidance describes them as nondischargeable unless the debtor files an adversary proceeding against the creditor and proves to the court that it would be an undue hardship not to discharge the debt. That is a separate lawsuit inside the bankruptcy case, not an automatic result.

What happens to child support and alimony?

Domestic support obligations survive bankruptcy. Court guidance lists debts for child support and spousal maintenance as automatically nondischargeable, and the official filer notice includes domestic support and property settlement obligations among debts you may still be responsible to pay. In Chapter 13, 11 U.S.C. § 1328 also requires certifying that amounts due under a support order have been paid before the discharge is granted.

If my mortgage debt is discharged, do I keep the house?

Not automatically. The discharge relieves you of the personal obligation to pay, but valid liens that existed before you filed generally pass through the bankruptcy unaffected, so the lender may still have the right to foreclose. Court guidance states that under both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 you must pay debts secured by property if you want to keep the property.

Can the court refuse to give me a discharge at all?

Yes. 11 U.S.C. § 727 directs the court to grant a discharge unless certain conditions apply, and those conditions are about conduct — concealing or transferring property to hinder or defraud a creditor, destroying or failing to keep financial records, making a false oath, failing to explain a loss of assets, or refusing to obey a lawful court order. The official filer notice says the same thing in plainer words.

Are tax debts ever dischargeable?

Sometimes, and the answer turns entirely on timing and filing history. Court guidance says some debts, particularly tax debts, are dischargeable only if they were incurred three or four years before the filing of your case. 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(1) also excepts taxes where a required return was never filed, was filed late within a defined window, or where the debtor filed a fraudulent return.

What does it cost to file?

The Chapter 7 filing fee is $245 (28 U.S.C. § 1930(a)(1)(A), (f)(1)), plus a $78 administrative fee and a $15 trustee surcharge. The Chapter 13 filing fee is $235 (28 U.S.C. § 1930(a)(1)(B)), plus the same $78 administrative fee. The statute permits installment payment for an individual commencing a voluntary or joint case.

Debts & discharge

What Debts Bankruptcy Can Wipe Out

Bankruptcy starts from the rule that all debts are dischargeable unless the Bankruptcy Code says otherwise. In practice that means credit cards, medical bills, personal loans, old utility balances, and most judgments commonly go. The exceptions in 11 U.S.C. § 523 — most taxes, domestic support, most student loans, most fines and restitution — survive the discharge and still have to be paid.

Key points

All debts are dischargeable unless a specific provision of the Bankruptcy Code makes them nondischargeable, so the shorter list is the exceptions.
Unsecured consumer debt — credit cards, medical bills, personal loans, most judgments — is the category a discharge most commonly reaches.
A discharge erases your personal obligation to pay, but it does not remove a valid lien, so a mortgage or car loan still attaches to the property.
Chapter 13 discharges a slightly broader set of debts than Chapter 7 because 11 U.S.C. § 1328 excepts a shorter list.
Some debts are automatically excepted, and others survive only if a creditor files a nondischargeability action and wins.

If you are looking at a stack of collection letters, the question underneath all of them is simple: which of these actually go away. The answer is more generous than most people expect, but it has real edges, and the edges matter more than the middle. This page walks through what a bankruptcy discharge commonly reaches, what it does not, and what changes the answer in your situation.

How does a bankruptcy discharge actually work?

A discharge is a court order stating that you have been relieved of your obligation to pay your dischargeable debts. Once it is entered, creditors are generally forbidden from attempting to collect an unsecured debt covered by it — they may not demand payment and they may not sue (U.S. Bankr. Ct. D. Ariz., Choosing Your Chapter: What can Bankruptcy do for you? What will it do to you?).

The starting point is broad. Court guidance describes dischargeable debts as debts that may be discharged under a particular chapter, and states plainly that all debts are dischargeable unless a specific provision of the Bankruptcy Code defines them as nondischargeable. So the useful exercise is not listing what goes; it is learning the exception list.

Timing differs by chapter. In a Chapter 7 case the discharge is granted after the deadline for creditors to object passes, generally 60 days after the date first scheduled for the meeting of creditors. In a Chapter 13 case, the discharge comes only after you complete all payments called for by your plan.

The discharge relieves personal liability — it is not a finding that the debt never existed.
It is a court order, and creditors who violate it are acting against that order.
Chapter 7 timing runs off the objection deadline; Chapter 13 timing runs off plan completion.

Which debts does a discharge most commonly wipe out?

The debts that most often bring people to this page are unsecured debts — claims where the creditor has no rights against specific property. Bankruptcy schedules split creditors into secured claims, reported on Schedule D, and unsecured claims, reported on Schedule E/F. Creditors with secured claims may be able to get paid from specific property in which the creditor has an interest, such as a mortgage or a lien; creditors with unsecured claims do not have rights against specific property (U.S. Bankr. Ct. D. Alaska, The Forms Individuals and Married Couples Need to File Bankruptcy).

That unsecured column is where a discharge does its heaviest work. Credit card balances, medical bills, personal loans, deficiency balances, and money judgments generally sit there. So does the unsecured portion of an oversecured loan — if a second mortgage exceeds the remaining value of the home, the excess is an unsecured claim.

Court materials describe the purpose of the law in exactly these terms: to give an honest debtor a fresh start by relieving the debtor of most debts (Bankr. D. Md. official page — Legal Overview).

How claims are classified on the bankruptcy schedules
Claim type	Where it is listed	What the creditor can reach
Secured claim	Schedule D (Official Form 106D)	Specific property pledged as collateral, such as a house or car
Unsecured claim	Schedule E/F (Official Form 106E/F)	No rights against specific property

Which debts survive bankruptcy no matter what?

Section 523(a) of the Bankruptcy Code specifically excepts various categories of debts from the discharge granted to individual debtors, and the debtor must still repay those nondischargeable debts after bankruptcy (Bankr. N.D. Iowa official page — FAQs: Debtor). The official notice given to every individual filer lists the recurring ones.

Even after a Chapter 7 discharge, you may still be responsible to pay most taxes; most student loans; domestic support and property settlement obligations; most fines, penalties, forfeitures, and criminal restitution obligations; and certain debts that are not listed in your bankruptcy papers (U.S. Bankr. Ct. D. Alaska, The Forms Individuals and Married Couples Need to File Bankruptcy).

A second group is conditional rather than automatic. You may also be required to pay debts arising from fraud or theft; fraud or defalcation while acting in a fiduciary capacity; intentional injuries you inflicted; and death or personal injury caused by operating a motor vehicle, vessel, or aircraft while intoxicated.

Some debts are automatically nondischargeable, such as child support and spousal maintenance.
Some tax debts are dischargeable only if they were incurred three or four years before the filing of your case.
Debts from fraud, embezzlement, or willful injury may be excepted only if the creditor successfully brings a nondischargeability action against you.
Student loan debts are nondischargeable unless the debtor files an adversary proceeding and proves undue hardship to the court.

What does federal law actually say about the discharge?

Three sections do most of the work. 11 U.S.C. § 727 governs the Chapter 7 discharge and is written as a command with exceptions: the court shall grant the debtor a discharge unless one of the listed conditions applies. Those conditions are about conduct, not debt type — transferring or concealing property with intent to hinder, delay, or defraud a creditor within one year before filing; destroying or failing to keep financial records; making a false oath; failing to explain a loss of assets; refusing to obey a lawful court order.

11 U.S.C. § 523 is the debt-type list, titled Exceptions to discharge. It opens by saying a discharge under section 727, 1141, 1192, 1228(a), 1228(b), or 1328(b) does not discharge an individual debtor from the debts it then enumerates.

11 U.S.C. § 1328 governs the Chapter 13 discharge granted after plan completion, and it excepts a narrower list — including debts of the kind specified in only certain paragraphs of section 523(a).

§ 727 can deny the discharge entirely based on the debtor's conduct in or before the case.
§ 523 excepts particular debts while leaving the rest of the discharge intact.
§ 1328 defines the Chapter 13 discharge and its shorter exception list.

Does Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 wipe out more?

Chapter 13 reaches slightly further. A slightly broader discharge of debts is available to a debtor in a Chapter 13 case than in a Chapter 7 case (Bankr. N.D. Iowa official page — FAQs: Debtor). The reason is structural: 11 U.S.C. § 1328(a) excepts debts of the kind specified in only certain paragraphs of section 523(a), rather than incorporating the whole list.

The tradeoff is what you give up to get there. A Chapter 13 discharge arrives only after completion by the debtor of all payments under the plan, and if a domestic support obligation is owed, only after the debtor certifies that all amounts due under that order or statute have been paid. A Chapter 7 discharge is not conditioned on a payment plan at all.

Chapter 13 also does something Chapter 7 does not: it can be used to cure defaults on secured debts, including defaults on home mortgages and motor vehicles (U.S. Bankr. Ct. D. Ariz., Choosing Your Chapter).

Discharge scope by chapter
	Chapter 7	Chapter 13
Governing discharge section	11 U.S.C. § 727	11 U.S.C. § 1328
Breadth of discharge	Full § 523(a) exception list applies	Slightly broader — a narrower exception list
When the discharge is granted	After the creditor objection deadline passes	After completion of all plan payments
Cures defaults on a mortgage or car loan	No	Yes
Filing fee	$245	$235
Administrative fee	$78	$78

Where do state rules change the picture?

Which debts are dischargeable is federal law, and it is the same in every state. Bankruptcy cases are filed in the bankruptcy court, federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction over them, and a bankruptcy case cannot be filed in a state court (Bankr. D. Md. official page — Legal Overview). So the § 523 exception list does not change when you cross a state line.

What state law does control is what property you keep, not what debt goes away. Under 11 U.S.C. § 522, an individual debtor may exempt property from the estate under either the federal list or the law of the state applicable to the debtor — and some states, such as Iowa, have passed a law removing the federal option, so a debtor there is not entitled to elect the federal exemptions (Iowa Code § 627.10).

Exemption amounts and median income figures live on the state pages rather than here.

Dischargeability is federal and uniform; exemptions are state-specific.
Which state's exemptions apply turns on where your domicile has been for the 730 days before filing (11 U.S.C. § 522).
Local practice, forms, and court procedures still vary by district.

What does this look like in practice?

Start with the distinction that surprises people most: a discharge order relieves you of the personal obligation to pay, but valid liens against your property that existed before you filed generally pass through the bankruptcy unaffected (Bankr. N.D. Iowa official page — FAQs: Debtor). The mortgage debt can be discharged as a personal obligation while the mortgage lien stays on the house.

That is why court guidance is blunt about secured debt: under both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13, you must pay debts that are secured by property if you want to keep the property, and you must keep insurance in place naming the lender (U.S. Bankr. Ct. D. Ariz., Choosing Your Chapter). Certain liens may be avoided or satisfied through a plan, but that is a specific request, not an automatic result.

A second practical point: certain debts that are not listed in your bankruptcy papers may survive. Listing every creditor is not paperwork hygiene — it is part of what makes the discharge work.

Discharge kills the personal debt; the lien is a separate legal interest in the property.
A creditor may still have the right to foreclose a home mortgage or repossess an automobile after discharge.
The automatic stay is not the discharge — it stops collection while the case runs, with its own exceptions.

What documents and information decide which debts get discharged?

The schedules are where dischargeability is decided in practice, because a debt you do not disclose may not be discharged. When you file, the court needs to know who all your creditors are and what types of claims they have against you, and you must list every creditor's claim even if it is contingent, unliquidated, or disputed (U.S. Bankr. Ct. D. Alaska, The Forms Individuals and Married Couples Need to File Bankruptcy).

The information you supply is submitted under penalty of perjury, so it must be correct when you sign. If you later discover something is inaccurate, the documents may be corrected by filing an amendment with the Clerk's Office, and a fee is required to amend schedules when adding creditors (Bankr. N.D. Iowa official page — FAQs: Debtor).

This connects directly back to § 727: failing to keep or preserve recorded information from which your financial condition might be ascertained is one of the grounds for denying a discharge outright.

Schedule D — creditors with claims secured by property.
Schedule E/F — creditors with unsecured claims, the column a discharge most often reaches.
Schedule C — the property you claim as exempt; exemptions are not automatic and must be listed.
A creditor matrix listing names and addresses so every creditor receives notice of the case.

What should you ask a lawyer about your specific debts?

Bring the actual list. Dischargeability questions are debt-by-debt, and a lawyer can only answer them against real dates, real balances, and real documents. Court materials are direct about this: the clerk's office is prohibited from giving legal advice or assisting with the preparation of forms (Bankr. W.D. Ky. official guidance — Guide to Filing Bankruptcy without an Attorney), and Arizona's court pamphlet says its guidance is not a substitute for advice specific to your situation from a qualified attorney.

Useful questions to bring:

For each tax debt: what year is it, when was the return actually filed, and does the timing put it inside or outside the exception?
Is any creditor likely to file a nondischargeability action, particularly on a recent balance or a large purchase?
Which of my debts are secured, and what happens to that property if I stop paying?
Would Chapter 13's broader discharge or its ability to cure a mortgage default matter in my case?
Are there liens that could be avoided, and what would that take?
Is anyone else liable on these debts, and what happens to them if I file?

Frequently asked questions

Does bankruptcy wipe out credit card debt?: Credit card debt is unsecured debt and is generally within the category a discharge reaches, because all debts are dischargeable unless the Bankruptcy Code makes them otherwise. There are limits: 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(2) creates presumptions of nondischargeability for certain consumer debts for luxury goods or services and for cash advances incurred shortly before the case is filed.
Are medical bills dischargeable?: Medical bills are ordinary unsecured claims and are not on the § 523(a) exception list, so they generally sit in the category a discharge reaches. They are listed on Schedule E/F along with other creditors who have unsecured claims. As with any debt, a bill you fail to list in your bankruptcy papers may not be covered by the discharge.
Can bankruptcy get rid of student loans?: Student loans are on the nondischargeable list in the official notice given to individual filers, so most survive a discharge. Court guidance describes them as nondischargeable unless the debtor files an adversary proceeding against the creditor and proves to the court that it would be an undue hardship not to discharge the debt. That is a separate lawsuit inside the bankruptcy case, not an automatic result.
What happens to child support and alimony?: Domestic support obligations survive bankruptcy. Court guidance lists debts for child support and spousal maintenance as automatically nondischargeable, and the official filer notice includes domestic support and property settlement obligations among debts you may still be responsible to pay. In Chapter 13, 11 U.S.C. § 1328 also requires certifying that amounts due under a support order have been paid before the discharge is granted.
If my mortgage debt is discharged, do I keep the house?: Not automatically. The discharge relieves you of the personal obligation to pay, but valid liens that existed before you filed generally pass through the bankruptcy unaffected, so the lender may still have the right to foreclose. Court guidance states that under both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 you must pay debts secured by property if you want to keep the property.
Can the court refuse to give me a discharge at all?: Yes. 11 U.S.C. § 727 directs the court to grant a discharge unless certain conditions apply, and those conditions are about conduct — concealing or transferring property to hinder or defraud a creditor, destroying or failing to keep financial records, making a false oath, failing to explain a loss of assets, or refusing to obey a lawful court order. The official filer notice says the same thing in plainer words.
Are tax debts ever dischargeable?: Sometimes, and the answer turns entirely on timing and filing history. Court guidance says some debts, particularly tax debts, are dischargeable only if they were incurred three or four years before the filing of your case. 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(1) also excepts taxes where a required return was never filed, was filed late within a defined window, or where the debtor filed a fraudulent return.
What does it cost to file?: The Chapter 7 filing fee is $245 (28 U.S.C. § 1930(a)(1)(A), (f)(1)), plus a $78 administrative fee and a $15 trustee surcharge. The Chapter 13 filing fee is $235 (28 U.S.C. § 1930(a)(1)(B)), plus the same $78 administrative fee. The statute permits installment payment for an individual commencing a voluntary or joint case.

Sources

11 U.S.C. § 727 — Discharge · official source
11 U.S.C. § 523 — Exceptions to discharge · official source
11 U.S.C. § 1328 — Discharge (Chapter 13) · official source
11 U.S.C. § 522 — Exemptions · official source
Bankr. N.D. Iowa official page — FAQs: Debtor
U.S. Bankr. Ct. D. Ariz., Choosing Your Chapter: What can Bankruptcy do for you? What will it do to you?
U.S. Bankr. Ct. D. Alaska, The Forms Individuals and Married Couples Need to File Bankruptcy
Bankr. D. Md. official page — Legal Overview
Bankr. W.D. Ky. official guidance — Guide to Filing Bankruptcy without an Attorney
Iowa Code § 627.10 — Bankruptcy exemption
28 U.S.C. § 1930(a)(1)(A), (f)(1)
28 U.S.C. § 1930(a)(1)(B)
Bankruptcy Court Miscellaneous Fee Schedule, Item 8
Bankruptcy Court Miscellaneous Fee Schedule, Item 9

By Antonio G. Jimenez, Esq. · Florida Bar No. 21022

Last reviewed July 26, 2026 · Sources verified July 26, 2026 · How we verify

Every figure on this page is drawn from a primary legal source and checked against our canonical legal database before publication. Bankruptcy.law is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice.

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