How To File Bankruptcy for Free in Florida Without a Lawyer

Collect Your Florida Bankruptcy Documents

Filing bankruptcy comes with a lot of paperwork. It helps to get some of your financial documents organized before you start filling out forms. That’s true whether you’re filing on your own, with Upsolve’s free filing tool, or with the help of a bankruptcy attorney.

At a minimum you’ll need:

• Your last two years of tax returns

• Your last 60 days of paycheck stubs

• Recent bank statements

🗓️ When you go to file your case, you’ll need to include your pay stubs in your filing packet. This packet is also referred to as your bankruptcy petition.

📁 The bankruptcy trustee will ask to see your last two years of tax returns and a recent bank statement that includes the filing date.

Some documents are helpful to have, but not required, as you fill out your bankruptcy forms. They include:

• Older bank statements from the last 6–12 months

• Creditor statements and bills

• Letters from collection agencies or other third-party debt collectors

• A recent credit report 

💡 You’re entitled to a free credit report every week from each of the three consumer credit reporting agencies. Your credit report is different from your credit score. Your report lists all your debt accounts. You can get your free report from AnnualCreditReport.com.

Take Credit Counseling

Before you can file your bankruptcy forms in Florida, you have to take a credit counseling course. This course explains your debt relief options so you can be sure bankruptcy is the best choice for you.

Here are some important things to know about this course:

• The course has to be completed in the 180 days (six months) before you file your case.

• The course costs $10–$50, depending on the provider, but you can apply for a fee waiver to take it for free.

• You must take the course from an approved agency.

• You need to submit the course certificate of completion to the court along with the rest of your paperwork when you file your case.

⚠️ If you don’t submit the certificate of completion with your bankruptcy forms, you won’t be able to file your case or your case may be dismissed.

Complete the Bankruptcy Forms

After you finish the credit counseling course, it’s time to fill out your bankruptcy forms. These are federal forms, so they’re mostly the same in every state, but some districts in Florida may have additional local forms. You can find more on that below.

🌐 If you’re filing on your own, you can access the federal bankruptcy forms for free as fillable PDFs at USCOURTS.gov. 

💻 If you file using Upsolve’s filing tool, you’ll answer a questionnaire and our software will generate your forms based on the answers you provide. 

🤝 If you’re working with a law firm, you’ll follow their intake process, which may be an interview or questionnaire. They’ll use that information to prepare your forms for you.

Get Your Filing Fee

There’s a $338 filing fee for Chapter 7. The fee is due to the bankruptcy court at the time you file your case. 

If you can’t pay the fee, you can request a fee waiver from the court. To qualify for a waiver, your income must be less than 150% of the federal poverty guideline. See the Florida Fee Waiver Eligibility table below. 

You can also apply to pay in installments. Filers who don’t qualify for a fee waiver but need to file quickly sometimes choose to pay in installments so they can stop creditor actions like wage garnishment, repossession, or foreclosure quickly. This is possible thanks to the automatic stay, which goes into effect as soon as you file your case.

Installments can be helpful. But if you miss a payment to the court, you risk having your case dismissed, which means you won’t receive your fresh start and you won’t get any money back that you’ve already paid. 

Print Your Bankruptcy Forms

Once you’ve got a plan for the filing fee, you can print and sign your forms.

If you don’t have a printer at your house, you can go to a local copy shop or public library to print your forms. Unfortunately, Florida bankruptcy courts don’t allow filers to use the printers at the courthouse. 

Courts are picky about how the forms are printed. Be sure to:

• Use regular, letter-size paper.

• Print on white paper with black ink only.

• Print single-sided.

• Sign in all necessary spots.

Also, be sure to double-check that you’ve printed everything. Using a checklist can be helpful.

📎 If you use Upsolve to file for bankruptcy, you’ll receive all your forms in a single downloadable packet. All the places you need to sign will be flagged. 

If you have a bankruptcy attorney, they’ll file your bankruptcy forms with the court electronically, so you don’t have to worry about printing out the forms yourself.

File Your Forms With the Florida Bankruptcy Court

To file your forms, you usually need to go to your local court in person or send your paperwork via mail. Pro se filers can’t file bankruptcy online in Florida.

💡 If the courthouse isn’t too far away, it’s good to file your bankruptcy case in person. That way, if there’s an error in your paperwork, the clerk at the court can tell you, and you may be able to fix the problem immediately. 

Mail Documents to Your Trustee

After you file your bankruptcy petition, the court will assign a trustee to your case. 

👉 The bankruptcy trustee is a person who reviews your forms and makes sure everything follows the bankruptcy rules.

The bankruptcy court will send you an official notice with the name and contact information of your bankruptcy trustee within 1–2 weeks of filing your case. 

The trustee will want to see certain documents so they can verify your identity and information. 

You’re required to send the following documents to your trustee at least seven days before your meeting with them: 

• Your federal income tax returns for the last two years

• A bank statement that covers your filing date

If your trustee requests additional documents, send those as well. If you don’t hear from your bankruptcy trustee within 2–3 weeks of filing, you can contact their office to ask what documents you can provide.

Take a Debtor Education Course

Next, you need to take another course called the debtor education course. It’s also referred to as the financial management course because it teaches skills like budgeting so you can get the most from your fresh start. 

You can take this course on the phone, over the internet, or in person. It doesn’t matter how you attend as long as you take the course from an approved provider.

You also need to finish the course and file a certification of completion with the court within 60 days of your creditors’ meeting, which we talk more about in the next section. 

⚠️ If you don’t finish the course and file the certificate in the required time frame, you won’t be eligible for a bankruptcy discharge. That’s the court order that erases your debt. 

Attend Your 341 Meeting

Your 341 meeting is sometimes called the creditors’ meeting or meeting of creditors. 

🔑 Here’s what key to know this meeting:

• It occurs 1–2 months after your bankruptcy filing. 

• It will be held virtually or in person. You'll get a notice explaining the time and location of your meeting. 

• It usually takes less than 10 minutes.

• Creditors are allowed to attend, but they almost never do.

• After the meeting is complete, most filers get their discharge within 60–90 days.

People tend to get very nervous before the 341 meeting, but they’re usually pretty painless. Typically, nothing goes wrong.

📹 Upsolve made a video to help you prepare for your 341 meeting. It runs through the general questions that the bankruptcy trustee will ask.

Deal With Your Car (if You Have One)

In Florida, having a car is often essential. So it’s common to worry about losing your vehicle when filing bankruptcy. Fortunately, many people are able to keep their car. 

Whether or not you can keep yours depends on a few key things:

• How much your car is worth

• Whether you own it outright, still make payments, or lease it

• What property exemptions you qualify for

🔎 We’ll cover Florida’s exemptions in more detail later. For now, let’s look at your general options.

If you’re making loan payments on your car, you have three main options:

• Reaffirm the loan: With a reaffirmation agreement, you can keep the car and continue making regular payments on the car loan. You can usually use this option if you’re current on your payments and want to stay in the loan agreement.

• Redeem the car: Redemption means you pay the lender the current fair market value of the car in a single lump sum. If the car is worth less than what you owe, the remaining loan balance will be wiped out in the bankruptcy. People who are underwater on their car loan may choose this option if they have access to the lump sum needed.

• Surrender the car: Sometimes called voluntary surrender, this means you give the car back to the lender so you can erase the loan debt. Many people choose this if they’re behind on payments and can’t catch up or if the car isn’t worth keeping. You can always buy a car after bankruptcy. Many filers do.

🚗 If you own the car outright, you’ll be able to keep it if it’s covered by the state’s $5,000 motor vehicle exemption. Or you can protect an additional $4,000 — for a total of $9,000 — if you don’t use the homestead exemption. If your car’s fair market value is less than the exemption amount, you can usually keep it.

Leased vehicles work a little differently. To learn more, read our guide to leases in bankruptcy.