Go to ...
- How do you know your Debt Payment Programme has finished?
- Do you get a completion certificate?
- Is the frozen interest written off when a programme ends?
- Does your name come off the DAS Register?
- What does completion mean for your credit file?
- What should you do in the weeks after completion?
- What if a programme ends some other way?
- Related guides
- Frequently asked questions
The payments distributor sends a written notice of completion to the Accountant in Bankruptcy, your money adviser, you and every creditor taking part. The interest, fees and charges frozen while the programme ran cease to be owed.
The day itself is administrative rather than dramatic. Regulation 46 sets out who has to be told, and a separate 2011 instrument deals with the frozen charges.
Part of your pay is protected by law
The deduction is set by statutory tables, not the creditor
An arrestment can be stopped or replaced
Last payment in sight? Check what completing your programme actually gets you.
Free & confidential
No obligation
★★★★★Rated 5 stars on Google
No obligation
★★★★★Rated 5 stars on Google
One point catches almost everyone who searches for this. There is no completion certificate, and the word does not appear anywhere in the regulations.
Here is what you get, what stops, what comes off the register and what to do in the weeks after. How the Debt Arrangement Scheme works covers the scheme itself.
How do you know your Debt Payment Programme has finished?
You receive a written notice of completion. Regulation 46(1) puts that duty on the payments distributor, and the same notice goes to four other places.
Who gets told, and by whom
| Who is told | Who tells them | Provision |
|---|---|---|
| The DAS Administrator | The payments distributor | Regulation 46(1)(a) |
| Any continuing money adviser | The payments distributor | Regulation 46(1)(b) |
| You, the debtor | The payments distributor | Regulation 46(1)(c) |
| Each creditor taking part in the programme | The payments distributor | Regulation 46(1)(d) |
| Your employer, where a payment instruction was running | The DAS Administrator or your continuing money adviser | Regulation 46(2) |
The payments distributor is the party that has been receiving your money and splitting it. What a payments distributor does explains the role.
The employer notice
Where you were paying by an instruction to your employer, regulation 46(2) requires the completion to be intimated in writing to that employer. The word was changed from mandate to instruction by the 2013 amending regulations, in force 2 July 2013.
That is what stops the deduction. Check your next payslip rather than assuming it happened.
What counts as completion
Making all the payments the programme provides for is the ordinary route. The Accountant in Bankruptcy also treats a lump sum equal to the outstanding payments as completing it.
Where creditors instead agree in writing to settle early, there is an extra step. A variation must be applied for to adjust the balances and enable completion.
Paying a programme off early with a lump sum sets those routes out and separates them from composition.
Do you get a completion certificate?
No, and the term does not exist in the scheme. What regulation 46 provides for is a notice of completion, and the words certificate and completion certificate appear nowhere in the regulations.
Why this matters more than it sounds
People ring the Accountant in Bankruptcy asking for a document that was never created. The notice of completion is the document, and the payments distributor sends it.
The word certificate appears nowhere in the 2011 Regulations, nor in any instrument that has amended them. There is no such document to ask for.
What to do if the notice does not arrive
Ask your continuing money adviser first, because they receive a copy of it. The DAS Administrator receives one too.
The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s notes for guidance set out what creditors are told on completion, which is useful if a creditor is still writing to you afterwards.
Just finished a Debt Payment Programme? Get free help with what comes next
Is the frozen interest written off when a programme ends?
Yes. The interest, fees, penalties and other charges that stopped being owed while the programme ran do not come back when it completes.
Where the freeze comes from
It is a separate instrument from the main regulations. The Debt Arrangement Scheme (Interest, Fees, Penalties and Other Charges) (Scotland) Regulations 2011 deal with it, and they apply the same result to a debt settled by composition.
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.
What was never written off
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.
So completion is not a discharge from anything. It is the point at which you have paid the principal, and whether a Debt Arrangement Scheme writes off any debt deals with the claims that suggest otherwise.
The one case where the freeze does not survive
A revoked programme. Creditors can apply interest, fees and charges again once the protection period in regulation 44A has run.
How the freeze works while a programme is live is covered in whether a Debt Arrangement Scheme freezes interest and charges.
Does your name come off the DAS Register?
Yes. The Accountant in Bankruptcy says the details are removed from the DAS Register on completion, and it gives no timescale for that.
What is and is not published about the timing
No statutory period governs how long an entry stays after a programme completes. The Accountant in Bankruptcy says details are removed on completion without giving a timescale.
Compare that with revocation, where a period is published. There the entry comes off 14 days after the revocation was approved.
Checking it yourself
The register is free to search and open to anyone. It sits at the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s DAS Register service, and you can look up your own entry.
What the register holds and who can search it covers the entry itself, including the sensitivity exception.
Why the entry mattered while it was there
The DAS Register is free to search and open to anyone, and it is kept by the Accountant in Bankruptcy.
It is a legal register of the scheme rather than a credit reference file. National Debtline says the agencies check it and may update a credit file to reflect what they find.
A link nobody should draw
Removal from the DAS Register is not the same event as anything happening to your credit file. Nothing published connects the two.
What does completion mean for your credit file?
Less than most pages tell you, because there is no published rule to report. No credit reference agency publishes a retention rule for a Debt Arrangement Scheme at all.
What was actually checked
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.
Experian’s published retention periods list ten information types, and a Debt Arrangement Scheme is not one of them. The same is true of the Equifax and TransUnion documents.
What the widely quoted figure actually is
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.
So the useful thing to do on completion is not to look up a rule. It is to look at your own file and see what each creditor has recorded.
Where to go next
How to rebuild your credit after a programme sets out the statutory tools for correcting anything wrong, and getting a mortgage during a programme covers the borrowing restrictions that end with it.
What should you do in the weeks after completion?
Five things, and none of them takes long. The point of all of them is to make sure the paperwork matches the fact that you have finished.
The list
| What to do | Why |
|---|---|
| Keep the notice of completion | It is the document that records the programme finished, and it names every creditor that took part |
| Ask each creditor for a nil balance confirmation | The notice tells them the programme is complete. A statement from each of them is your own record |
| Check the payment has actually stopped | If a payment instruction was running, your employer is told separately under regulation 46(2) |
| Get your file from all three credit reference agencies | Check that each account in the programme shows the state you expect, and raise anything that does not |
| Check the DAS Register entry | The Accountant in Bankruptcy says the details are removed on completion, and the register is free to search |
Keep the notice of completion with the creditor confirmations. That bundle is what settles any argument later.
If a creditor keeps chasing
Send them the notice of completion. Each participating creditor is sent one under regulation 46(1)(d), so they have already had it.
If that does not stop it, take the correspondence to a money adviser. Do not start paying something you have already paid.
What to do with the money you were paying
Whatever you were contributing is now free income, and it disappears quickly if nothing is decided about it. Setting up a standing order into savings on the old payment date is the simplest way to keep it.
It also builds the buffer that stops the next unexpected bill turning into a debt. That is a better use of the habit than anything a credit product will offer you.
What the numbers look like nationally
The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s 2025-26 annual statistics record 2,402 programmes completed, a 12.0 per cent increase on 2,145 the year before.
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.
What if a programme ends some other way?
Completion is one of four endings, and they do not have the same consequences. Revocation is the one that undoes the interest freeze.
The four endings
| How it ends | What you receive | What happens to the frozen charges | Provision |
|---|---|---|---|
| It completes | Notice of completion from the payments distributor | The frozen interest, fees, penalties and charges cease to be owed | Regulation 46 |
| It completes by composition | Notice of completion from the DAS Administrator where every creditor accepts | The same result on the frozen charges, and the remaining liability is discharged | Regulations 46B and 46C |
| It is revoked | Notification under regulation 44 | Creditors can reapply interest, fees and charges once the protection period runs out | Regulations 42 and 44A |
| The debtor dies | The programme is revoked on intimation of the death | Creditors wait six weeks rather than 14 days | Regulations 40A and 44A(1)(a) |
Why a Debt Arrangement Scheme can be revoked covers the grounds, the four-week proposal window and the clock that runs after a revocation.
Composition, and why it is rare
Composition needs both twelve years from approval and seventy per cent of the debt paid, under regulation 46A(1). It is a long stop for very long programmes rather than something you can ask for.
It ends with its own notice of completion, sent by the DAS Administrator rather than by the payments distributor. A creditor who does not answer an offer within 21 days is deemed to accept it.
AiB’s guidance adds one consequence worth knowing. A debt completed by composition is recorded with the credit reference agencies as partially settled.
Life after a programme
The credit restriction ends with the programme, and so does the standard condition about it. The disadvantages of a Debt Arrangement Scheme sets out what you were living with, and our Debt Arrangement Scheme page explains how we help.
Frequently asked questions
Do you get a DAS completion certificate?
No. Regulation 46 provides for a notice of completion, sent by the payments distributor, and the word certificate does not appear in the regulations or in any instrument amending them.
Who tells you a Debt Payment Programme is complete?
The payments distributor. It sends the notice of completion to the DAS Administrator, any continuing money adviser, you, and each creditor taking part.
Is the frozen interest written off when a Debt Payment Programme ends?
Yes. The interest, fees, penalties and other charges that stopped being owed under the 2011 interest regulations do not come back on completion.
Does your employer stop the deduction automatically?
Where a payment instruction was in place, regulation 46(2) requires the Accountant in Bankruptcy or your continuing money adviser to intimate completion in writing to the employer.
When does a completed programme come off the DAS Register?
The Accountant in Bankruptcy says the details are removed on completion but gives no timescale. No statutory period governs it.
How long does a Debt Arrangement Scheme stay on your credit file after it ends?
No credit reference agency publishes a retention rule for a Debt Arrangement Scheme. What each account carries is the status your creditor reported, so check your file with all three agencies.
Do you owe anything at all once a programme completes?
Not on the debts in the programme. Anything left outside it, including debts excluded under regulation 20(2AA), was never covered and is still owed on its own terms.
What happens if the programme is revoked instead of completed?
Creditors can apply interest, fees and charges again once the protection period in regulation 44A runs out, which is 14 days in the ordinary case.
Get free, confidential help with your debts today
Free, confidential advice on where you stand and what can be stopped.
Written as general information about Scottish debt law rather than regulated financial or legal advice, and your own circumstances may change the answer. Free, impartial help is available from Citizens Advice Scotland, StepChange, National Debtline and Advice Direct Scotland.