Bankruptcy Statistics in US 2026 | Key Facts

Bankruptcy in America 2026

Bankruptcy filings in America have been climbing steadily for four consecutive years, and 2025 closed out as one of the most active periods for the US bankruptcy system since the aftermath of the Great Recession. With 574,314 total bankruptcy cases filed in the 12 months ending December 31, 2025 — an 11% jump over the prior year’s 517,308 cases — the direction of travel is unmistakable. Inflation that refuses to fully retreat, persistently elevated interest rates, the expiration of pandemic-era relief programs, and the highest consumer credit card balances ever recorded have combined to push millions of American households and thousands of businesses toward the legal protection of federal bankruptcy courts. Whether it is a small manufacturing firm in the Midwest drowning in high-interest debt, or a single mother in Georgia overwhelmed by medical bills and a car loan she can no longer service, the US bankruptcy system is working harder than it has in over a decade.

What makes the 2025–2026 bankruptcy landscape particularly worth examining is the breadth of the surge. This is not a story confined to one type of filer or one region of the country. Business filings hit a 10-year high in 2025, with Chapter 11 corporate reorganizations reaching levels not seen since the immediate post-recession years. At the same time, non-business personal filings rose 11.2%, touching 549,577 for the calendar year — the highest figure since 2020. From retail chains filing for the second time in as many years to individual filers whose median monthly income is just $4,060, the data paints a clear picture of a financial system under genuine strain. This article draws exclusively on verified statistics from official US government publications — including the Administrative Office of the US Courts, the Congressional Research Service, and the US Courts’ Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) Report 2024 — to give you the most current, factual breakdown of bankruptcy in the United States in 2026.

Interesting Facts About Bankruptcy in the US 2026

Before the section-by-section data, here are the most striking, verified facts about US bankruptcy filings sourced exclusively from official government and authoritative federal data repositories.

Source: Administrative Office of the United States Courts — Bankruptcy Filings Rise 11 Percent (Feb. 4, 2026, uscourts.gov); BAPCPA Report 2024 (uscourts.gov); American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) / Epiq AACER monthly statistics; Consumer Bankruptcy Project

The numbers above tell a story that is easy to miss if you’re only watching the headlines. Yes, the bankruptcy surge is real — but it’s happening from a historically low base. Even at 574,314 annual filings, the US system is processing barely a third of the nearly 1.6 million cases it was handling at the September 2010 peak. The rapid climb in Subchapter V small business elections — up 68% in January 2026 alone — reflects not just financial distress among small businesses but also the growing sophistication of business owners who are increasingly aware of the streamlined, lower-cost reorganization route that Subchapter V offers. The aging bankruptcy demographic is equally telling: the fact that Americans 65 and older have grown from 4.5% to 18.7% of filers over two decades reflects a systemic failure of retirement security, where fixed-income seniors are increasingly unable to absorb the shock of medical debt or caregiving costs without resorting to the federal bankruptcy courts.

Total Bankruptcy Filings in the US 2026 – Annual Filing Trends

The headline filing data from the Administrative Office of the US Courts provides the clearest view of where the US bankruptcy system stands heading into 2026.

Source: Administrative Office of the United States Courts — Bankruptcy Filings Rise 11 Percent (uscourts.gov, Feb. 4, 2026); Bankruptcies Rise 13.1 Percent (uscourts.gov, May 1, 2025); Bankruptcy Filings Statistics historical tables (uscourts.gov)

Four consecutive quarters of year-over-year growth — from a 13.1% increase in the period ending March 2025 down to an 11% increase by December 2025 — suggests that while the surge is moderating slightly in pace, it is not reversing. 574,314 total filings for the full calendar year 2025 represents the highest annual total since 2020, when pandemic-era economic dislocation and expiring government support pushed filings briefly before stimulus programs temporarily reversed the tide. The most instructive comparison, however, is with 2019: even with four straight years of growth, the current filing level remains 26% below the 774,940 cases filed in the last pre-pandemic year. That gap tells you that despite the very real financial strain millions of Americans are experiencing, the bankruptcy system is still functioning at a substantially suppressed level compared to what the underlying economic stress might otherwise predict — a gap that many bankruptcy analysts attribute to lingering pandemic equity gains, the widespread refinancing of debt at low rates in 2020–2021, and higher home values that have kept many otherwise distressed homeowners from the brink.

Business vs. Personal Bankruptcy Filings in the US 2026 – Filing Type Breakdown

One of the most fundamental distinctions in US bankruptcy statistics is the split between business filings and non-business (personal consumer) filings — and the ratio has changed dramatically over the decades.

Source: Administrative Office of the United States Courts — Bankruptcy Filings Rise 11 Percent (uscourts.gov, Feb. 4, 2026); Bankruptcies Rise 13.1 Percent (uscourts.gov, May 1, 2025); Congressional Research Service Insight IN12536 (congress.gov); S&P Global market data via Quartz, August 2025

The dominance of personal consumer filings — representing over 95% of all US bankruptcy cases — is a structural constant that shapes everything about how the American bankruptcy system actually operates day-to-day. The fact that business filings have fallen from 13% of all cases in 1980 to just 4.4% in 2024 reflects not a reduction in business financial distress, but a fundamental shift in who the system serves: overwhelmingly, it is a consumer debt relief mechanism. That said, the business filing numbers in 2025 are the most concerning they have been in a decade. With 371 large companies seeking bankruptcy protection in the first half of 2025 alone — the busiest first half for large corporate bankruptcies since 2010 — and business filings up 14.7% in the March 2025 quarterly period, the corporate stress signals are clearly flashing. Real estate, consumer goods, and energy/industrial companies combined for 80% of all Chapter 11 filings in 2025, according to restructuring analysts at PwC, reflecting sector-specific pressures rather than a broad economy-wide collapse.

Bankruptcy Filings by Chapter in the US 2026 – Chapter 7, 11, and 13 Statistics

The bankruptcy chapter under which a case is filed determines the process, timeline, and outcome for the debtor. Chapter 7, 11, and 13 each serve distinct purposes and are used by very different profiles of filers.

Source: Congressional Research Service — IN12536 (congress.gov); Administrative Office of the US Courts — BAPCPA Report 2024; Bankruptcy Filings Statistics (uscourts.gov); ABI/Epiq AACER monthly filing data (abi.org)

Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcy commanding 60.3% of all non-business filings is not a surprise — it has been the dominant personal bankruptcy chapter for decades because of its speed (a case typically resolves in 3 to 6 months) and its ability to completely discharge eligible unsecured debts. The 18.7% surge in non-business Chapter 7 filings in 2024 — from 251,048 to 298,049 — is the clearest single statistic showing the pressure on American household finances. For those who can’t qualify for Chapter 7 under the BAPCPA means test, Chapter 13 remains the primary alternative, with 195,724 non-business filings in 2024 — and the roughly 1.7-to-1 ratio of Chapter 7 to Chapter 13 filings indicates a continued preference for outright discharge over a multi-year repayment plan. The Chapter 11 data is where the corporate story gets serious: business Chapter 11 filings jumping 19.6% in 2024 and reaching a 10-year high in 2025 reflect the devastating combination of high interest rates, supply chain disruption, and a K-shaped economy where lower- and middle-income consumer spending — the lifeblood of retailers and restaurants — is under sustained pressure.

Personal Bankruptcy Filer Demographics in the US 2026 – Who Files for Bankruptcy

Understanding who files for bankruptcy in America is just as important as understanding how many filings occur. The demographic data reveals a system that disproportionately touches specific income levels, age groups, and genders.

Source: Administrative Office of the United States Courts — BAPCPA Report 2024 (uscourts.gov); Consumer Bankruptcy Project (CBP); Kaiser Family Foundation; Congressional Research Service Insight IN12536 (congress.gov)

The median filer income of $4,060 per month — roughly $48,720 annualized — places the typical bankruptcy petitioner below the national median household income but, critically, above the federal poverty line. This is an important distinction: as the Consumer Bankruptcy Project has consistently documented, bankruptcy is primarily a debt problem, not an income problem. The typical filer earns a working-class or lower-middle-class income but has accumulated unsecured debt — credit cards, medical bills, personal loans — that has grown faster than their ability to service it. The $86 billion in aggregate liabilities reported by consumer filers in 2024, against just $75 billion in assets, makes this math painfully concrete: the system is processing real insolvency, not strategic manipulation. The explosive growth of senior filers — from 4.5% to 18.7% of the filing population over just two decades — is arguably the most alarming long-term trend in the entire dataset, reflecting a generation entering retirement without adequate savings, carrying medical debt that Medicare only partially covers, and increasingly reliant on fixed Social Security income that cannot absorb the cost shocks of modern American life.

Bankruptcy Filings by State in the US 2026 – Geographic Distribution

Where bankruptcies are filed in America reflects the intersection of population size, cost of living, state-specific legal protections, and local economic conditions. The geographic distribution in 2024 data shows significant concentration in a handful of large states.

Source: Congressional Research Service — IN12536 (congress.gov); Administrative Office of the US Courts — BAPCPA Report 2024 (uscourts.gov); AO of US Courts, Table F-2 (December 2024)

The Southern United States accounting for roughly 38% of all bankruptcy filings despite representing only about 25% of the national population is one of the most persistent and structurally significant patterns in the entire dataset. States like Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi consistently file at above-average per-capita rates due to a combination of lower median incomes, limited wage garnishment protections that make pre-bankruptcy debt collection particularly aggressive, higher rates of medical debt, and fewer consumer financial safety nets at the state level. Florida’s 25.9% spike in 2024 — one of the largest single-year increases of any large state — reflects the collision of rapid population growth, skyrocketing housing costs, and a service-economy workforce particularly exposed to inflation. The District of Delaware’s position as the second-highest jurisdiction for business filings — despite being one of the smallest states by population — is not accidental: Delaware’s favorable corporate law environment and experienced bankruptcy judiciary make it the preferred venue for major Chapter 11 reorganizations, from retail giants to industrial conglomerates, regardless of where those companies actually operate.

Business Bankruptcy and Chapter 11 Corporate Filings in the US 2026 – Corporate Restructuring Data

Corporate bankruptcy surged to levels not seen in over a decade in 2025, with high-profile Chapter 11 filings spanning retail, healthcare, real estate, and energy — a breadth that reflects economy-wide stress rather than isolated sector problems.

Source: Administrative Office of the United States Courts (uscourts.gov, Feb. 4, 2026 and May 1, 2025); American Bankruptcy Institute / Epiq AACER monthly statistics (abi.org); PwC US Restructuring and Bankruptcy Outlook 2026 (pwc.com); Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, October 2025

The 67% jump in commercial Chapter 11 filings in February 2026 alone — from 487 to 814 cases compared to the same month a year earlier — is a striking early-2026 data point that suggests the corporate stress cycle that defined 2025 is accelerating rather than abating. Real estate, consumer goods, and energy/industrial companies accounting for 80% of all Chapter 11 filings in 2025 reflects three distinct but interconnected pressures: commercial real estate continues to be devastated by the structural shift to remote work and the repricing of assets in a higher-rate environment; consumer goods companies are being squeezed between input cost inflation driven partly by tariff uncertainty and a consumer whose discretionary spending is increasingly stretched; and energy and industrial firms are caught between volatile commodity markets and capital structures built for a zero-rate world. The Harvard Business School research finding that consumers’ willingness to pay drops by up to 28% once they learn a company has filed for Chapter 11 introduces a cruel irony: the act of filing for reorganization protection, intended to save a business, can itself accelerate the revenue decline that makes survival harder — a dynamic particularly acute in retail, where 44% of consumers reported awareness of major retail bankruptcies.

Bankruptcy Filer Financial Profile in the US 2026 – Income, Assets, Debt, and Costs

Beyond the filing counts, the financial profile of the average bankruptcy filer reveals the precise economic conditions that drive Americans into the federal bankruptcy courts.

Source: Administrative Office of the United States Courts — BAPCPA Report 2024 (uscourts.gov); Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Household Debt and Credit Report 2024; Nolo legal resource data

The $86 billion in aggregate liabilities versus $75 billion in assets reported by 2024 consumer bankruptcy filers is the financial core of the entire story: these are people who are genuinely, measurably insolvent — not gaming a system, but seeking relief from a debt load that has definitively outpaced their asset base. The dramatic geographic disparity in average assets per petition — from $7,875,129 in the District of Vermont to just $63,849 in the Western District of Tennessee — reflects the profound wealth inequality that runs through the American bankruptcy docket. The wealthiest filers, often using bankruptcy for strategic real estate or business purposes, skew Vermont’s average wildly upward, while Tennessee’s figure reflects a docket dominated by lower-income consumers liquidating minimal assets. The $1.13 trillion in US credit card balances — an all-time record — is the single most direct leading indicator of what the bankruptcy filing trajectory will look like through 2026 and beyond. When credit card balances at record highs meet elevated interest rates (the average credit card APR has exceeded 20% since late 2023) and a softening job market, the mathematical pressure toward bankruptcy becomes almost inevitable for households operating with no financial margin. The 51% Chapter 13 dismissal rate for failure to make plan payments underscores just how precarious the financial situation remains for many filers even after court protection is granted.

Disclaimer: This research report is compiled from publicly available sources. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is given as to the completeness or reliability of the information. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions, losses, or damages of any kind arising from the use of this report.

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