How Do You File for Bankruptcy in Massachusetts?

You file in federal court, not a Massachusetts state court, and the single decision that shapes the outcome is one most people have never heard of: Massachusetts lets you choose between the state exemption list and the federal one, and you have to pick a side. Consumer cases run under Chapter 7, which sells what is not exempt and wipes out most of the rest, or Chapter 13, which keeps everything and pays a court-approved plan over three or five years. Which one you qualify for turns on a means test measured against the Massachusetts median family income, which for cases filed on or after July 15, 2026 is $88,202 for one person and $112,708 for a household of two. Before any of that, one number decides the exemption choice for most Massachusetts homeowners: the declared homestead exemption under M.G.L. c. 188, sec. 1 is $1,000,000, against a federal homestead of $31,575. To talk through a specific situation, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.

The Court Is Federal, and It Sits in Three Massachusetts Cities

This is the first thing people get wrong, and it costs them a wasted trip.

Bankruptcy is not a Massachusetts proceeding. There is no bankruptcy session at the Superior Court, the District Court or the Probate and Family Court. Every consumer case filed by a Massachusetts resident goes to the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Massachusetts, which is a federal court applying a federal statute, the Bankruptcy Code at Title 11 of the United States Code.

That court holds sessions in three cities: Boston, Worcester and Springfield. Which one hears a case depends on where the debtor lives, under the court’s own local rules. If you are unsure which courthouse yours belongs to, that is a question for the clerk’s office rather than a question to guess at, because filing in the wrong division creates a transfer and a delay rather than a dismissal.

What makes Massachusetts law matter in a federal case is exemptions. The Bankruptcy Code decides the procedure; state law decides, in large part, what you get to keep. That is the subject of most of this article.

Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 Answer Two Different Questions

The chapters are not tiers. They are different tools, and the wrong one is not a cheaper version of the right one.

Chapter 7 is the liquidation chapter, and for most consumer filers nothing is actually liquidated. A trustee is appointed, reviews the schedules, and sells any property that is not covered by an exemption. In a large share of consumer cases there is nothing to sell, the trustee files a report saying so, and the case ends with a discharge roughly three to four months after filing. Chapter 7 answers the question “I cannot pay this and I never will be able to.”

Chapter 13 is the repayment chapter, and it exists for problems Chapter 7 cannot solve. It stops a foreclosure and lets a homeowner cure the arrears over time. It protects property that exceeds the exemptions, because nothing is sold in a Chapter 13. It handles debts that a Chapter 7 discharge would leave standing, including most tax debt and domestic support arrears, by paying them through the plan. Under 11 U.S.C. sec. 1322(d) the plan runs three years for a debtor whose income is below the state median and five years for a debtor above it, and no plan may run longer than five years. Chapter 13 answers the question “I can pay something, and I need time and protection while I do.”

Choosing between them is not usually a preference. It is usually determined by the means test, by what property is at stake, and by whether there is a house with arrears on it.

The Means Test Uses a Massachusetts Number, and the Number Changes

The means test compares your household income to the median family income for a Massachusetts household of the same size. The U.S. Trustee Program publishes the table, and it is revised periodically, which is why any figure quoted on a webpage needs a date attached to it.

For cases filed on or after July 15, 2026, the Massachusetts figures are:

Household size	Median family income
1	$88,202
2	$112,708
3	$139,411
4	$178,524

Add $11,100 for each individual in a household of more than four.

Two things about that table are commonly misunderstood. First, the income it measures is not last year’s tax return. It is the average of the six full calendar months before the month of filing, multiplied out to an annual figure, which means a person who was laid off in March can look very different in July than they did in April. Second, being above the median does not disqualify anyone from Chapter 7. It moves the analysis to the second half of the test, where actual allowed expenses are deducted, and a household with high income and high secured debt can still land below the line.

Answer Capsule

Filing for bankruptcy in Massachusetts means filing in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Massachusetts, a federal court with sessions in Boston, Worcester and Springfield, rather than in any Massachusetts state court. Consumer cases proceed under Chapter 7, which discharges most unsecured debt after a trustee reviews and sells any non-exempt property, or under Chapter 13, which keeps all property and pays a court-approved plan running three years below the state median income and five years above it under 11 U.S.C. sec. 1322(d). Eligibility turns on a means test measured against the Massachusetts median family income, which for cases filed on or after July 15, 2026 is $88,202 for one person, $112,708 for two, $139,411 for three and $178,524 for four, plus $11,100 for each additional individual. Massachusetts has not opted out of the federal exemption scheme, so under 11 U.S.C. sec. 522(b)(1) a filer chooses either the Massachusetts exemption list or the federal one and may not combine them. The Massachusetts list at M.G.L. c. 235, sec. 34 protects, among other things, household furniture to $15,000, tools of trade to $5,000, an automobile to $7,500 of wholesale resale value and $15,000 for a debtor who is sixty or older or handicapped, $2,500 in cash or deposits, and wages equal to the greater of 85 per cent of gross wages or fifty times the minimum wage, which at the current $15.00 Massachusetts minimum is $750 per week. The homestead usually decides the choice: M.G.L. c. 188, sec. 1 sets the automatic homestead exemption at $125,000 and the declared homestead exemption at $1,000,000, against a federal homestead of $31,575 under 11 U.S.C. sec. 522(d)(1). This is general information about Massachusetts and federal bankruptcy law and not legal advice.

The Massachusetts Choice: State Exemptions or Federal Ones

Under 11 U.S.C. sec. 522(b)(1), “an individual debtor may exempt from property of the estate the property listed in either paragraph (2) or, in the alternative, paragraph (3)”. Paragraph (2) is the federal list at subsection (d). Paragraph (3) is the list your state provides. Subsection (b)(2) then allows a state to take the federal option away, and roughly two thirds of states have done exactly that.

Massachusetts has not. A Massachusetts filer gets the choice, which is a genuine advantage and also a genuine trap, because the choice is all or nothing. You take the entire Massachusetts list or the entire federal list. There is no assembling a better list out of the best parts of each.

The comparison that decides it for most people is short:

Category	Massachusetts	Federal
Home equity	$125,000 automatic, $1,000,000 declared	$31,575
Automobile	$7,500, or $15,000 if sixty or older or handicapped	$5,025
Wildcard, usable on anything	$1,000, plus up to $5,000 of unused furniture, tools and vehicle exemption	Larger, and includes a substantial unused-homestead component

For a Massachusetts homeowner with real equity, the state list is usually not close. For a renter with no house, no car worth much and a bank account, the federal list is frequently better, because the federal wildcard is generous and the federal homestead the renter is not using can be redirected to other property.

What the Massachusetts List Actually Protects

The Massachusetts exemption list lives at M.G.L. c. 235, sec. 34, and it opens by stating that “the following property of the debtor shall be exempt from seizure on execution”. It is a long, old and specific list, and reading the actual text is more useful than reading a summary of it.

The clauses that matter in most consumer cases:

Household goods. The Second clause exempts “other household furniture necessary for the debtor and the debtor’s family, not exceeding $15,000 in value”. The First clause separately protects necessary clothing, beds and bedding, one heating unit, one stove, one refrigerator, one freezer and one hot water heater, without any dollar cap on those items, plus up to $500 a month for fuel, heat, water and light.

A vehicle. The Sixteenth clause exempts “an automobile necessary for the debtor’s personal transportation or to secure or maintain employment, not exceeding $7,500 of wholesale resale value”, and raises that to $15,000 in wholesale resale value for a vehicle owned or substantially used by “a handicapped person or a person 60 years of age or older”. Note the measure. It is wholesale resale value, which is a trade-in figure rather than what a dealer would ask for the same car.

The means of earning a living. The Fifth clause exempts tools, implements and fixtures necessary for the debtor’s trade or business to $5,000, and the Sixth adds materials and stock to a further $5,000.

Cash and wages. The Fifteenth clause exempts “$2,500 in cash or savings or other deposits in a banking or investment institution”, and protects “wages equal to the greater of 85 per cent of the debtor’s gross wages or 50 times the greater of the federal or the Massachusetts hourly minimum wage for each week or portion thereof”. The Massachusetts minimum wage is $15.00 an hour, so that second figure is $750 a week. The same clause fully protects public assistance.

The wildcard. The Seventeenth clause exempts “the debtor’s aggregate interest in any personal property, not to exceed $1,000 in value, plus up to $5,000 of any unused dollar amount of the aggregate exemptions provided under clauses Second, Fifth and Sixteenth”. That is the clause that catches the things nothing else covers, and its size depends on how much of the furniture, tools and vehicle exemptions you did not need.

Renters. The Fourteenth clause is easy to miss and matters to anyone who does not own. It exempts estates of homestead under chapter 188, “or, in lieu thereof, the amount of money each rental period, not exceeding $2,500 per month, necessary to pay the rent for the dwelling unit occupied by the debtor and the debtor’s family”.

The list also still exempts “2 cows, 12 sheep, 2 swine and 4 tons of hay”, a pew in a house of public worship, and the arms and accoutrements of a militia officer. Those clauses are not jokes. They are the visible age of a statute that has been amended around its edges for well over a century, and they are a fair warning that the dollar figures in it were set at particular moments and are not indexed to anything.

The Homestead Is Where the Real Money Is, and Most Pages Have the Number Wrong

If you own a home in Massachusetts, this section is the one that matters.

M.G.L. c. 188 protects equity in a principal residence from most unsecured creditors, and it does so at two levels. Section 1 defines the “Automatic homestead exemption” as “an exemption in the amount of $125,000 pursuant to section 4”. That protection exists without paperwork, for any owner occupying the home as a principal residence.

The same section defines the “Declared homestead exemption” as “an exemption in the amount of $1,000,000 created by a written declaration, executed and recorded pursuant to section 5”.

One million dollars. Not five hundred thousand.

That figure is worth stating flatly because the older number is still everywhere. The declared homestead was $500,000 for years, and it was raised to $1,000,000 by section 51 of chapter 150 of the Acts of 2024, the Affordable Homes Act, effective August 6, 2024. A great many Massachusetts law-firm pages, article archives and summaries still print $500,000, and until this morning several pages on this site did too. If you recorded a declaration before August 6, 2024, you do not need to record a new one to get the higher amount.

The mechanics are simple and cheap. Under M.G.L. c. 188, sec. 3, the declared estate of homestead is “created by a written declaration executed and recorded in accordance with section 5”, which means recorded at the Registry of Deeds for the county where the home is. It is a short document and the recording fee is modest. The difference between having recorded it and not having recorded it is $875,000 of protected equity.

A few limits are worth knowing before anyone relies on this. The homestead does not defeat a mortgage, a home equity line, most tax liens, or a support order. It applies to a principal residence, and section 1 provides that “no person shall hold concurrent rights in more than 1 principal residence”. Where a home is held by tenants in common or trust beneficiaries, the declared exemption is divided among the co-owners who live there rather than multiplied by them, while joint tenants and tenants by the entirety keep it “whole and unallocated”. And a homestead recorded shortly before a bankruptcy filing invites scrutiny that one recorded years earlier does not.

What Filing Does the Moment It Is Filed

Whatever chapter it is, the petition itself does something immediately. Under 11 U.S.C. sec. 362, filing triggers the automatic stay, which stops collection actions, lawsuits, wage garnishments, foreclosure sales and collection calls while it is in effect. It is not a request and it does not wait for a hearing. It takes effect when the case is filed.

Two steps follow for every consumer filer. Before filing, 11 U.S.C. sec. 109(h) requires credit counseling from an approved agency within the 180 days before the petition, with narrow exceptions. After filing, the trustee holds a meeting of creditors, commonly called the 341 meeting after the section that creates it, generally within about three to seven weeks of the filing. The debtor attends under oath and answers questions from the trustee. Creditors may attend and usually do not. A bankruptcy judge is not present.

What Bankruptcy Does Not Do

Being clear about the limits saves people from filing for the wrong reason.

A discharge does not erase most student loans, recent tax obligations, domestic support arrears, criminal fines and restitution, or debts arising from fraud, from wilful and malicious injury, or from a death or injury caused by driving under the influence. It does not remove a valid mortgage or car lien from the property securing it, which is why keeping a house or a financed car means continuing to pay for it.

Bankruptcy also does not undo an injury claim, and this is a point that catches people who are dealing with both at once. A personal injury claim you already had when you filed is an asset of the bankruptcy estate, and it has to be disclosed on the schedules even if nothing has been recovered and no suit has been filed. Failing to list it can cost the claim entirely. If you are carrying both a debt problem and an injury claim, the two need to be handled with each other in view, not in separate rooms. Related reading on the injury side: what a settlement is actually worth after medical liens are paid, whether an injury settlement is taxable in Massachusetts, and the filing deadlines for every kind of Massachusetts claim.

One more thing bankruptcy does not do: it does not license abusive collection conduct in the meantime. Unfair or deceptive collection practices are reachable under the Massachusetts consumer protection statute, and the mechanics of that are on our page about the 93A demand letter.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Where do you file for bankruptcy in Massachusetts?

A: In the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Massachusetts, which is a federal court, not a Massachusetts state court. It holds sessions in Boston, Worcester and Springfield, and which one hears a case depends on where the debtor lives under the court’s local rules. Nothing about a consumer bankruptcy is filed in the Superior Court, District Court or Probate and Family Court.

Q: How much home equity does the Massachusetts homestead protect?

A: Under M.G.L. c. 188, sec. 1, $125,000 automatically for any owner occupying the home as a principal residence, and $1,000,000 if a written declaration has been executed and recorded at the Registry of Deeds under sections 3 and 5. The declared figure was raised from $500,000 to $1,000,000 by section 51 of chapter 150 of the Acts of 2024, effective August 6, 2024, and a declaration recorded before that date does not need to be re-recorded to get the higher amount. Many published summaries still print the old number.

Q: Can I use the federal exemptions in Massachusetts?

A: Yes. Massachusetts has not opted out, so 11 U.S.C. sec. 522(b)(1) gives a Massachusetts filer the choice between the federal list at subsection (d) and the Massachusetts list at M.G.L. c. 235, sec. 34 together with the c. 188 homestead. The choice is all or nothing and the two lists cannot be combined. Homeowners with equity almost always do better on the Massachusetts side because of the homestead; renters frequently do better on the federal side because of the larger federal wildcard.

Q: What is the income limit for Chapter 7 in Massachusetts?

A: There is no flat limit. The means test compares your average monthly income over the six full calendar months before filing, annualised, to the Massachusetts median family income for your household size. For cases filed on or after July 15, 2026 those figures are $88,202 for one person, $112,708 for two, $139,411 for three and $178,524 for four, plus $11,100 for each additional individual. Coming in above the median does not end the inquiry; it moves it to a second stage where allowed expenses are deducted.

Q: Will I lose my car if I file in Massachusetts?

A: Usually not. M.G.L. c. 235, sec. 34, Sixteenth exempts an automobile necessary for personal transportation or for keeping a job up to $7,500 of wholesale resale value, and up to $15,000 for a vehicle owned or substantially used by a person who is sixty or older or handicapped. The measure is wholesale resale value, which is closer to a trade-in figure than to a dealer’s asking price, and it applies to your equity rather than to the sticker. A car with a loan on it also has to keep being paid for if you intend to keep it.

Q: How much of my paycheck is protected in Massachusetts?

A: M.G.L. c. 235, sec. 34, Fifteenth protects wages equal to the greater of 85 per cent of gross wages or fifty times the higher of the federal or Massachusetts hourly minimum wage for each week. With the Massachusetts minimum wage at $15.00 an hour, that second measure is $750 a week. The same clause exempts $2,500 in cash or deposits and protects public assistance in full.

Q: How long does a Massachusetts bankruptcy take?

A: A straightforward Chapter 7 usually reaches discharge roughly three to four months after filing, with the meeting of creditors falling somewhere in the first several weeks. A Chapter 13 runs the length of the plan, which under 11 U.S.C. sec. 1322(d) is three years for a debtor below the state median income and five years for a debtor above it, and no plan may exceed five years. The automatic stay under 11 U.S.C. sec. 362 begins at filing in both.

Q: I have a personal injury claim and I am also thinking about bankruptcy. Does that matter?

A: It matters a great deal, and the order of operations is not obvious. A claim that already existed when you filed belongs to the bankruptcy estate and must be listed on the schedules even if you have not sued anyone and have not recovered anything. Leaving it off can forfeit the claim. Exemptions may protect some or all of a recovery depending on which list you chose and what the recovery is for. This is one of the situations where getting advice before filing rather than after is worth a great deal.

Q: Is Jimmy Knows AI giving me legal advice?

A: No. This is general information about Massachusetts and federal bankruptcy law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Which chapter fits, which exemption list is better and whether a homestead declaration should be recorded all depend on facts a general article cannot see. To discuss a specific situation, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is free.

Talking to a Lawyer

The mistake worth avoiding is not choosing the wrong chapter. It is filing before anyone has looked at the exemption question, because the exemption election is made on the schedules and is not something to improvise. A Massachusetts homeowner who takes the federal list by default gives away the difference between a $1,000,000 declared homestead and a $31,575 federal one. A renter who takes the state list by default gives away a federal wildcard they could have used on a bank account. Neither error announces itself at the time.

Jim Glaser Law takes calls about Massachusetts consumer bankruptcy. The intake call captures income, expenses, the asset and debt picture, and any creditor pressure already underway, and the firm either handles the matter or connects the client with a Massachusetts consumer-bankruptcy partner attorney at no extra cost to the client. Bankruptcy matters are billed on a fixed-fee or hourly basis, set out in a written fee agreement. The line at (617) JIM-WINS is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is free.