There is no upper limit. What there is at the other end is a condition that catches people out, and it is a statutory one.

Here is which debts count, what else you have to meet, the ceiling at the top end, and what is open below £5,000. What a protected trust deed is covers the solution itself.

£5,000, including interest, measured at the date the deed is granted. It is a statutory condition of protection rather than a practitioner’s preference.

Where the figure comes from

Section 164(3) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016 requires the total amount of the debtor’s debts, including interest, as at the date on which the debtor grants the trust deed, to be not less than £5,000.

That is a condition the Accountant in Bankruptcy checks before registering a deed as protected. Below it, a trust deed cannot become protected, which is the whole point of granting one.

Why so many pages state it without a source

The figure gets repeated far more often than it gets cited, and the citation is the part that matters. Section 164(3) makes it a statutory condition rather than a firm’s own policy.

Part 14 of the 2016 Act applies to deeds granted on or after 30 November 2016. Older deeds, granted before that date, are governed by a different instrument, the Protected Trust Deeds (Scotland) Regulations 2013, which is one reason some guidance does not match the current test.

It is not the same as any bankruptcy figure

The £1,500 minimum debt for a bankruptcy debtor application was removed on 6 February 2023 by the Bankruptcy and Debt Arrangement Scheme (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2023. What sequestration in Scotland is sets out the current bankruptcy thresholds.

The total amount of your debts including interest at the date of granting. Most ordinary consumer debt goes into that total, and interest already accrued counts, which matters if you have been in arrears a while.

In and out

The Scottish Government’s page on debts that can be included in a trust deed lists overdrafts, buy now pay later credit, credit cards, personal loans and arrears of utilities, rent or council tax accrued before signing.

The ones that sit outside the arrangement

Student loans, court fines, secured debts and maintenance obligations are not released by your discharge. Which debts cannot be included in a trust deed sets out each category with its provision.

If most of what you owe falls into that list, a trust deed may do very little for you. That is a conversation to have before anyone starts filling in forms.

There is no maximum debt. There is an affordability ceiling, and section 168(4) is it: your contributions over the payment period must total less than your total debt including interest at the date of granting.

What that means in practice

The Accountant in Bankruptcy will not register a deed where the projected contributions would repay all the debts and interest over the term. Section 168 is where the condition sits.

So the ceiling catches people with modest debts and comfortable incomes. A £6,000 debt and a large monthly surplus is the classic case that clears the floor and fails the ceiling.

How the contribution is assessed

Through the common financial tool under section 89 of the 2016 Act, with expenditure tested against the Common Financial Statement trigger figures, last revised on 1 April 2025.

Section 168(5) then puts the whole of the surplus towards creditors during the payment period, and how trust deed monthly payments are calculated works through the chain.

Where the ceiling leaves you

Usually with the Debt Arrangement Scheme, which repays debt in full with interest, fees and charges frozen, and is not an insolvency solution.

A living individual or an eligible entity, one estate per deed, a sufficient connection to Scotland, no undischarged trustee from an earlier sequestration, and a trustee qualified to act as an insolvency practitioner.

The conditions, with their sources

Section 165 adds that the trustee must not be disqualified from acting as a replacement trustee in a sequestration.

Two conditions people get wrong

You do not have to be insolvent first. Nothing in sections 164 to 170 requires apparent insolvency, and granting the deed is itself an act of apparent insolvency under section 16(1)(e).

A previous bankruptcy is not an automatic bar either. Section 164(2)(a) bites only where the trustee in that earlier sequestration has not yet been discharged under section 148 or section 151.

The connection test, which is a look-back rather than a residence rule

Section 164(1A) was inserted by the Protected Trust Deeds (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 with effect from 1 July 2024, and it asks about the year before granting rather than the day you sign. Whether you have to live in Scotland to get a trust deed covers both limbs.

A trust deed is closed to you, and it is not the only formal option. The Debt Arrangement Scheme has no minimum debt at all, and sequestration on your own application needs debts over £3,000.

There is no discretion on the £5,000

A trustee cannot round your figures up to reach it. Inflating a debt total to clear a statutory condition would be a poor idea for reasons that do not need spelling out.

The routes that stay open

• The Debt Arrangement Scheme, with no minimum debt and no requirement to be insolvent.
• Sequestration by debtor application, where debts exceed £3,000.
• Minimal Asset Process bankruptcy, where all the section 2(2) conditions are met.
• A statutory moratorium, to hold diligence off for six months while you get advice.
• A direct arrangement with the creditor, which does not stop diligence in Scotland.

The Minimal Asset Process conditions are wider than the headline figures suggest, and what Minimal Asset Process bankruptcy is sets out all of them.

What free advice will do with the numbers

Citizens Advice Scotland, StepChange, Money Advice Scotland and National Debtline will all go through your figures without charging, and none of them is paid by the solution you choose. Should you use a free debt charity or a paid debt adviser covers that choice.

The £5,000 trust deed floor is the highest entry threshold of the main Scottish routes, and the Debt Arrangement Scheme has none at all.

The thresholds side by side

A threshold tells you what is competent rather than what is right. Which debt solution is best if you have a wage arrestment compares them on outcomes instead.

What the figures actually look like in practice

The Accountant in Bankruptcy recorded a median debt level of £18,300 in protected trust deeds in its 2024-25 annual statistics. How much debt you can write off with a trust deed explains why a median is not a prediction.

Deeds are granted well above that figure and a little above the floor. The threshold is the first gate rather than the test of whether a trust deed suits you.

Signing is not the finish line. The deed binds creditors only once AiB registers it in the Register of Insolvencies, and protection runs from the date of registration.

The road to protection, in short

• Before you sign, the trustee gives you the debt advice and information package and the trust deed information document, and allows adequate time.
• The trustee sends AiB a Form 1 notice without delay for publication in the Register of Insolvencies.
• Documents go to every known creditor within 7 days of that notice being registered.
• Creditors have five weeks from the day after publication to object.
• The trustee applies to AiB on Form 3 within 4 weeks of the objection period ending.

Nothing has to be agreed. Protection is defeated only where objections come from a majority in number of notified creditors, or from creditors holding no fewer than one third in value, and how many creditors have to agree to a trust deed explains why silence counts as accession.

The gap that matters

Section 173 cuts an existing earnings arrestment on the date of protection rather than the date of signing, and what happens between signing a trust deed and it becoming protected covers the exposed weeks in between.

Money deducted before protection is credited against the debt rather than returned. Our trust deed page sets out how the solution runs from there.