That is the whole answer, and the reason people doubt it is that the pages answering this question online are written for other countries. The best known of them is written for England and Wales.

What does bind you is your duty to co-operate with your trustee and your budget. How sequestration works covers both.

No, and we checked it seven ways. The Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016 has eighteen Parts, and no section heading anywhere in it refers to absconding, leaving Scotland, travel, residence abroad or a passport.

What was checked, and what each check found

Two of those are statutory sections read in full. Section 218 is the general offences provision and section 215 is the duty to co-operate, and neither mentions travel.

The published guidance is silent too

mygov.scot’s page on how bankruptcy affects you runs through bank accounts, credit, work, utilities and the register. Travel is not one of its headings.

The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s guide to the consequences of bankruptcy and Citizens Advice Scotland’s bankruptcy guide are the same. Neither mentions it at all.

Why an absence is a finding here

Restrictions in a Scottish sequestration come from statute. Where no provision creates one, there is not one, and that is a stronger answer than a hedge.

It is the same reasoning that answers whether you can have a bank account. Nothing in the Act freezes one, and what a bank does is its own policy.

From one English section, and it is worth naming. Section 358 of the Insolvency Act 1986 is headed Absconding, and its extent is England and Wales.

What section 358 actually prohibits

Read it and the picture changes. Section 358 is about leaving with property you are required to hand over, and it is not a ban on leaving.

Why it reaches Scottish readers anyway

English pages dominate bankruptcy search results, and the ones on this question are explicitly English. The differences between the two systems lists the other imports worth spotting.

The tell is usually the vocabulary. A page that names the Official Receiver, a county court or a £680 fee is not describing Scotland, and the same page has a translation table for it.

One provision, and it is about your estate rather than about you. Section 218(3)(e) makes it an offence to remove any part of the debtor’s estate from Scotland during the relevant period.

How that provision is built

Section 218(3) groups destroying, damaging, concealing, disposing of and removing from Scotland together. Section 218(4) then makes it an offence unless the perpetrator shows it was not done with intent to prejudice the creditors.

So it catches taking the trustee’s property out of the country. It does not catch going on holiday, and the difference is the subject of the sentence.

The other thing that could bite, in a narrow case

Part 9 deals with the examination of the debtor, and it allows the trustee to seek, and the sheriff to order, your attendance.

We cite the Part rather than a section deliberately. Sections 118 to 121 were read once and the sub-paragraph wording was not transcribed, so we are not going to pin this to a subsection.

Somebody abroad who cannot attend an examination has a problem. Somebody abroad who is never asked to attend does not.

Co-operation and information, not permission. Section 215 requires you to take every practicable step needed to let the trustee carry out their functions, and nothing in it mentions travel.

The duties that do exist

The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s guide to a debtor’s responsibilities has one movement-related instruction, and it is to keep your trustee informed of changes in your circumstances, for example if you move house.

We are not going to invent a duty to report a holiday

No source read requires it. The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s own responsibilities page does not mention travelling abroad, moving abroad, a passport, or telling the trustee before a trip.

Keeping in touch is sensible anyway. A trustee who cannot reach you asks questions, and unanswered post creates its own problems.

Where the money comes from does matter

A trip paid for out of income you are allowed to keep is a different question from a trip paid for by a windfall. What happens if money arrives while you are bankrupt explains why.

Section 87(1) requires you to tell your trustee immediately about anything you acquire, and failing to is a criminal offence.

That is usually the real constraint. A debtor contribution order takes the whole of your assessed surplus rather than a percentage of it, so there is rarely spare money sitting unallocated.

How the assessment works

The prescribed tool is the Common Financial Statement, under regulation 15(1) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Regulations 2016.

Most sources name the Standard Financial Statement, which is the tool used elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Regulations that would have moved Scotland to it were drafted in 2018 and never made.

That is not a formality. The tool decides what counts as reasonable expenditure, and everything above it goes to the estate.

Borrowing for a trip is where the offence risk sits

While you are undischarged you must tell a lender you are bankrupt if you are borrowing £2,000 or more, or any amount at all if you already owe £1,000 or more.

Utility charges and council tax are left out of that £1,000 calculation.

A holiday on finance can cross both lines without anyone thinking of it as borrowing. The offence in section 218(13) is obtaining the credit without disclosing your position.

And after discharge, in a Minimal Asset Process

For six months from the date of discharge you must tell anyone providing you with credit that you are required to comply with the section 146 conditions, before obtaining credit of £2,000 or more, or any amount at all while you owe £1,000 or more.

That period is six months from discharge. What discharge ends and what carries on sets out the rest.

Your obligations do not stop at the border. Section 215 keeps running, the contribution keeps running, and the acquirenda window keeps running.

The three that follow you

It normally runs for 48 months, which is longer than the twelve months to discharge. The payments carry on after you are discharged.

Property you acquire after sequestration can still vest in the trustee. The window runs for four years from the date of sequestration.

And the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s only movement-related instruction is to keep your trustee informed of any changes in your circumstances, for example if you move house. What a trustee does covers who you are dealing with.

What nothing published addresses

No source read deals with moving abroad as such. There is no provision requiring permission, and there is no guidance describing a process for it.

So the honest answer is that the duties are the same wherever you are, and how you meet them from abroad is a conversation to have with your trustee before you go.

The one thing that would go wrong

Going quiet. Non-co-operation is a matter the decision maker has regard to on a bankruptcy restrictions order, and it also bears on when a discharge is granted.

The categories the Accountant in Bankruptcy uses when it defers a discharge come from its own notes for guidance rather than from the Act.

Credit disclosure, company directorships and a short list of roles with a statute behind each one. Travel is not among them, and neither is holding a passport.

The list, with the provision for each

Financial services work is not closed off. The Financial Conduct Authority’s fitness test treats bankruptcy as a matter to weigh rather than a disqualification.

That is the whole sourced list and we are not adding to it. Which jobs sequestration affects sets out each one, and how sequestration affects your credit file covers the record.

Two roles where the answer is genuinely unsettled

The provisions covering members of parliament and local councillors are written around a sequestration awarded by a court, and a Minimal Asset Process award is made by the Accountant in Bankruptcy rather than a court. Whether they bite is not settled.

Where a bankruptcy restrictions order is in force the councillor position is different, because the disqualification there is worded without that qualification. Ask about your own role rather than working from a list found online.

And a restrictions order does not change the travel answer

Nothing read says a bankruptcy restrictions order affects travel, a passport, a bank account, a tenancy or insurance. What an order actually reaches lists the five effects that are sourced.

If you want to check the position for yourself, National Debtline’s Scottish bankruptcy guide is the one written for this jurisdiction. Its travel guidance is written for England and Wales, and that is the trap on this question.