I'm above the median income. Can I still file Chapter 7?

The long form, in one paragraph

Start with your six-month average income. Subtract living expenses, mostly at standardized IRS amounts for food, clothing, housing, utilities, and transportation that depend on your county and household size, not your receipts. Then subtract several categories at your actual numbers: payroll taxes, health, disability, and term life insurance, court-ordered support, mandatory retirement deductions where they qualify, childcare, health expenses above the standard, and, crucially, your average monthly payments on secured debts: the mortgage and the car loans. What’s left is your monthly disposable income under the test. If it’s under the statutory floor, you pass and Chapter 7 is available. Over the ceiling, the presumption is you can pay something. In between, the answer depends on whether the surplus could pay a meaningful slice of your unsecured debt.

Why above-median families pass

Because the deductions are where real life lives. A household grossing well above median with a substantial mortgage, two car payments, health premiums, and child support frequently nets out below the line: the very payments that made the debt unmanageable are the ones the test credits. This is also why no one should self-diagnose from an online calculator: the outcome swings on line-item judgment calls (which expenses qualify, how a car owned outright is treated, how a 401(k) loan repayment counts, and some of these vary by circuit) that an experienced attorney gets right and a web form doesn’t.

Special circumstances

The test has a safety valve: documented special circumstances with no reasonable alternative, a serious medical condition, a recent job loss the six-month average hasn’t caught up with, unavoidable extraordinary costs, can rebut the presumption even when the raw math fails. It requires real documentation and a judge’s agreement, but it exists precisely because averages lie about people whose lives just changed.

If you truly don’t pass

Then the system routes you to Chapter 13 with a five-year plan, and the honest news is that this is often not the consolation prize it sounds like. The plan payment comes from a budget analysis related to the same math, unsecured creditors get what the numbers show and no more, and the tools that make 13 valuable, curing a mortgage, restructuring cars, managing taxes, come with it. Some above-median filers end up better served by the chapter the test pushed them toward.

The bottom line

Above-median is the start of a calculation, not the end of an option. Gather the pay stubs, the mortgage and car statements, the insurance and support numbers, and let someone who does this daily run the real test. The Checkup can give you a first read on which side of the line your situation likely falls.