There is no legal cap on how many times you can file bankruptcy in Michigan. Federal law lets you file as many petitions as you need over your lifetime. What the law does limit is how often you can receive a discharge, the court order that actually wipes out your debts, and depending on which chapters are involved, the wait between discharges runs from two to eight years.
Filing a Petition Is Not the Same as Getting a Discharge
This is the distinction that trips people up. Filing a petition opens a case with the court. A discharge is the payoff: a permanent order that eliminates your personal liability for qualifying debts and bars creditors from ever trying to collect on them again.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 524 – Effect of Discharge
You can file a new bankruptcy petition before the waiting period runs out. The court just won’t give you a discharge at the end of it. You would go through the paperwork, the trustee meeting, and every other step of the process and still owe every dollar you went in with. So the real question behind “how many times can I file” is almost always “when can I next receive a discharge,” and that answer depends on which chapter you filed before and which chapter you want to file next.
Waiting Periods Between Discharges
The four combinations below cover every repeat-filer scenario. In each case, the clock starts on the filing date of the earlier case, not the date the earlier discharge was entered.
Chapter 7 After a Previous Chapter 7
You must wait eight years from the filing date of the earlier Chapter 7 case before you can receive another Chapter 7 discharge.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 727 – Discharge A Chapter 7 filed March 15, 2020 makes you eligible for a new Chapter 7 discharge on March 15, 2028.
Chapter 7 After a Previous Chapter 13
The wait drops to six years from the filing date of the Chapter 13 case.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 727 – Discharge Two exceptions eliminate the wait entirely: if your Chapter 13 plan paid 100% of your unsecured debts, or if it paid at least 70% under a plan the court found was proposed in good faith and represented your best effort. In either case, you can pursue a Chapter 7 discharge without waiting.
Chapter 13 After a Previous Chapter 13
The wait is two years from the filing date of the earlier Chapter 13 to the filing date of the new one.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 1328 – Discharge Because Chapter 13 plans themselves run three to five years, this is less of a limit than it sounds.
Chapter 13 After a Previous Chapter 7
You must wait four years from the filing date of the Chapter 7 before receiving a Chapter 13 discharge.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 1328 – Discharge This is the sequence sometimes called a “Chapter 20”: a Chapter 7 to clear unsecured debt, then a Chapter 13 to restructure secured debts like a mortgage or car loan.
Quick Reference
- Chapter 7 after Chapter 7: 8 years from the earlier filing date
- Chapter 7 after Chapter 13: 6 years from the earlier filing date (waived if the plan paid 100% of unsecured debts, or 70% in good faith)
- Chapter 13 after Chapter 13: 2 years from the earlier filing date
- Chapter 13 after Chapter 7: 4 years from the earlier filing date
Debts a Second Filing Still Won’t Erase
Filing again does nothing for debts that are not dischargeable in the first place. If the debts pushing you toward another case fall into these categories, more bankruptcy is not the answer:
- Child support and alimony. All domestic support obligations survive bankruptcy in full.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 523 – Exceptions to Discharge
- Most tax debts, including recent income taxes, taxes where no return was filed, and taxes involving fraud.
- Student loans, dischargeable only if you prove repaying them would cause “undue hardship,” a high bar few borrowers clear.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 523 – Exceptions to Discharge
- Debts from fraud, including money obtained through false pretenses or fake financial statements.
- Debts from intentional injury to a person or property.
This is the single biggest reason people file a second time and end up disappointed.
The Automatic Stay Weakens for Repeat Filers
The automatic stay is the immediate protection you get on filing: creditors must stop collection calls, lawsuits, wage garnishments, and foreclosure actions. First-time filers get the stay from the moment the petition hits the docket until the case ends. Repeat filers get much less.
If one prior bankruptcy was dismissed in the past year, your stay in the new case expires after 30 days.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 362 – Automatic Stay To keep the stay in place past that window, you have to file a motion and prove the new case was filed in good faith. If your financial situation hasn’t meaningfully changed since the dismissed case, the court presumes bad faith, and overcoming that presumption requires clear and convincing evidence.
If two or more prior cases were dismissed in the past year, no stay goes into effect at all when you file the new one.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 362 – Automatic Stay Creditors can keep collecting as if you never filed. You can ask the court to impose a stay, but you start with zero protection. For anyone trying to stop a foreclosure or garnishment, that is a serious problem.
The 180-Day Bar on Refiling
Some dismissals block you from filing again at all for 180 days. The bar applies if your previous case was dismissed because you willfully disobeyed court orders or failed to appear, or if you voluntarily dismissed your own case after a creditor had already asked the court to lift the automatic stay.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 109 – Who May Be a Debtor During those 180 days, you cannot be a debtor under any chapter.
A dismissal without prejudice for less serious reasons, like missing a paperwork deadline, generally lets you refile sooner. The automatic stay limits above still apply if that dismissal happened within the past year.
Requirements That Apply Every Time You File
Every case starts fresh. Nothing you did in a prior bankruptcy carries over.
You have to complete a credit counseling session from an approved nonprofit agency within 180 days before filing, and the court won’t accept your petition without the certificate.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 109 – Who May Be a Debtor After filing, you have to complete a personal financial management course before the court will enter your discharge.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 727 – Discharge Both courses must be redone for each new case, even if you took them a year ago.
If you’re filing Chapter 7 again, you have to pass the means test again. Your household income is compared against the current Michigan median, which the U.S. Trustee updates twice a year.8U.S. Department of Justice. November 1, 2025 Median Income Table Income below the median qualifies you automatically; income above it means a more detailed expense calculation before the court decides whether Chapter 7 is available.
You’ll also choose exemptions again. Michigan lets you pick either the federal exemption set or the state exemption set, but you cannot combine the two.9Michigan Legislature. MCL 600-5451 Your asset picture may look different the second or third time around, so the choice that worked last time may not be the right one now.