A bankruptcy or foreclosure in your history does not, by itself, disqualify a VA loan. VA says so in plain terms. What it does set is timing - and the rules are more forgiving than most Veterans are told, especially for a Chapter 13 still in progress.
Measured from the date of closing, for purchases and refinances, it may be disregarded.
Possible only if both apply: you have used credit since and paid it satisfactorily over a continued period, and the bankruptcy was caused by circumstances beyond your control - unemployment, prolonged strikes, uninsured medical bills - and those are verified.
VA says it will generally not be possible to find you a satisfactory credit risk.
One detail worth knowing: VA states that divorce is not generally viewed as beyond the borrower's control. A bankruptcy driven by divorce falls back on the two-year rule.
A separate path exists when the bankruptcy came from the failure of a self-employed borrower's business. It can work if you took a permanent job after the business failed, there is no derogatory credit before the self-employment, none after the bankruptcy, and the failure was not due to your misconduct.
VA reads a Chapter 13 as an effort to pay creditors, not a walk away from them. If you have finished all the plan payments satisfactorily, the lender may conclude you have re-established satisfactory credit.
And before it finishes: if you have satisfactorily made at least 12 months' worth of payments and the trustee or bankruptcy judge approves the new credit, the lender may give favorable consideration. That makes a VA purchase possible during an active Chapter 13, well before the plan ends.
The same structure applies. A foreclosure finalized more than 2 years before closing may be disregarded. Within 1 to 2 years, it needs both re-established credit since and circumstances beyond your control that are verified.
If a foreclosure, deed in lieu or short sale happened alongside a bankruptcy, the clock starts from the later of the bankruptcy discharge or the date title transferred. A long delay in the title transfer can push that date back, and the lender may need VA's regional loan center's guidance.
Timing only gets a file in the door; the rest still has to work. VA's measure of whether a family can carry the payment is on residual income, and how a higher ratio is judged is on VA debt-to-income. If you have been declined elsewhere on a past credit event, what to do after a denial sets out the order that helps.
Source: VA Pamphlet 26-7, Lender's Handbook, Chapter 4 Credit Underwriting, Topic 7 Credit History, Bankruptcy and Foreclosures (current version on KnowVA, updated August 26, 2026). VA figures change; confirm current tables before relying on them. Lenders may apply their own additional requirements. Not a commitment to lend.
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