How to Apply for Bankruptcy in Australia

Applying for your own bankruptcy in Australia costs nothing to file, but related AFSA processes, from a creditor's bankruptcy notice to an overseas travel application, carry separate fees of up to $470.

This guide covers how to apply for bankruptcy as a debtor, what AFSA charges for that application and for the fees that apply to other steps in the process, and how to get confirmation once a bankruptcy has ended. It assumes bankruptcy is the option a reader has already decided on; for a comparison against a debt agreement or a personal insolvency agreement, see the bankruptcy hub.

Applying online through AFSA

A debtor applies for their own bankruptcy by lodging two forms together through AFSA's Online Services portal: a Debtor's Petition, the formal request to be made bankrupt, which itself carries prescribed information about alternatives and consequences that the debtor must read before signing, and a Statement of Affairs, covering income, assets, debts, and any businesses, companies, trusts or court cases the debtor is involved in. Both are completed and submitted online at the same time.

A joint application with a partner, or an application as members of a business partnership, needs each person to hold their own Online Services account and submit on the same day; a partnership application needs all partners, or the majority of Australia-resident partners, to submit. If a creditor has already made someone bankrupt through a sequestration order, that person is already bankrupt and must not complete a Debtor's Petition, a different pathway applies.

Before or while completing the forms, AFSA points applicants toward a free financial counsellor on the National Debt Helpline, 1800 007 007, or a registered trustee. A registered trustee cannot submit the online application on a debtor's behalf, only paper forms, emailed to registry@afsa.gov.au, work if a trustee is filing on someone else's account.

Once submitted, an accepted petition generates a confirmation letter with an AFSA administration number, sent to the debtor and to creditors; a rejected petition gets a written notice with reasons. Status can be checked at any time by logging into the Online Services account. A debtor can also ask, at the same time as the petition, for certain details such as an address to be withheld from the public National Personal Insolvency Index on safety grounds, though a name and date of birth can never be withheld.

What it costs to apply

Filing a debtor's petition is $0. AFSA's official fee schedule lists no lodgement fee for a debtor's petition at all, even though every other bankruptcy-related application on the same schedule does carry a fee, and a separate AFSA explainer states the point directly: "There was no fee to apply for bankruptcy." This $0 figure applies specifically to the debtor's-petition pathway. A creditor applying to make someone bankrupt is a different process with its own $470 bankruptcy notice fee, covered below.

The realisations charge and the interest charge

Once a trustee or administrator starts recovering money for creditors, two separate charges can apply, and they are easy to confuse. The realisations charge is 7% of the money a trustee or administrator receives in a bankruptcy, debt agreement, composition or personal insolvency agreement, per AFSA's current fee schedule; its statutory basis is Part 3 of the Bankruptcy (Estate Charges) Act 1997, a separate Act from the Bankruptcy Act itself, though the 7% figure rests on AFSA's own fee page rather than an independently checked reading of the Estate Charges Act's own rate-setting text.

The interest charge is not a percentage. It is the actual interest earned on money held in the estate, net of bank charges, under Part 2 of the same Estate Charges Act. Do not treat it as a fixed rate the way the realisations charge is a fixed rate; it is simply a pass-through of whatever interest the trustee's bank account actually earned.

Other AFSA fees

These figures are current as of AFSA's published fee schedule and are reviewed periodically, so confirm the current amount on AFSA's site before relying on it for a specific application.

Getting confirmation your bankruptcy has ended

How a debtor gets confirmation that a bankruptcy has ended depends on who administered it. If a registered trustee administered the bankruptcy, the debtor contacts that trustee directly to confirm the expected end date or that the bankruptcy has ended. If AFSA, as Official Trustee, administered it, the debtor completes AFSA's "End of bankruptcy enquiry" online form to find the expected end date or request a discharge letter.

AFSA states a discharge letter is automatically issued once an existing bankruptcy actually ends, so the online form is for an early or on-demand check, or a reissue, rather than the only route to eventually receiving it. A bankruptcy can also end earlier than its usual 3 years and 1 day through annulment, covered in full on the how bankruptcy works guide.