Bankruptcy Administration Improvement Act of 2025

The law increases the fixed per-case fee paid to chapter 7 bankruptcy trustees from $45 to $105 (raising total trustee compensation from $60 to $120 per case when combined with an existing $15 fee), and restructures how the remainder of the fees collected under 28 U.S.C. § 1930(a)(1)(A) is divided among Treasury funds and the U.S. Trustee System Fund. It also extends for five more years — through fiscal year 2031 — the higher quarterly fees that chapter 11 debtors with large disbursements pay to U.S. trustees, raising the applicable percentage cap from 0.8 to 0.9 percent, and directs that $5,400,000 of those fees go to the Treasury's general fund each year through FY2031. Separately, the law extends by five years (from five to ten years total) the terms of temporary bankruptcy judgeships created under the Bankruptcy Administration Improvement Act of 2020 and the Bankruptcy Judgeship Act of 2017. It does not change the chapter 7 filing fee itself or affect courts' existing authority to waive filing fees for indigent filers.

Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustees, who administer consumer and small-business liquidation cases; the U.S. Trustee Program and the courts it helps fund; businesses filing chapter 11 reorganizations with large disbursements, which pay the affected quarterly fees; and the federal judicial districts holding the temporary bankruptcy judgeships being extended.

Trustees, whose per-case pay had not risen in three decades even as their workload and costs grew, would receive a substantial raise, potentially improving trustee availability and case administration. Businesses in large chapter 11 cases would pay somewhat higher quarterly fees for longer, and courts in affected districts avoid a lapse in judgeships needed to manage bankruptcy caseloads.

The Justice Department's Executive Office for U.S. Trustees and the courts will apply the new $105 per-case trustee fee and revised fund-deposit formula to qualifying chapter 7 and converted cases starting after the specified dates, while U.S. trustees will collect the extended, slightly higher quarterly fees from chapter 11 debtors with large disbursements through fiscal year 2031, with $5,400,000 annually redirected to the Treasury's general fund. Temporary bankruptcy judgeships in affected districts continue under their extended ten-year terms without a new appointment process required.