It also matters because a lot of pages still ask for one. Several commercial pages still print £50 and several still print £90, and none of them names the instrument that removed it.

Some of them give a figure as at 2026 while listing the Accountant in Bankruptcy among their sources. That is the body which publishes no MAP fee at all.

What follows is where the fee went, why the wrong figures survive, what the £150 you may have seen actually belongs to, and what the advice costs. How a MAP works covers the process itself.

There is no fee to apply for Minimal Asset Process bankruptcy. The fee that used to apply was removed on 6 February 2023, and the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s own guidance lists no application fee.

What the 2023 instrument actually did

Regulation 4(3)(c) of SSI 2023/9 replaced item 22 of the fee table in its entirety. The replacement charges £150 for considering a debtor application in relation to a debtor to whom section 2(2) of the Act does not apply.

A Minimal Asset Process applicant is a section 2(2) debtor by definition. So the one fee item that could have applied now says, in terms, that it does not apply to you.

Removed, not waived

The distinction is the whole reason this question is confusing. A waived fee is a fee that exists and is forgiven, and this one no longer exists for a MAP application at all.

It also explains why the wrong figures are so persistent. Pages written when most MAP applicants were exempt from the old fee have simply never been rewritten.

The Explanatory Note to the 2023 Regulations puts it in one word. The MAP fee is removed.

One exception, and it will not apply to you

The saving in regulation 4(4) keeps the old position for sequestrations where the petition was presented or the debtor application was made before 6 February 2023. Citizens Advice Scotland is one of the very few pages that dates the change at all.

Because both figures were once right, and because the consolidated version of the 2018 fee table on legislation.gov.uk still renders the old row alongside the new one. Read SSI 2023/9 itself instead.

The figures, in order

The rendering problem, described plainly

The published revised text of Part 2 of the Schedule to the Bankruptcy Fees (Scotland) Regulations 2018 applied the 2023 change as a substitution of words rather than of the whole item.

The result contradicts itself on the page. The opening words say section 2(2) does not apply, and a line below it still shows a £50 charge for a debtor to whom section 2(2) does apply.

Anyone reading that page concludes there is a £50 MAP fee. There is not, and the amending instrument is the text that governs.

Why the wrong number does real damage

Someone with no money reads £50 and decides the route is shut to them. That is the cost of a stale figure on a page that looks official.

It also gives a paid provider room to present a free service as something worth charging for. Nothing about a MAP application requires you to pay anybody.

How to check a figure you have been quoted

• Ask which instrument the figure comes from. A page that cannot name one is guessing.
• Check the date. Anything sourced before 6 February 2023 is out of date.
• Be wary of English sources. The Insolvency Service has no Scottish jurisdiction.
• Ask your money adviser, who submits these applications and knows what is payable.

Full administration sequestration carries a £150 application fee, and no fee is payable under that item where the debtor receives certain prescribed benefits or is assessed as having no surplus income.

It belongs to the other bankruptcy route

Full administration sequestration is the route for anyone who fails a section 2(2) condition, and it has a minimum debt of £3,000 rather than a ceiling. The difference between the two routes sets them out side by side.

The two exemptions, and what they are for

Regulation 7A came in on 29 March 2021 by SSI 2021/148 and regulation 7B on 6 February 2023. Both are exemptions from item 22, and whether the £150 sequestration fee can be lifted covers the grounds in detail.

Why they are often described as MAP exemptions

Before February 2023 they were the reason many MAP applicants paid nothing. The route into a MAP and the grounds for exemption overlapped almost exactly.

That is history now. There is nothing left for them to exempt on a MAP application, and what sequestration costs deals with the fee that is still live.

No, and it cannot be charged for in one respect. Regulation 9 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Regulations 2016 says no fee is chargeable for granting a certificate for sequestration.

You cannot apply on your own

Section 4 requires you to obtain money advice before making a debtor application, and section 2(2)(f) requires a certificate granted by an approved money adviser.

Citizens advice bureaux, council money advice teams and the national debt charities all do this work at no charge. Whether you need a money adviser sets out who is approved to act.

What that free service covers

How long the decision takes

Your adviser submits the application for you. mygov.scot says a decision on a debtor application usually arrives within 8 working days, and how to apply for a MAP covers the paperwork that has to be ready first.

No. A debtor contribution order is still made, and in a Minimal Asset Process it is fixed at zero, which the Accountant in Bankruptcy states in its own guidance for MAP debtors.

Nothing goes to creditors either

Paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 disapplies sections 122 and 131, so there is no creditor claims process and no dividend at any point in a MAP.

That is written into the Act rather than left to the trustee, so it does not depend on how your case is handled. Whether you have to make payments during a MAP covers the contribution order in full.

What you do still have to fund

Rent, current council tax, energy and food carry on as normal. Discharge covers the debts you owed at the date of the award and nothing that falls due afterwards.

Budgeting for those is part of the preparation rather than an afterthought. Falling behind during the six months creates arrears the bankruptcy will not touch.

mygov.scot also advises keeping money for essential living costs accessible when you apply. Whether your bank account is frozen explains why that advice exists.

Only if it stops being a MAP. The Accountant in Bankruptcy warns that a transfer to full administration caused by inaccurate information may bring an additional administration charge, and that your discharge waits until it is paid.

What triggers a transfer

Paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 covers an error in the application, a deliberate misrepresentation, an assessment that you can make a contribution, and total assets rising above the prescribed figure.

That figure is £2,000, prescribed by regulation 14 of the 2016 Regulations. The £5,000 printed on the face of the Act does not operate.

No figure is published for the extra charge

The Accountant in Bankruptcy says a charge may apply and does not say what it is. We are not going to invent one.

The way to avoid the question is an accurate application and prompt reporting of changes. Whether a MAP can be transferred to full administration sets out everything else that changes.

A Minimal Asset Process is the only Scottish debt solution where nothing is charged at the start and nothing is paid in during it. Every other route asks for one or the other.

The four routes on cost

A trust deed needs debts of at least £5,000 and enough surplus income to fund contributions, so the two rarely fit the same person. MAP against a trust deed runs the comparison properly.

Where the real cost sits

The trade in a Minimal Asset Process is made in consequences rather than in pounds. You give up a clean record for six months of bankruptcy and six months of conditions after it.

Cost is not the reason to choose it

A MAP is a sequestration in law, with a public register entry and a credit file consequence that lasts years. Free at the point of application is not the same as free of consequences.

The entry test is also hard. Debts over £25,000, any land in your name or a single asset worth more than £1,000 each close the door, and whether you are eligible runs through all eight conditions.