7 Expenses Beyond the Filing Fee: How Much Does It Cost to File Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

The filing fee is the only cost of Chapter 11 that anyone can quote with certainty, and it is the smallest one. On the fee schedule in effect in September 2026, a Chapter 11 petition costs $1,738: a $1,167 filing fee set by 28 U.S.C. 1930(a) and a $571 administrative fee set by the Judicial Conference. Everything after that is measured in quarters, hours, and deposits.

Seven further expenses follow a business into the case. None of them can be estimated honestly without the company's numbers, which is why the figures below are rules and illustrations, not quotes.

1. Quarterly U.S. Trustee Fees Run on What the Business Spends

Every Chapter 11 case outside Subchapter V pays a quarterly fee to the U.S. Trustee Program under 28 U.S.C. 1930(a)(6), and the fee keeps accruing until the case is closed, converted, or dismissed. It is calculated on disbursements, meaning the money the debtor pays out in the quarter, not on the size of its debts.

The current schedule, effective April 1, 2026 through December 31, 2030 under the Bankruptcy Administration Improvement Act of 2025, reads as follows. Quarterly disbursements of $0 to $62,624 carry a fee of $250. Disbursements from $62,625 to $999,999 carry 0.4% of the total. From $1,000,000 to $27,777,722 the rate is 0.9%. At $27,777,723 or more, the fee is $250,000. The prior table, which ran from April 1, 2021, was superseded by that amendment, and older summaries still quoting a range of $325 to $30,000 describe a schedule that no longer applies.

Take a hypothetical distributor that pays out $300,000 in a quarter for inventory, payroll, and rent. Its quarterly fee is 0.4% of that, or $1,200. A larger company disbursing $1,500,000 in a quarter pays 0.9%, or $13,500. A dormant shell paying out $50,000 still owes $250. The fee rewards nothing and punishes activity, which is an odd thing to say about a charge on a business the case is meant to keep active.

Fees are payable on the last day of the month following the quarter. Nonpayment is not a bookkeeping lapse: failure to pay fees owed under chapter 123 of title 28 is listed as cause for conversion or dismissal in section 1112(b)(4)(K), and section 1129(a)(12) will not permit confirmation until every such fee has been paid. Subchapter V cases are exempt from the quarterly fee by the statute's own words, which is one of the more concrete reasons a qualifying business might elect it.

2. The Debtor's Lawyer, Whose Fees the Court Must See

Every corporate or LLC debtor needs counsel, because such an entity may appear in federal court only through a licensed lawyer. The lawyer's pay, including any prepetition retainer, is public and supervised. Section 329 requires an attorney representing a debtor to file a statement of compensation paid or agreed to within the year before the petition, and Bankruptcy Rule 2016(b) sets that filing within 14 days after the order for relief.

Counsel for a debtor in possession is also an estate professional employed under section 327(a), which requires that the lawyer hold no interest adverse to the estate and be disinterested. Fees are then awarded by the court under section 330 as reasonable compensation for actual, necessary services, with interim applications allowed no more often than every 120 days under section 331 unless the court permits otherwise. The retainer is, if we are precise, less a price than a deposit against a bill the judge will review.

3. A Subchapter V Trustee Replaces the Quarterly Fee With a Different Invoice

Subchapter V spares the business the quarterly fee, but it adds a trustee. Section 1183 provides for a standing Subchapter V trustee, or one appointed by the U.S. Trustee, who appears at the status conference and confirmation hearing and works toward a consensual plan. Section 330(a)(1) permits the court to award a trustee reasonable compensation for actual, necessary services. The trade is real. Whether it saves money depends on the size of the case and how contested it becomes.

4. The Creditors' Committee Hires Lawyers, and the Company Pays Them

In a traditional Chapter 11 case, the U.S. Trustee appoints a committee of unsecured creditors "as soon as practicable" under section 1102(a)(1). Under section 1103(a), that committee may, with court approval, employ its own attorneys and accountants, and section 330(a)(1) authorizes the court to compensate professionals employed under section 1103. The business, in other words, can end up financing the lawyers who examine its conduct.

A committee may not be appointed in a small business case or a Subchapter V case unless the court orders otherwise for cause.

5. The Claims Agent, a Line Item Few Owners Expect

Larger cases generate thousands of notices, ballots, and proofs of claim. Under 28 U.S.C. 156(c), a court may use outside facilities or services for notices, dockets, and related administrative information, "where the costs of such facilities or services are paid for out of the assets of the estate." When a case uses a claims and noticing agent, the estate pays it. Smaller cases often proceed without one, though that depends on local practice and the size of the creditor list.

6. Accountants and Financial Advisers, Needed Every Month

A debtor in possession files operating reports, keeps books the U.S. Trustee can inspect, and must file postpetition tax returns and pay postpetition taxes on time; failure on the tax front is itself cause for conversion or dismissal under section 1112(b)(4)(I). Section 327(a) allows the debtor to employ accountants and other professionals with court approval, subject to the same disinterestedness requirement that governs its lawyers. Their fees pass through section 330 like the rest.

7. Deposits, Cures, and Protection Payments That Look Like Operating Costs

Some of the largest cash demands in a case are not fees at all. A utility may discontinue service to a Chapter 11 debtor that has not, within 30 days of the petition, furnished adequate assurance of payment satisfactory to the utility under section 366(c)(2). Assuming a lease or contract that is in default requires curing the default and compensating the counterparty's actual pecuniary loss under section 365(b)(1). A secured lender whose cash collateral the business uses may obtain adequate protection, sometimes in the form of periodic payments. And a supplier holding a section 503(b)(9) claim for goods received in the 20 days before filing holds an administrative expense the plan generally must satisfy.

You add it up at the end and the filing fee is the part nobody remembers.

There are other costs as well, appraisers and examiners among them, though they arrive only in certain cases.

The Cost of Not Filing Is Also a Number

For a business that needs the stay, the lease rejection power, or a plan that binds holdouts, these expenses are the price of tools no private agreement can supply, and bankruptcy counsel is the right place to price them. Delancey Street is not a law firm and plays no part in filing or administering a case. It reviews, confidentially and at no charge, whether merchant cash advance and business debts might be resolved through negotiated settlement instead, bringing in independently licensed counsel when a legal question requires one. Settlement has its own costs, including possible tax on canceled debt, and those deserve the same scrutiny as a quarterly fee table.