The two required courses: credit counseling and debtor education
Every filer takes two short courses from approved providers: a credit counseling briefing before filing (your certificate must be no older than 180 days on filing day) and a debtor education course after filing, required before the discharge issues. Both are about an hour, online or by phone, cost roughly $10 to $50 each with fee waivers available, and neither is a test you can fail. The only way they hurt you is by being forgotten.
In this answer
Course one: credit counseling, before you file
A briefing from a government-approved nonprofit covering your budget and the alternatives to bankruptcy. Online or by phone, about an hour, and the provider must issue your certificate promptly. Realities worth knowing:
- It gates the courthouse door. With narrow emergency exceptions, you can’t file without a certificate dated within 180 days before filing. The practical advice from the emergency-filing article bears repeating: if bankruptcy is even on your radar, do the course now. It commits you to nothing and removes the one prerequisite that can’t be done retroactively.
- It’s not a gatekeeper’s judgment. The counselor may discuss a debt management plan; you’re not required to accept anything, and the certificate issues regardless.
- Cost: commonly $10 to $50, and providers must waive the fee for filers below certain income levels; ask.
- Use an approved provider from the U.S. Trustee’s list (your attorney will point you to the ones they use daily). Certificates from random websites don’t count.
Course two: debtor education, after you file
A second course, similar length and cost, on budgeting and credit going forward. Different purpose, different deadline: it’s required for the discharge. In Chapter 7 the certificate is due within 60 days after the first 341 date; in Chapter 13, before the last plan payment.
This is the one people forget, and the consequence is genuinely dumb: courts close cases without a discharge over a missing certificate, and reopening a case to file it later costs a new fee and motion. Every consumer attorney has war stories. The fix costs an hour: take course two the same week as your 341, while the case is top of mind, and confirm your certificate actually got filed.
The bottom line
Two hours of your life, scheduled early, and these requirements never appear in your story again. The pre-filing course belongs on your to-do list today if filing is plausible this year; the post-filing course belongs on the calendar the day your 341 is scheduled.
Sources
This is general information, not legal advice. The right answer for you depends on details a website cannot see, and rules vary by state and by court.
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