Can I leave a credit card off my bankruptcy petition and keep it?

First and foremost, you must list ALL your debts and ALL your assets on your bankruptcy petition no exceptions. If you however have a credit card that you have not used and it has had a zero balance for some time you may not need to include it on your bankruptcy petition. Nonetheless, you should be aware that credit card companies regularly monitor the credit bureaus and your credit card agreement gives them the right to cancel your account so it is likely once the credit card companies discover that you have filed bankruptcy they will cancel your cards in any event.

Depending on your standing with the company prior to filing and what caused you to have to file bankruptcy it may not be that difficult for you to get a new account (not that I am advocating that!) I received a call from a client that I filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy for informing me that the client had been approved for a credit card within months of filing. In the client’s case it was a foreclosure that necessitated the filing of her bankruptcy and she otherwise had good credit with her credit card companies and had paid them all off prior to filing.