Everything below comes from the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016 and the regulations made under it, with the in-force date given for every figure that has changed.

Here are the routes in, what each one needs, what it costs, and when you are discharged.

The Accountant in Bankruptcy awards it on your own application, and a sheriff awards it on a creditor’s petition or a trust deed trustee’s petition. There is no Official Receiver in Scotland.

An application, not a court hearing

The Accountant in Bankruptcy is a Scottish Government agency, and section 22 requires it to award sequestration forthwith where it is satisfied the conditions are met.

No number of days is fixed in the Act. mygov.scot says a decision usually comes within eight working days where the agency holds everything it needs.

Who acts as your trustee

In a full administration the Accountant in Bankruptcy may appoint a nominated insolvency practitioner who has given a written undertaking to act, and where no appointment is made the agency is deemed to be trustee. In a Minimal Asset Process the agency is always the trustee.

On a creditor or trustee petition the sheriff may appoint a nominated qualified person, and otherwise must appoint the Accountant in Bankruptcy.

Not less than £3,000 for a full administration under section 2(8)(a), so £3,000 exactly qualifies. The Minimal Asset Process has no minimum debt at all.

The wording matters

Section 2(8)(a) sets a floor that includes the figure itself. Read as more than £3,000, it pushes a reader with exactly that amount towards the wrong answer.

The full administration route also needs no sequestration award in the past five years, money advice obtained under section 4(1), and a statement of undertakings. Where to go for help sets out where all of that starts.

What a creditor needs instead

A qualified creditor is one owed relevant debts of at least £5,000, or two or more creditors whose debts add up to that. The figure was substituted with effect from 1 October 2022 and replaced £3,000.

A creditor petition also has a clock on it. The apparent insolvency relied on has to have been constituted within the four months before the petition is presented.

Three. Your own application to the Accountant in Bankruptcy, a petition by a qualified creditor, and a petition by the trustee under a trust deed.

The three routes side by side

A trustee under a trust deed can petition at any time. The four-month apparent insolvency window applies to a creditor petition and not to that one.

What apparent insolvency is

Section 16 lists the ways it is constituted. They include a charge for payment being served under the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 with the days of charge expiring unpaid, granting a trust deed, and a debt payment programme being revoked.

One more route is a demand served by an officer of court for a liquid debt of not less than £1,500, where you neither comply nor intimate a denial of liability within three weeks of service.

It is a form of sequestration for people with little income and few assets, and it is free. All eight conditions in section 2(2) have to be met, and there has been no minimum debt since 6 February 2023.

The eight conditions

Regulation 2 of SSI 2023/9 struck the old £1,500 lower figure out of section 2(2)(b)(i) with effect from 6 February 2023. Guidance written before that date gives £1,500 as a minimum, so check the date on anything quoting that figure.

The vehicle disregard and the student loan point

Section 2(3)(b) leaves a vehicle out of the asset calculation altogether where you reasonably require its use and it is worth no more than £3,000. Because it is disregarded, it does not eat into the £2,000 total or breach the £1,000 single asset cap.

Section 2(2A), in force from 29 March 2021, leaves a student loan out of the £25,000 test. The same loan is not written off when you are discharged, which is an asymmetry worth planning for.

The figure the Act shows and the figure that applies

Schedule 1 paragraph 2(5)(a) reads £5,000 on its face for the asset level at which a Minimal Asset Process can be converted into a full administration. Regulation 14 of SSI 2016/397 prescribes £2,000 in its place.

So the operative in-process trigger is £2,000, matching the entry test. Anyone quoting the printed Act alone will give you the wrong number.

A full administration application carries a £150 fee, waived on qualifying benefits or where you are assessed as having no surplus income. A Minimal Asset Process costs nothing at all.

The two exemptions

Regulation 7A of the Bankruptcy Fees (Scotland) Regulations 2018, inserted with effect from 29 March 2021, exempts debtors receiving specified benefits. Regulation 7B, inserted by SSI 2023/9 with effect from 6 February 2023, exempts debtors assessed by the common financial tool as having no surplus income.

A Minimal Asset Process application is free in every case, and has been since 6 February 2023.

Ask which of the two exemptions your own figures put you in before a full administration application goes in. The £150 is the headline figure rather than what every applicant pays, and the agency’s own statistics for April to June 2026 record 80.7% of full administration applications paying nothing.

What else the application needs

A certificate for sequestration can only be granted by a money adviser, and regulation 10 gives it a life of 30 days. A free money adviser is therefore the door into either route, not an optional extra.

Where the Accountant in Bankruptcy needs more from you, section 20 gives 21 days to provide it, and the agency may extend that period.

An existing earnings arrestment ceases to have effect on the date of sequestration, automatically and with no application needed. That applies to a Minimal Asset Process too, because a MAP is a sequestration.

The date that matters

Section 72(2) of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 is the provision, and section 72(4) stops a creditor executing a new earnings arrestment for debts claimable in the sequestration.

Money already taken is credited against the debt and is not usually refunded. Check the position with the creditor.

Whether bankruptcy stops a wage arrestment covers that interaction in full, and how long a wage arrestment lasts covers what otherwise ends one.

What replaces it

A debtor contribution order is made in every sequestration under section 90(1), and section 90(4) allows it to be fixed at zero. The payment period is 48 months beginning with the date of the first payment.

The order continues whether or not you have been discharged. Where you fail to pay for two payment intervals, section 94 lets the trustee instruct your employer to deduct instead.

In a full administration the Accountant in Bankruptcy may discharge you at any time after the date twelve months from the award, so twelve months is a floor rather than a date. A Minimal Asset Process discharges you automatically six months after the award.

Full administration is a decision, not a calendar entry

Section 137 is the provision, and it describes the case where the Accountant in Bankruptcy is not the trustee. Section 138 is the equivalent for a case where the agency is the trustee, and we have not been able to read its text.

Under section 137 the trustee prepares a report at ten months and sends it to the agency, to you and to creditors, who then have 28 days to make representations. A discharge under that section does not take effect before 14 days from the day of notification.

The report covers whether you complied with the debtor contribution order, co-operated with the trustee, disclosed your claims and assets in full, and complied with the statement of undertakings.

The Minimal Asset Process is six months plus six months

Section 140 discharges you automatically at six months and there is no power to defer it. Section 146 then applies conditions for a further six months from the date of discharge.

During that further period you must tell a lender you are subject to the conditions before obtaining credit of £2,000 or more, or credit of any amount while you already owe £1,000 or more. Section 147 makes a failure to do so an offence.

Two separate bars apply and they run for different periods. A previous Minimal Asset Process blocks another one for ten years, and any other sequestration award blocks a MAP for five.

The bars run from the award, not the discharge

Sections 2(2)(g) and 2(2)(h) both measure back from the day before your new application to the date of the previous award. A MAP awarded in March 2017 and discharged that September bars a new MAP until March 2027.

Nothing in section 2 bars a full administration application after a Minimal Asset Process, provided the section 2(8) conditions are met.

The two debtor routes compared

Neither route is the only option. A Debt Payment Programme repays the debt in full without insolvency, a protected trust deed is the other formal route, and which solution suits a wage arrestment compares them by what each does to deductions already running.

Official guidance on debt and diligence in Scotland covers the formal routes, and property acquired in the four years after the award still vests in your trustee.