How to Complete and File Form 106Sum: Summary of Assets and Liabilities

Official Form 106Sum is the one-page summary that pulls totals from your other bankruptcy schedules onto a single sheet so the court and trustee can see the scale of your case at a glance. You complete it last, because almost every line copies a number from a schedule you have already finished, and you file it with your petition package. The form is a free download from the United States Courts website.¹

Finish These Schedules First

Form 106Sum is derivative. If the schedules behind it are incomplete or inconsistent, the summary will be wrong, and a mismatch between the summary and the underlying schedules can delay your case or draw questions from the trustee. Before you open 106Sum, finish:

Schedule A/B (Official Form 106A/B), listing all real estate and personal property.
Schedule D (Official Form 106D), listing creditors with claims secured by your property.
Schedule E/F (Official Form 106E/F), listing unsecured creditors split into priority and nonpriority.
Schedule I (Official Form 106I), your income.
Schedule J (Official Form 106J), your expenses.
The means test form that matches your chapter: Form 122A-1 for Chapter 7, Form 122B for Chapter 11, or Form 122C-1 for Chapter 13.

Every one of these is on the same bankruptcy forms page as 106Sum itself.¹

Part 1: Your Assets

Three lines, all copied straight from Schedule A/B:²

Line 1a: Schedule A/B line 55 (total real estate).
Line 1b: Schedule A/B line 62 (total personal property).
Line 1c: Schedule A/B line 63 (total of all property). This should equal 1a plus 1b.

If Schedule A/B shows property worth $250,000, line 1c has to read $250,000. The court compares the summary against the detailed schedules, and any discrepancy invites scrutiny.

Part 2: Your Liabilities

Part 2 pulls from two schedules:

Line 2a: the Column A total (amount of claim) at the bottom of Part 1 of Schedule D. This is your total secured debt.
Line 3a: Schedule E/F line 6e (total priority unsecured claims).
Line 3b: Schedule E/F line 6j (total nonpriority unsecured claims).

The form adds these to produce your total liabilities.² Priority claims matter because they cover debts like domestic support obligations and certain taxes that must be paid before general creditors see anything. A $50,000 figure on line 3a tells the trustee you have mandatory payments ahead that cannot be discharged.

Part 3: Income and Expenses

Two numbers:

Line 4: your combined monthly income from Schedule I, line 12.
Line 5: your monthly expenses from Schedule J, line 22c.

The gap between the two is your monthly net income or deficit. That number tells the court whether you have disposable income to fund a Chapter 13 plan or whether your budget genuinely leaves nothing left over.

Part 4: Statistical and Administrative Questions

This is the only part that is not pure copying. You answer several questions and pull figures from both your schedules and your means test form.²

Question 6: identify your chapter (7, 11, or 13).
Question 7: state whether your debts are primarily consumer or business. Consumer debts are those incurred primarily for personal, family, or household purposes. The classification matters because the means test and the Chapter 7 presumption of abuse apply only to filers whose debts are primarily consumer.
Question 8: your total current monthly income from the applicable means test form (Form 122A-1 line 11 for Chapter 7, Form 122B line 11 for Chapter 11, or Form 122C-1 line 14 for Chapter 13).
Question 9 (lines 9a through 9f): specific categories of claims from Part 4, line 6 of Schedule E/F. These cover domestic support obligations, tax debts, claims for injuries caused while you were intoxicated, student loans, and obligations from a divorce or separation agreement.

The data in Part 4 fulfills a federal reporting mandate. Under 28 U.S.C. § 159, bankruptcy clerks collect standardized statistics on individual debtors with primarily consumer debts, including total assets and liabilities, monthly income and expenses, and amounts in specific claim categories.³ These numbers also feed the means test. If your current monthly income is above the median for your household size and state, the court may presume that filing Chapter 7 constitutes abuse and push you toward Chapter 13.⁴

Sign Under Penalty of Perjury

At the bottom of the form is a declaration you sign under penalty of perjury, affirming that the totals on the summary accurately reflect the detailed schedules attached to your petition. Your attorney, if you have one, may help prepare the form and sign a separate certification, but you must personally sign the summary.

False statements on bankruptcy filings can be prosecuted under 18 U.S.C. § 152, which covers concealment of assets, false oaths, and fraudulent claims.⁵ A conviction carries up to five years in prison, and the fine can reach $250,000 under the general federal sentencing statute.⁶ The cases that actually get prosecuted are not rounding errors on line 1b. They are debtors who deliberately hide bank accounts or undervalue property to keep it out of the estate.

Filing Deadline

File Form 106Sum with your petition. If you cannot, Rule 1007 of the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure gives you 14 days after the petition date to get it filed.⁷ Miss that deadline without requesting an extension and the court can dismiss your case. Dismissal means you lose any filing fees you already paid, and creditors can immediately resume collection.

How to Submit the Form

Form 106Sum goes in with the rest of the petition package: the petition itself, the schedules, the means test form, and the creditor mailing matrix. Most bankruptcy courts use the Case Management/Electronic Case Filing (CM/ECF) system. If you have an attorney, filing will almost certainly be electronic.

Pro se filers can often submit paper documents by mail or in person at the clerk’s office, though the rules vary by district. Common formatting requirements include printing on one side of standard 8½-by-11-inch paper, no staples, no hole punches, and legible, signed, dated documents throughout.⁸ Some courts require a copy of your photo ID and will accept only certified checks or money orders for the filing fee, not cash or personal checks. Check your local court’s website for its specific pro se procedures before you mail anything.

Amending the Summary After Filing

If you find an error on a schedule after filing, such as a bank account you forgot or a debt listed at the wrong amount, amend the underlying schedule and then file a new Form 106Sum showing the corrected totals. The summary has a checkbox at the top labeled “Check if this is an amended filing.”²

Amending schedules costs $34, and the judge can waive the fee for good cause.⁹ No fee applies if the only change is updating a creditor’s address or adding an attorney for an already-listed creditor. Send a copy of the amended documents to your Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 trustee. If you are adding a new creditor or changing a debt amount, you must also send that creditor the required notices about the case.¹⁰

1
United States Courts. Bankruptcy Forms
2
United States Courts. Official Form 106Sum Summary of Your Assets and Liabilities and Certain Statistical Information
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 159 – Bankruptcy Statistics
4
United States Courts. Official Form 122A-2 Chapter 7 Means Test Calculation
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 152 – Concealment of Assets; False Oaths and Claims; Bribery
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3571 – Sentence of Fine
7
Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure Rule 1007 – Lists, Schedules, Statements, and Other Documents
8
United States Bankruptcy Court, Middle District of Florida. Filing Without an Attorney
9
United States Courts. Bankruptcy Court Miscellaneous Fee Schedule
10
United States Bankruptcy Court – District of Columbia. Amending Schedules and Mailing Matrix