It is statutory, created by the Debt Arrangement and Attachment (Scotland) Act 2002 and run by the Accountant in Bankruptcy as the DAS Administrator.

Four of the rules below changed between 2013 and 2019, so every figure here carries its in-force date. Our Debt Arrangement Scheme page sets out how we help.

A Debt Payment Programme is the approved plan at the centre of the scheme. You make one payment to an approved payments distributor, who splits it between your creditors in proportion to what each is owed.

The three parties, and what each of them costs you

That last column is the answer most people want first. A payments distributor may make no charge of any kind to a debtor, and the creditors fund the rest.

The adviser who stays on

An adviser who continues after approval is your continuing money adviser, and they administer the programme for its whole life. Why the law puts that job with an adviser rather than with you is worth reading first.

Anyone habitually resident in Scotland who owes one or more debts and has some surplus income. There is no minimum debt and no maximum.

The debt test is lower than people expect

Regulation 21(1) permits an application where the programme provides for the payment of one or more debts. One creditor is enough.

Habitual residence means Scotland is your main home. The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s guidance for money advisers describes it as having your main residence here, being registered to vote here, and normally banking and paying your bills here.

You do not get to pick and choose

You do not choose which debts go in. Regulation 20(2A) requires the programme to provide for every debt you owe at the time of the application that a programme can cover.

The one carve-out is regulation 20(2AA), inserted by SSI 2018/297 with effect from 29 October 2018, which lets an individual leave out rent and mortgage arrears on their sole or main residence rather than requiring it.

Anything left out sits outside the programme’s protection as well as outside the programme. Interest and charges on those arrears are not frozen, and diligence for them is not recalled.

Who cannot apply

• Anyone who is party to a protected trust deed.
• Anyone sequestrated or bankrupt and not yet discharged.
• Anyone subject to a bankruptcy restrictions order or undertaking.

Student loans have been excluded by definition since 27 June 2015, under regulation 3(2)(d), and mygov.scot says court fines cannot go in either. Which debts can and cannot go into a programme goes through the categories.

Applying with a partner

Two people can apply together. Since 2 July 2013 the test is that each debtor is liable for a debt the programme would pay, rather than that both are liable for the same debt.

By the common financial tool, applied by your money adviser. It sets your contribution by reference to your surplus income, and in this scheme you may offer a proportion of that surplus rather than all of it.

How the tool reaches the scheme

Schedule A1 to the 2011 Regulations was inserted by SSI 2014/294 with effect from 1 April 2015, and substituted by SSI 2018/297 with effect from 29 October 2018. It applies regulations 15 to 18 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Regulations 2016 to a Debt Payment Programme, with modifications.

So the tool has governed programme payments since April 2015, not since October 2018.

Paragraph 2A lets you propose a contribution that is a proportion of your whole surplus income. How the payment figure is built sets that out.

What the numbers actually look like

The median monthly contribution was £260 in 2025-26, up four per cent on the year before. The Accountant in Bankruptcy publishes that as a median rather than an average, because the spread is skewed.

There is no statutory minimum payment. If your adviser cannot find a realistic surplus, they should say so.

Not all of them. Since 4 November 2019 a programme for an individual is approved where not less than nine tenths in value of the creditors consent, under regulations 23(1)(a) and 24(1) of the Debt Arrangement Scheme (Scotland) Regulations 2011.

By value, not by head count

The test is nine tenths by value, not by number. A single creditor holding more than a tenth of the total can withhold consent and put the application to the fair and reasonable test.

Both thresholds were substituted by SSI 2019/315, and programmes applied for before 4 November 2019 keep the unanimous consent rule and the old eight per cent distributor fee.

Silence is consent, with one limit

Silence counts as consent. Regulation 23(5) deems a creditor who does not respond within 21 days of the request to have consented, irrespective of any assignation of the debt.

That rule applies only to a programme providing for the payment of more than one debt. A programme covering a single debt gets no deemed consent.

Nine tenths is not the whole test

Reaching nine tenths does not end the matter. Regulation 24(1) is subject to regulation 24(1A), in force since 1 April 2015, so a programme for an individual may only be approved in accordance with the Common Financial Tool.

An objection does not end the application. Where approval cannot be given under regulation 24, regulation 25(1) requires the DAS Administrator to approve a programme that is fair and reasonable.

What happens when a creditor objects follows that route through, and whether all your creditors have to agree deals with the threshold itself.

Almost everything. Approval makes a charge for payment and any diligence incompetent, recalls an arrestment already running, and stops interest and charges being owed.

The effects, provision by provision

Approval takes effect from midnight at the start of the day before the notice goes in the DAS Register, under regulation 26(2).

Who sends the recall notice

Since 29 October 2018 the continuing money adviser sends that notice, or the DAS Administrator where there is no continuing money adviser. The change was made by SSI 2018/297, so pages saying the Accountant in Bankruptcy always sends it are out of date.

You do not have to chase the creditor to lift it, and the effect on a bank arrestment and the effect on a wage arrestment are dealt with separately.

Two things no source settles

Inhibition is not named anywhere in the recall provisions, and no source settles whether one already registered is recalled on approval. Ask your money adviser what applies to yours.

What is prohibited is a charge for payment and the commencing or executing of diligence. Whether a creditor may still raise an action is not settled by any source.

A statutory moratorium, then the application itself. The moratorium runs for six months, and the application carries its own protection from the day it is entered in the DAS Register.

Six months, not six weeks

Six months. The period was six weeks until section 23(2) of the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Act 2022 substituted six months in section 198 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016, with effect from 1 October 2022.

One in any twelve months, under section 195(2). It ends early if a Debt Payment Programme is approved, and it can run past six months where an application has been lodged and not yet decided.

It does not stop an earnings arrestment that was already running. Section 197(5)(d) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016 lets a creditor carry on executing an earnings arrestment, a current maintenance arrestment or a conjoined arrestment order that came into effect before the moratorium began.

How to apply for a moratorium covers the mechanics, and the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s money adviser guidance sets out how advisers use it.

The route that no longer exists

The old route of intimating an intention to apply, which carried its own six weeks of protection, was revoked on 1 April 2015. Protection before an application now runs through the moratorium.

Once the application is in the register, regulation 30 protects you until it is decided. Since 27 June 2015 that runs 14 days past a rejection notice and 28 days past a review application.

For as long as it takes to repay the debt at a payment you can afford, and it costs nothing beyond that payment. The 22 per cent in fees comes out of what creditors receive.

Where the money goes

The fee comes out of what is distributed to creditors rather than being added to your debt. Your creditors fund the scheme out of what they receive.

What a Debt Arrangement Scheme costs and what a payments distributor does set out the mechanism.

Length

No maximum length applies to a programme for an individual. The five-year limit that appears on some pages belongs to Business DAS.

For programmes approved in the last three financial years the Accountant in Bankruptcy expects between 5.1 and 6.1 years. Length follows affordability.

Keeping it alive

Your first payment is due within 42 days of approval, a figure set by SSI 2013/225 with effect from 2 July 2013. Arrears are a ground for revocation, measured as the aggregate of payments due in a period of two months beginning after the last payment you made.

The Administrator must give at least four weeks’ notice of a proposal to revoke. Our list of the scheme’s real disadvantages is honest about what can go wrong.

It is the only one of the three that is not insolvency. That is the trade: you repay everything, and nothing is written off.

Side by side

A Debt Arrangement Scheme writes off none of the money you owe. Interest, fees, penalties and charges stop, so the balance stops growing, but the principal is repaid to the last penny.

Whether the scheme writes anything off is answered directly, and the scheme against a trust deed sets the two routes side by side.

The public record, and what it is not

An approved programme goes on the DAS Register, which is free to search and open to anyone. It is a legal register, and it is not your credit file.

No credit reference agency publishes a retention rule for a Debt Arrangement Scheme. Experian, Equifax and TransUnion all publish what they hold and for how long, and none of them lists a Debt Arrangement Scheme at all.

The widely quoted six years is the rule for insolvency entries, and a Debt Arrangement Scheme is not an insolvency. What your creditors report is the state of each account, so ask them and check your own file.

What the DAS Register holds and who can search it covers the register itself.

You cannot apply on your own, so the first step is an approved money adviser. How the application is made and whether you qualify set out what happens next.