After Chapter 7, What Debts Get Discharged?

Chapter 7 wipes out most unsecured debt, meaning debt not backed by collateral. Credit cards, medical bills, personal loans, utility bills, and past rent typically get a full discharge, so you are no longer legally required to pay them.

The common thread is that these obligations are not tied to repaying specific property, and no special legal rule protects them from discharge. The effectiveness of the discharge does depend on the creditor not successfully proving fraud or other misconduct, but for the vast majority of filers with standard consumer debt, these balances simply disappear.

Most unsecured debts are eligible for discharge in Chapter 7, meaning you are no longer personally liable for them. Here are the most common ones that typically qualify, provided no fraud is involved.

• Credit card balances and store charge cards
• Medical and hospital bills, including emergency room and surgery costs
• Personal loans from banks, credit unions, or online lenders
• Past-due utility bills for electric, gas, water, or phone service
• Deficiency balances after a repossession or foreclosure, when the sale doesn't cover the full loan amount
• Older income tax debts that meet specific timing and filing rules
• Unsecured lines of credit and overdraft charges on closed accounts

Creditors cannot legally attempt to collect any discharged debt once the court issues your discharge order.

Not all tax debts survive bankruptcy. Certain old income tax obligations can be wiped out in Chapter 7, but only if they meet a strict set of timing and compliance rules. The tax must be income-based, the return must have been filed honestly, and specific deadlines must have passed before you filed for bankruptcy. If even one requirement is missed, the debt usually remains.

Taxes that may be dischargeable include:

• Federal or state income taxes from a return originally due (including extensions) at least three years before filing.
• Taxes from a return you filed at least two years before filing for bankruptcy.
• Taxes the IRS assessed at least 240 days before you filed.
• Taxes where you didn't commit fraud or willful evasion.

In Chapter 7, domestic support obligations, including child support and spousal maintenance (alimony), cannot be discharged. The Bankruptcy Code permanently excludes these debts from the fresh start a discharge provides, so you remain legally responsible for paying them in full, including any interest that accrues.

Common nondischargeable examples include past-due child support, current alimony payments, and any divorce decree obligations that function as support, such as paying a former spouse's mortgage or medical bills. Even fees owed to a state child support agency or amounts you were ordered to pay to cover your ex-spouse's attorney in a family law case typically survive bankruptcy. The key test is whether the debt exists to provide support, not whether it is labeled as a property settlement, though labels in the court order still carry weight. Because of this, any debt that looks like a property division but is actually support in substance will usually survive your discharge.

Student loans are generally not wiped out in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. To eliminate this debt, you must file a separate lawsuit within your bankruptcy case, called an **adversary proceeding**, and prove that repaying the loans would cause you and your dependents undue hardship. This is a high legal bar, and courts use different tests to measure it, with many requiring you to show a certainty of hopelessness in your financial future, not just a current struggle.

For most filers, the practical outcome is that federal and private student loans survive the discharge order. Because winning an undue hardship case is difficult, many people use Chapter 7 to clear other debts first, freeing up income to manage their student loan payments afterward. You should assume your loans will remain unless a bankruptcy attorney reviews your specific medical and financial circumstances and believes a hardship argument has a realistic chance in your jurisdiction.

When you surrender collateral in Chapter 7, your personal obligation to pay the loan is typically discharged, which means the lender cannot pursue you for any remaining balance after they sell the asset. The discharge wipes out the debt, and the lender's only remedy is to take back and sell the property. Here's how it works in practice:

• Car loans and vehicles: If you surrender the car, the lender sells it at auction. The discharged debt includes the entire remaining loan balance, even if the sale price falls far short of what you owed (a deficiency balance).
• Mortgages and foreclosure: Surrendering a home in bankruptcy eliminates your personal liability on the mortgage. The lender forecloses, but you are shielded from a deficiency judgment in most cases.
• Purchase money security interests: For loans used specifically to buy the item that secures them (like furniture or electronics), surrendering the collateral and receiving a discharge usually ends your responsibility entirely.

The key outcome is that the discharge acts as a permanent legal shield against any personal collection for the debt. After surrender, the lender's only avenue is the collateral itself. They cannot call you, sue you, or send collection letters for the unpaid portion once the discharge order is entered.

Filing Chapter 7 wipes out your personal obligation to pay a cosigned loan, but it does absolutely nothing to protect the person who cosigned with you. The lender can, and often will, turn directly to the cosigner for the full remaining balance. Here is exactly what that means in practice:

• The cosigner remains fully liable. The loan contract they signed is still valid, and bankruptcy does not erase their promise to pay.
• Collection efforts will shift entirely to them. Once the automatic stay stops protecting you, calls, letters, and lawsuits can target the cosigner immediately.
• A cosigner's credit takes the hit. If you miss payments before filing or stop paying after, that negative history usually lands on the cosigner's credit report and can drop their score significantly.
• This applies even if you never missed a payment. A cosigner's credit report can still show a discharged debt, which may scare off future lenders who view it as a risk.

The practical fallout is that your fresh start can come at a heavy cost to a relationship. The only way to truly protect a cosigner is to keep paying the loan voluntarily after your case closes, or to explore reaffirming the debt (which puts you back on the hook). Without those steps, the debt becomes their problem alone.

Not every debt that survives Chapter 7 is obvious from your court papers. Some obligations fly under the radar because they are never listed in your schedules, or they arise from facts the bankruptcy code simply won't wipe out. These hidden debts remain your legal responsibility even after you get a discharge, and discovering them too late can lead to a surprise collection attempt. The key is knowing where to look before you assume the slate is clean.

Use these steps to spot debts that don't go away:

1. Scan for unfiled debts you still owe.

If a creditor doesn't get official notice of your case, the debt might survive. This often happens with forgotten medical bills, personal loans from relatives, or old utility accounts. Pull a recent credit report and compare it against your petition; anything missing deserves a closer look.

2. Trace debts tied to fraud or misrepresentation.

A creditor doesn't need to object during your case to keep a debt alive if it falls under the fraud exception. Debts obtained through false financial statements, recent luxury purchases on credit, or intentional injury to property often remain enforceable even without a court ruling.

3. Identify post-petition obligations.

Any debt you rack up after the moment you file is yours, period. This includes emergency medical care, new leases, or credit card charges made before you officially surrender the card but after the filing date.

4. Examine secured debts on kept property.

If you decide to keep a car or house and continue paying, the debt itself isn't discharged. You are only freed from personal liability if you surrender the collateral. Keeping the asset keeps the obligation alive.

5. Check for government fines and penalties.

Traffic tickets, criminal restitution, and certain court-ordered fines are not dischargeable, even if you forgot to list them. They will resurface through license holds, tax intercepts, or wage garnishments.

One practical move: ask your attorney to run a post-discharge audit of debts that might have slipped through. Your discharge order is powerful, but it has precise boundaries you need to understand.

The discharge order permanently bars creditors from attempting to collect any debt that was actually discharged in your Chapter 7 case. Once the court issues this order, collectors must stop all phone calls, letters, lawsuits, wage garnishments, and any other effort to recover those eliminated balances. This federal injunction is not a suggestion or a temporary pause; it is a permanent legal prohibition that you can enforce. If a creditor contacts you after discharge, you can inform them of the bankruptcy and they typically must cease immediately, or you may have grounds to ask the court to sanction them for violating the order.

However, this protection applies only to debts the court released. Creditors holding nondischargeable obligations, such as recent tax debts, domestic support arrears, or most student loans, remain free to pursue collection because those liabilities survived the bankruptcy. This is why it is critical to compare your list of creditors against your discharge order so you know exactly which contacts you can stop and which ones you still must address.