How long does an IVA last?

How many years do you pay an IVA for?

You pay a protocol IVA for 5 years, which is 60 monthly payments, or for 6 years if your share of the equity in your family home is £10,000 or more (IVA Protocol 2025 (opens in a new tab)).

The protocol works out that share as 85% of your home's value minus your mortgage and any other secured borrowing, which IVAs for homeowners explains. A bespoke IVA states its own length in the proposal (rule 8.3 (opens in a new tab)). Either way, your practitioner works out what you can afford and how long the IVA lasts (GOV.UK (opens in a new tab)). For the stages before the payments start, read how an IVA works.

Can an IVA be extended?

An IVA can be extended, and in a protocol IVA the supervisor can add up to 12 months without asking your creditors, either to make up payment holidays or to recover extra income you should have paid in (standard terms (opens in a new tab)).

Payment holidays can cover up to the equivalent of 9 months of payments in total, and the IVA then runs on by no more than 12 months to make them up, unless you cover the shortfall another way (IVA Protocol 2025 (opens in a new tab)). The supervisor must send you and every creditor an extension notice giving the new length. In the final year, that notice must arrive at least 14 days before the IVA was due to end.

Your payments stay the same during an extension unless the notice says otherwise. An extension of more than 12 months needs a formal variation that you and your creditors both agree to. If you are falling behind, read what happens if an IVA fails and how a struggling IVA can be saved.

Can I pay off an IVA early?

You can end an IVA early by paying in full (early completion), by a lump-sum settlement your creditors accept through a variation, or by asking your supervisor in writing to terminate it, after which creditors can chase the balances again with interest and charges (standard terms (opens in a new tab)).

Paying in full means enough money comes in to pay your creditors everything due, with the IVA's costs and fees, and the supervisor can then end it without asking your creditors again. The money can come from larger voluntary payments, extra income, an inheritance or other windfall, or the proceeds of a legal claim. No statutory interest is added to what you owed when the IVA started, and you receive a completion certificate.

You can also propose a full and final settlement to your creditors as a variation of the IVA. If they accept it, the IVA is complete once you have made the payments under the variation and met your other obligations (IVA Protocol 2025 (opens in a new tab)).

Ending it at your request does not release you from the debts, and you get no refund of what you have paid. Stopping your payments counts as a breach, which is covered in what happens if an IVA fails. Paying early ends your payments sooner but does not shorten the time the IVA shows on your credit file, which is 6 years from the date the IVA started (Key facts (opens in a new tab)).

What happens when an IVA ends?

When the final payment is made and the supervisor's checks are complete, the supervisor issues a completion certificate, the IVA is removed from the Individual Insolvency Register three months later, and the credit file entry drops off six years after the start date (standard terms (opens in a new tab); GOV.UK (opens in a new tab)).

You are then released from all the debts the IVA covers. Your creditors are told the IVA is complete (IVA Protocol 2025 (opens in a new tab)), and any money left over in the IVA is returned to you.

If your protocol IVA was agreed on the 2021 terms and you own your home with enough equity, you may be asked, after a valuation at month 54, to release equity by remortgaging; if equity is released the IVA ends at 60 months, otherwise it runs to 72 (IVA Protocol 2021 standard terms (opens in a new tab)). Protocol IVAs proposed from 1 July 2025 ask for no equity release. Read how an IVA affects your credit file for what lenders see in the meantime.

What is an IVA completion certificate?

An IVA completion certificate is the notice your supervisor must send within 28 days of the IVA being completed; keep it, and if your credit file still shows the IVA as active, raise it with the credit reference agency (rule 8.31 (opens in a new tab); ICO (opens in a new tab)).

The same notice goes to the creditors bound by the IVA, with a report summarising everything paid in and out. The protocol's standard terms call it the completion certificate, and it states that you have fully complied with the IVA (standard terms (opens in a new tab)).