That does not make them interchangeable. One writes off what you owe in six months and the other repays every penny over years.

Both are statutory, both are administered by the Accountant in Bankruptcy and both need an approved money adviser. How a MAP works and what the Debt Arrangement Scheme is cover each on its own.

The income assessment settles it. No assessed contribution points at a Minimal Asset Process, and a surplus points at a debt payment programme.

Why the two are near opposites

Section 2(2)(a)(i) requires an assessment that you need make no contribution at all, which is the condition of entry to a MAP.

A programme needs money to distribute each month. Someone who satisfies the MAP income test has nothing for it to work with.

The same tool does both assessments

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

So you are not assessed twice on different rules. One conversation with an adviser produces the figure that decides the route.

Where assets change the answer

You must not own land. Section 2(2)(e) rules out a MAP for anyone who does, whatever it is worth.

A programme has no asset ceiling at all, so a homeowner with a surplus is usually looking at it rather than at bankruptcy. Whether you are eligible for a MAP runs through each condition.

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.

A MAP writes off, a programme repays

Section 145(1) discharges you of the debts you owed at the date of sequestration, subject to the exceptions in section 145(3).

A Debt Payment Programme is not an insolvency solution. You repay the debt in full, and what changes is the pressure rather than the balance.

What survives either way

Section 145(3) lists what survives. Fines and other court penalties, debts obtained by fraud, and aliment or a periodical allowance payable on divorce are not written off.

Student loans are not written off either, by the separate route of section 145(7), and whether a MAP writes off all your debts sets out the whole list.

What each does about interest

Interest, fees, penalties and other charges stop being owed on the debts in an approved programme, under the Debt Arrangement Scheme (Interest, Fees, Penalties and Other Charges) (Scotland) Regulations 2011.

In a Minimal Asset Process the question does not arise in the same way. The debts themselves are gone at six months.

The two side by side

In one of them, yes. A debt payment programme normally needs creditor consent, and a Minimal Asset Process gives creditors no vote and no claims process at all.

How consent works in a programme

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.

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.

Approval is also subject to regulation 24(1A), which requires the programme to accord with the common financial tool.

Where enough creditors object, the Accountant in Bankruptcy must still decide whether the programme is fair and reasonable, so an objection is not a veto.

A MAP has no equivalent stage

Paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 disapplies the claims and creditor meeting provisions, and requires AiB to tell creditors that no claims may be submitted.

So creditors are informed and that is the end of their involvement. Nobody votes on whether you get a MAP.

What that means for the decision

A programme can fail at the consent stage and a MAP cannot. Against that, a programme leaves you outside insolvency altogether.

An award of sequestration ends an earnings arrestment. Section 72(2) of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 says an earnings arrestment, a current maintenance arrestment, a conjoined arrestment order or a deduction from earnings order ceases to have effect on the date of sequestration.

The award ends it, the approval recalls it

Section 72(2) of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 ends an existing earnings arrestment on the date of sequestration, and section 72(4) bars a fresh one for a debt claimable in it.

Regulation 33(1)(a) recalls any arrestment of your income or property on approval, and notice of the recall goes to the employer or to whoever is holding the arrested funds.

Timing is the real difference

mygov.scot says a decision on a debtor application usually arrives within 8 working days, while a programme goes out to creditors for consent first.

Whether a MAP stops an existing wage arrestment and whether the Debt Arrangement Scheme does each cover the mechanics.

What protects you in the meantime

A statutory moratorium lasts 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.

A statutory moratorium is the exception. 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.

Each route against each kind of diligence

A MAP has eight of them in section 2(2) and a programme has almost none. That is the single biggest structural difference between the two.

The conditions, side by side

Two figures that get printed wrongly

No minimum debt is currently prescribed for the Minimal Asset Process. The old £1,500 floor stopped applying on 6 February 2023, though the power to set one again remains.

There is no minimum debt and no maximum. A programme may be approved where it provides for the payment of one or more debts, so a single debt is enough.

And one carve-out almost nobody prints

Student loan debt does not count towards the £25,000 limit. Section 2(2A), which has applied since 29 March 2021, leaves it out of the calculation.

It decides eligibility for a lot of graduates. Which debts count towards the MAP debt limit sets it out with the provision.

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.

Nobody charges you for either

A payments distributor may make no charge of any kind to a debtor. You pay one figure and it is split between the creditors.

Twenty per cent for an individual, under regulation 17(2) as substituted by SSI 2019/315 with effect from 4 November 2019. For Business DAS it is a ceiling rather than a rate, because a distributor may charge no more than eight per cent.

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.

Both are public, in different places

The DAS Register is free to search and open to anyone, and it is kept by the Accountant in Bankruptcy.

mygov.scot says a MAP entry stays on the Register of Insolvencies for 18 months from the date of bankruptcy, though no statute sets any retention period.

The credit file question, answered honestly

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.

For a Minimal Asset Process the position is different, because insolvency data is reported and mygov.scot puts it at least six years. No statute sets that either.

Cost and record in one place

Some grounds are automatic. Sequestration, a protected trust deed and the death of the debtor all end a programme without a decision to make.

A programme ends if you are sequestrated

The two cannot run alongside each other. An award of sequestration ends the programme without anyone having to decide anything.

Your adviser would need to check every condition in section 2(2) before an application was made, because a failed programme does not create eligibility for a MAP.

A MAP can change shape too

Paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 lets AiB end the MAP modifications where it assesses you as able to contribute, or where your assets rise above the prescribed figure.

The automatic six-month discharge in section 140 then goes with them, which whether a MAP can be transferred to full administration explains.

How often each is used

In 2025-26 the Accountant in Bankruptcy approved 5,288 Debt Payment Programmes and 2,402 completed, with around £68.9 million repaid through the scheme.

The Accountant in Bankruptcy awarded 2,976 sequestrations in 2025-26, up 19.9 per cent on the year before, made up of 2,415 debtor applications and 561 creditor petitions.

Where to take the decision next

The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s guide for MAP debtors sets out what a Minimal Asset Process involves, and the same comparison from the Debt Arrangement Scheme side is worth reading alongside this one.

If neither fits, the informal route is compared at a MAP against a debt management plan.