11 U.S.C. § 350
Section 350 · Closing and reopening cases
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 970 court decisions — leading case Mason v. Integrity Insurance (1983)
Most recently applied in Talal Qais Abdulmunem Al Zawawi v. Colin Diss (April 2024)
Cases citing this section usually also cite 28 U.S.C. § 157 · 11 U.S.C. § 523 · 11 U.S.C. § 727
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) After an estate is fully administered and the court has discharged the trustee, the court shall close the case.
(b) A case may be reopened in the court in which such case was closed to administer assets, to accord relief to the debtor, or for other cause.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Historical and Revision Notes
Subsection (a) requires the court to close a bankruptcy case after the estate is fully administered and the trustee discharged. The Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure will provide the procedure for case closing. Subsection (b) permits reopening of the case to administer assets, to accord relief to the debtor, or for other cause. Though the court may permit reopening of a case so that the trustee may exercise an avoiding power, laches may constitute a bar to an action that has been delayed too long. The case may be reopened in the court in which it was closed. The rules will prescribe the procedure by which a case is reopened and how it will be conducted after reopening.
Amendments
1984—Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 98–353 substituted “A” for “a”.
Effective Date of 1984 Amendment
Amendment by Pub. L. 98–353 effective with respect to cases filed 90 days after July 10, 1984, see section 552(a) of Pub. L. 98–353, set out as a note under section 101 of this title.