You can file Chapter 13 if you have income steady enough to fund a monthly payment and your debts sit under the caps, currently about $526,700 unsecured and $1,580,125 secured. Income can come from wages, a business, rentals, Social Security, or a spouse who isn't filing. Most people who call us qualify. The ones who don't are usually over the limit on debt, not short on income.
Regular income, in practice
The statute says "regular income." Trustees read that as: can this person make the same payment on the same day every month for three to five years? Nobody checks for a salary. A rideshare driver with a predictable weekly average qualifies. So does a retiree on Social Security, a landlord with two rentals in Inglewood, or a commission salesperson who can show twelve months of deposits.
What fails is income that only exists on paper. A promised job that starts "next month." A business that has lost money for three years running. A spouse's paycheck when the spouse won't commit to contributing. The trustee will ask about all of it at the Zoom 341 meeting, and the answer has to hold up.
Household income counts, not just yours. If your partner earns $6,000 a month and pays half the bills, that money is in the budget even though your partner isn't filing.
The debt limits, and what counts toward them
Two caps, adjusted every three years. The figures in effect since April 2025:
| Type of debt | Limit | Typical examples |
|---|---|---|
| Unsecured | Roughly $526,700 | Credit cards, medical bills, personal loans, the unsecured part of an underwater second mortgage, most tax debt without a lien |
| Secured | Roughly $1,580,125 | Mortgages, car loans, tax liens, anything with collateral behind it |
Only debts that are "noncontingent" and "liquidated" count. Plain English: the debt exists today and the amount is known or easily calculated. A lawsuit that hasn't gone to judgment, where the other side is demanding "damages to be proven," is usually unliquidated and stays out of the math. A personal guarantee on a business lease that the landlord hasn't called on is contingent. Those distinctions matter to people who own a business or got sued.
The trap is the underwater second mortgage. If your home is worth less than the first loan, the entire second is unsecured for this purpose, and a $200,000 HELOC can push someone over the unsecured cap who never thought of themselves as having unsecured debt at all.
Waiting periods from an earlier case
A prior bankruptcy doesn't block a Chapter 13 filing. It can block the discharge at the end, which is a different thing.
You need four years between a Chapter 7 filing and a Chapter 13 discharge, measured from the earlier filing date. Between two Chapter 13 discharges, two years. If you're inside a window, a Chapter 13 can still be worth filing to stop a foreclosure and cure the arrears, since the cure doesn't depend on getting a discharge. We do a few of those a year and we say so up front: the plan works, the discharge doesn't come.
A harder bar is the 180-day one. If your last case was dismissed because you willfully ignored a court order, or you dismissed it yourself after a creditor asked for stay relief, you can't file anything for 180 days. People who bounce in and out of Chapter 13 to buy time on a house run into this.
Tax returns and the counseling certificate
Two paperwork items catch people. First, the last four years of tax returns have to be filed (not paid, filed) by the day before the 341 meeting. If you haven't filed since 2021, that's a project we start on day one, because the trustee will continue the meeting and eventually move to dismiss.
Second, the pre-filing credit counseling course. Online, about an hour, roughly $15 to $50, and the certificate has to be dated within 180 days before the petition goes in. A certificate from a case you abandoned last year doesn't work.
If you're over the limit
It happens. Somebody owns a fourplex and a house in the Valley, and the mortgages total $1.9 million. Somebody signed personally on a restaurant lease that went bad. The options are narrower but they exist.
An individual Chapter 11 is the usual answer. It's slower, more expensive, and not something we handle. We'll tell you that on the first call and refer you to someone who does. Sometimes one spouse can file alone and stay under the caps, since only the filing spouse's debts are counted. Sometimes the number that looked like debt turns out to be contingent and doesn't count. And sometimes, honestly, waiting six months while a foreclosure resolves one property changes the arithmetic.
What we won't do is file a case that's ineligible on its face. The trustee's office in the Central District catches it, and the dismissal costs you the filing fee and the automatic stay you were counting on.
People who qualify for Chapter 7 and file Chapter 13 anyway
Eligibility isn't the same as fit. Plenty of people could pass the means test and get a discharge in four months but choose the longer road on purpose. The reasons are almost always property: mortgage arrears that only a plan can cure, a house with equity above the homestead exemption, a car loan that can be crammed down, or a co-signer who needs protecting.
The overview of how Chapter 13 works in the Central District covers the mechanics. If you're not sure which chapter you're in, the side-by-side comparison is the place to start, and a thirty-minute call with Naomi settles it faster than either page.
the question I ask before any of the debt math is simpler: what did your bank account look like on the fifteenth of each of the last six months? If there was never anything left, a plan won't work no matter how the limits shake out. Income that's regular on a pay stub and gone by the tenth is not regular income in the sense that matters. I'd rather find that out across a video call than at month four, when the trustee files the first motion to dismiss and the house we filed to save is back where it started.
Questions people ask about this
Can I file Chapter 13 if I'm self-employed?
Yes. Self-employed people file Chapter 13 all the time. You'll need profit-and-loss statements, usually six months' worth, and bank statements that back them up. The trustee wants to see that the average monthly net covers the plan payment with room to spare.
Does Social Security count as regular income for Chapter 13?
It does. Social Security is excluded from the means test calculation but it absolutely counts as income that can fund a plan. Many of our Chapter 13 clients over 65 are paying a plan primarily from Social Security and a pension.
What if my spouse won't file with me?
You can file alone. Your spouse's income still goes into the household budget, and community property is part of the case, but only your debts count against the limits and only you get the discharge. Whether that's a good idea depends on whose name the debts are in.
I'm $30,000 over the unsecured limit. Is there anything I can do?
Sometimes. We look at whether any of the debt is contingent or disputed, whether a judgment is really liquidated at the number the creditor claims, and whether filing as one spouse changes the count. If none of that works, an individual Chapter 11 is the route, and we'll refer you.
Do I have to be behind on payments to file Chapter 13?
No. Being current on everything and still drowning is a common reason to file. A plan can pay unsecured creditors a fraction of what they're owed while you keep the house and the car and stop the interest.
Talk it through with the attorney
If you're not sure whether your debts fit under the caps or your income is steady enough, send us a rough list and book a free video consultation. Naomi runs the eligibility numbers on the first call and tells you plainly if Chapter 13 isn't available.