Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 are both personal bankruptcy options, but they solve debt problems in opposite ways: one wipes the slate clean quickly by giving something up, the other takes years but lets you hold onto more. * Chapter 7 is the faster, more drastic option: it discharges eligible unsecured debts — credit cards, personal loans, medical bills — typically within 3 to 4 months, with no repayment plan involved. The tradeoff is that some of your assets can be liquidated, sold off to repay creditors, though many states allow you to protect certain essential property through exemptions. * Chapter 13 works on a completely different timeline: instead of liquidating assets, you keep them, but commit to a court-supervised repayment plan lasting 3 to 5 years. Once the plan is complete, whatever unsecured debt remains gets discharged. Chapter 13 is also the only real option if you're behind on a mortgage or car loan and want to catch up rather than lose the property — Chapter 7 offers no mechanism to cure that kind of default. * Eligibility for Chapter 7 isn't automatic: if your current income is above your state's median, you have to pass a "means test" that evaluates whether you genuinely can't afford a repayment plan, before you're allowed to file Chapter 7 instead of Chapter 13. * Both leave a mark on your credit report, but for different lengths of time — Chapter 7 stays on your report for 10 years from the filing date, while Chapter 13 drops off after 7 years, reflecting that Chapter 13 involves an actual repayment effort rather than a straightforward discharge.