How to File Bankruptcy in Washington State: Steps, Exemptions, and Costs

To file bankruptcy in Washington State, you complete a pre-filing credit counseling session with a U.S. Trustee-approved agency, decide between Chapter 7 and Chapter 13, choose either Washington’s state exemptions or the federal exemption list, prepare Official Form 101 along with your schedules and means test form, and submit the petition to the Western or Eastern District bankruptcy court depending on where you live. The filing fee is $338 for Chapter 7 or $313 for Chapter 13. A Chapter 7 case usually reaches discharge in four to six months; a Chapter 13 plan runs three to five years.

Decide Between Chapter 7 and Chapter 13

Chapter 7 is a liquidation. A court-appointed trustee can sell your non-exempt assets and distribute the proceeds; qualifying debts left over are discharged, usually within about four months of filing.¹ Most individual Chapter 7 cases in practice are “no-asset” cases, where exemptions cover everything and the trustee sells nothing.

Chapter 13 keeps your property and puts you on a three-to-five-year repayment plan funded by your monthly payments to a trustee. Remaining qualifying debts are discharged at the end.² It tends to be the right tool if you’re behind on a mortgage or car loan and need time to catch up while holding onto the collateral.

The choice isn’t always yours. The means test compares your household’s average monthly income over the six months before filing to Washington’s median for a household your size. For cases filed on or after November 1, 2025, those median figures are $86,314 for a single filer, $104,354 for a two-person household, $128,360 for three, and $152,553 for four, with $11,100 added for each additional person.³ Come in below your threshold and you qualify for Chapter 7. Come in above it and a second calculation subtracts allowable expenses to see whether you have enough disposable income to fund a plan; if you do, the court will presume Chapter 7 is an abuse and push you into Chapter 13.⁴

Choose Washington or Federal Exemptions

Washington is one of the states that lets filers pick either the state exemption list or the federal list. You choose one set for the entire case, and once you file, the choice is locked.⁵ This is the most consequential decision in the whole process because it determines what property you keep.

Washington State Exemptions

The Washington homestead exemption protects equity in your primary residence up to the greater of $125,000 or the county median sale price of a single-family home from the preceding calendar year.⁶ In many Washington counties, that median sale price runs far above $125,000. Married couples filing jointly cannot double the homestead under the state list.

State personal property exemptions cover clothing and personal items (up to $3,500 for furs, jewelry, and ornaments), household goods and furniture (up to $6,500 per person), and tools of the trade (up to $15,000).⁷

Federal Exemptions

The federal homestead exemption is $31,575, which married couples filing jointly can double to $63,150. That’s lower than what most Washington counties offer under the state list, so the federal set usually pays off only for filers with little or no home equity. Its strength is the wildcard: up to $1,675 in any property, plus up to $15,800 of unused homestead exemption, for a potential wildcard of $17,475 that can shield cash, tax refunds, or anything else.⁵ Renters with significant savings or a pending personal injury claim often come out ahead under the federal list.

Complete Credit Counseling and Gather Records

Before you file anything, you must complete a credit counseling briefing from an agency approved by the U.S. Trustee’s office. Your certificate must reflect a session completed within 180 days before your filing date, or it won’t count.⁸ Joint filers each take the course separately. Sessions typically cost between $10 and $50, and agencies must waive or reduce the fee for filers earning under 150% of the federal poverty guidelines.

Alongside the counseling, pull together the paperwork the court will demand:

Federal income tax returns for the four most recent tax years. All returns for periods ending within four years of filing need to be on file with the IRS, even if you’re behind.⁹
Pay stubs or self-employment records covering the six months before your filing date. These feed the means test directly.
A complete creditor list with each creditor’s name, mailing address, and exact balance. A missed creditor can mean that debt survives your discharge.
An inventory of everything you own, from real estate and vehicles to bank balances and household items.¹⁰
A monthly expense breakdown: rent or mortgage, utilities, groceries, transportation, insurance, child care. The court uses this to test whether you have disposable income.

Fill Out the Petition, Schedules, and Means Test

Bankruptcy forms are federal and identical across the country; they’re available on the U.S. Courts website. Your case starts with Official Form 101, the Voluntary Petition for Individuals Filing for Bankruptcy.¹¹ Your financial detail then goes into a series of schedules:

Schedule A/B: all real and personal property.
Schedule C: the specific exemptions you’re claiming, and whether you’re using the state or federal list.
Schedules D and E/F: secured debts (mortgages, car loans) and unsecured debts (credit cards, medical bills).
Schedules I and J: current monthly income and expenses.

Chapter 7 filers complete Official Form 122A for the means test; Chapter 13 filers use Form 122C.¹²

File in the Right Washington District

Washington has two federal bankruptcy districts. The Western District covers everything west of the Cascades, with courthouses in Seattle and Tacoma.¹³ The Eastern District covers the rest of the state, with offices in Spokane and Yakima.¹⁴ File in the district where you’ve lived for the greater part of the 180 days before your filing date.¹⁵

Pro se filers in the Eastern District can build and submit a Chapter 7 petition through the court’s Electronic Self-Representation (eSR) tool.¹⁶ Pro se filers in the Western District generally submit by mail or in person at the clerk’s office. Attorneys in both districts file electronically through CM/ECF.

Filing Fees and Fee Relief

The court filing fee is $338 for Chapter 7 and $313 for Chapter 13.¹⁷ If you can’t pay upfront, Official Form 103A lets you request installment payments and Official Form 103B lets you ask for a full waiver based on income. Show up without payment or one of those forms and the case gets dismissed.

Emergency (Skeleton) Filing

If a foreclosure sale, wage garnishment, or repossession is imminent, you can file a skeleton petition to trigger the automatic stay right away. You submit the petition, your creditor contact information, your credit counseling certificate (or waiver request), and your Social Security information form. Everything else must follow within 14 days or the court dismisses the case.

What Happens After You File

The Automatic Stay

The instant your petition is docketed, an automatic stay takes effect. Collection calls stop, lawsuits freeze, wage garnishments pause, and pending foreclosures or repossessions are put on hold.¹⁸ Some exceptions apply: criminal proceedings and other government police and regulatory actions continue, and a landlord who already had a judgment for possession before you filed may still be able to move forward. If you had a bankruptcy case dismissed within the prior year, the new stay expires after 30 days unless you get a court order extending it.

The Meeting of Creditors

Between roughly 20 and 40 days after filing, you’ll attend a Meeting of Creditors, known as a 341 meeting. Creditors rarely appear; the trustee runs the session under oath. Bring a government-issued photo ID and your original Social Security card. The trustee verifies your identity, tests the accuracy of your schedules, and asks about assets, income, and debts.¹⁹ Most meetings last about ten minutes when the paperwork is clean.

Chapter 13 Plan Confirmation

Chapter 13 filers have an extra step: getting the repayment plan confirmed. A confirmation hearing is scheduled no sooner than 20 days and no later than 45 days after the 341 meeting. The plan must pay priority debts in full (such as recent taxes and domestic support), cure any mortgage or car loan arrears, and pay unsecured creditors at least what they’d receive in a Chapter 7 liquidation.

Debtor Education and the Discharge

After filing, you must take a second course on personal financial management from a provider approved by the U.S. Trustee’s office and file the certificate of completion. Skip it and the court cannot enter your discharge.²⁰ The course generally costs between $0 and $50.

In a Chapter 7, the discharge order typically arrives 60 to 90 days after the 341 meeting.²¹ In Chapter 13, discharge comes after you finish all payments under your confirmed plan, three to five years out.

Debts Bankruptcy Will Not Erase

Some debts survive both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13. If your worst obligations sit in this list, filing may not deliver the relief you’re picturing.²²

Domestic support obligations. Child support and alimony are never discharged.
Most student loans, unless you can prove “undue hardship.”
Recent income tax debt. Income taxes can be discharged only if the return was due more than three years before filing, was actually filed more than two years before filing, and the tax was assessed more than 240 days before filing. Miss any window and the tax survives.²³
Debts from fraud or false pretenses.
Debts for death or personal injury caused by driving while intoxicated.
Criminal fines and most government-imposed penalties.
Debts you left off your schedules, if the creditor didn’t learn of the case in time to file a claim.

What the Whole Process Costs

Court filing fees are fixed: $338 for Chapter 7, $313 for Chapter 13.¹⁷ Pre-filing credit counseling runs roughly $10 to $50, and the post-filing debtor education course costs about the same. Both must be waived or reduced for filers below 150% of the poverty line.

Attorney fees in Washington generally run $1,000 to $2,000 for a Chapter 7 case. Chapter 13 attorney fees are typically around $3,500, and many courts allow those fees to be built into the repayment plan so you don’t pay them all upfront. Filing without a lawyer is legal but carries real risk if you own a home, run a business, or have a complicated asset picture, since the exemption choice alone can determine whether you keep property worth many times the attorney’s fee.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC Ch. 7 – Liquidation
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC Ch. 13 – Adjustment of Debts of an Individual With Regular Income
3
U.S. Department of Justice. Census Bureau Median Family Income By Family Size
4
U.S. Department of Justice. Means Testing
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 522 – Exemptions
6
Washington State Legislature. Revised Code of Washington 6.13.030 – Homestead Exemption Amount
7
Washington State Legislature. Revised Code of Washington 6.15.010 – Exempt Property
8
United States Bankruptcy Court District of Columbia. Notice to All Debtors About Prepetition Credit Counseling Requirement
9
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 908 – Bankruptcy Tax Guide
10
Cornell Law School – Legal Information Institute (LII). Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure Rule 1007 – Lists, Schedules, Statements, and Other Documents; Time to File
11
U.S. Courts. Official Form 101 – Voluntary Petition for Individuals Filing for Bankruptcy
12
United States Courts. Official Form 122A-1 – Chapter 7 Statement of Your Current Monthly Income
13
United States Bankruptcy Court. Western District of Washington – United States Bankruptcy Court
14
United States Bankruptcy Court. Office Locations and Hours
15
Legal Information Institute (LII) / Cornell Law School. Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure Rule 1014 – Transferring a Case to Another District
16
United States Bankruptcy Court Eastern District of Washington. Electronic Self Representation (eSR)
17
United States Bankruptcy Court Western District of Washington. Bankruptcy Court Miscellaneous Fee Schedule (28 USC 1930)
18
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 U.S. Code 362 – Automatic Stay
19
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 341 – Meetings of Creditors and Equity Security Holders
20
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 727 – Discharge
21
United States Courts. Discharge in Bankruptcy – Bankruptcy Basics
22
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 523 – Exceptions to Discharge
23
Internal Revenue Service. Declaring Bankruptcy