Business bankruptcies pass their 2019 level; personal filings do not
U.S. courts logged 608,511 bankruptcy cases in the 12 months to June 30, 2026, up 12.2%. Business cases now exceed 2019; personal cases are 22.5% below it.
- What happened
- The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts reported on July 28, 2026 that 608,511 bankruptcy cases were filed in the 12 months ending June 30, 2026, up 12.2% from 542,529 a year earlier. Business filings rose 16.9% to 26,941; non-business (personal) filings rose 12% to 581,570.
- Why
- Filings have risen every quarter since the 12-month total hit 380,634 in June 2022. Business cases have climbed faster than personal ones and are now above their level of the 12 months to June 2019; personal cases are not.
- The numbers that matter
- 608,511Bankruptcy cases, 12 months to June 30, 2026+12.2%Change from 12 months to June 30, 202526,941Business cases, 12 months to June 30, 2026−61.9%Below the 12 months to September 30, 2010 peak
- Why it matters
- Most cases are households, not companies: 95.6% of filings were non-business. Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 work very differently for a household's home, income and credit report.
- What happens nextas we saw it on 7 Oct 2026
- As of October 4, 2026, uscourts.gov had not published figures for the 12 months ending September 30, 2026. The equivalent release in 2025 appeared on November 24, 2025.
Filings have risen 59.9% from the June 2022 low but are 61.9% below the 2010 peak.
| 12 months to Sep 30, 2010 (peak) | 1.59636e+06 |
|---|---|
| 12 months to Jun 30, 2019 | 773361 |
| 12 months to Jun 30, 2022 (low) | 380634 |
| 12 months to Jun 30, 2025 | 542529 |
| 12 months to Jun 30, 2026 | 608511 |
In the 12 months to June 30, 2026, American companies filed for bankruptcy more often than they did in the 12 months to June 2019, the last comparable period before the pandemic. American households did not. That split is the most useful thing in the latest federal court statistics, and it is easy to miss behind the headline number.
The headline number is itself large. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which compiles filings from every federal bankruptcy court, reported on July 28, 2026 that total filings rose 12.2% to 608,511 cases. The courts publish a rolling 12-month total four times a year. As of October 4, 2026, the figures for the 12 months ending September 30, 2026 had not appeared on uscourts.gov, so June is the latest period available.
Total filings were 608,511 in the 12 months ending June 30, 2026, against 542,529 in the 12 months ending June 30, 2025. Business filings rose 16.9%, from 23,043 to 26,941. Non-business filings rose 12%, from 519,486 to 581,570. Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, “Bankruptcies Rise 12.2 Percent”, July 28, 2026.
Companies are back above 2019; households are not
The courts classify each case by the predominant nature of the debt: business or non-business. Non-business is the court's term for what most people call personal bankruptcy. Set the two against the 12 months to June 30, 2019 and they move in opposite directions.
| Category | 2019 | 2022 | 2025 | 2026 | 2026 vs 2019 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business | 22,483 | 12,748 | 23,043 | 26,941 | +19.8% |
| Non-business | 750,878 | 367,886 | 519,486 | 581,570 | −22.5% |
| Total | 773,361 | 380,634 | 542,529 | 608,511 | −21.3% |
Business: 26,941 ÷ 22,483 = 1.198, an increase of 19.8%. Non-business: 581,570 ÷ 750,878 = 0.775, a fall of 22.5%. Total: 608,511 ÷ 773,361 = 0.787, a fall of 21.3%. Business cases have also more than doubled from the 12 months to June 2022: 26,941 ÷ 12,748 = 2.113, an increase of 111.3%.
Business filings are a small share of the total, which is why the headline barely registers the shift. In the 12 months to June 2026 they were 4.4% of all cases (26,941 ÷ 608,511). A total dominated by households can stay well below its 2019 level while the business count sits above it.
A single bankruptcy total mixes two different populations. A company's filing tends to reflect its revenue, its debt and the cost of refinancing it; a household's reflects income, job loss, medical costs and consumer debt. The court data record the filings, not the reasons, so the split shows where the rise is concentrated without explaining it.
How far from the peak, and how far from the low
The courts' own release sets the context: for more than a decade, total filings fell steadily, from a high of nearly 1.6 million in September 2010 to a low of 380,634 in June 2022, and they have increased each quarter since. The courts' Table F-2 for the 12 months ending September 30, 2010 puts the peak at 1,596,355 cases, of which 58,322 were business and 1,538,033 non-business.
608,511 ÷ 1,596,355 = 0.381, so filings in the 12 months to June 2026 were 38.1% of the September 2010 peak, a gap of 61.9%. Against the June 2022 low: 608,511 ÷ 380,634 = 1.599, an increase of 59.9%. The peak period ends in September and the others in June, so this comparison mixes 12-month windows that end at different points in the year.
The quarterly releases show the rise continuing through 2026. The 12-month total was 557,376 for the period ending September 30, 2025 (released November 24, 2025), 591,850 for the period ending March 31, 2026 (released April 23, 2026) and 608,511 for the period ending June 30, 2026. Each is a rolling total, so the 16,661 gap between March and June reflects one quarter entering the window and another leaving it, not filings in a single quarter. For the same reason a single release is a thin basis for any view about the figures that follow it.
What the chapters mean
The Bankruptcy Code is divided into chapters, and the courts count filings under each. The definitions below are from the courts' own Bankruptcy Basics pages.
- Chapter 7 is liquidation: “the sale of a debtor's nonexempt property and the distribution of the proceeds to creditors”. A trustee collects and sells what the law does not let the debtor keep.
- Chapter 13 “allows a debtor to keep property and pay debts over time, usually three to five years”. The courts call it a wage earner's plan and note that it offers individuals “an opportunity to save their homes from foreclosure”.
- Chapter 11 is reorganization. The courts say it “ordinarily is used by commercial enterprises that desire to continue operating a business” while repaying creditors through a court-approved plan. Individuals can also use it.
- Chapter 12 covers family farmers and fishermen with regular annual income; Chapter 15 covers cross-border insolvency.
| Chapter | 2019 | 2025 | 2026 | Change, 2025 to 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chapter 7 | 475,069 | 333,321 | 382,161 | +14.7% |
| Chapter 13 | 290,416 | 200,290 | 215,490 | +7.6% |
| Chapter 11 | 7,193 | 8,408 | 10,320 | +22.7% |
| Chapter 12 | 542 | 282 | 336 | +19.1% |
Table F-2 for the 12 months ending June 30, 2026 shows 366,863 non-business Chapter 7 cases and 214,153 non-business Chapter 13 cases. Of 26,941 business cases, 15,298 were Chapter 7, 9,766 Chapter 11 and 1,337 Chapter 13. Of the 10,320 Chapter 11 cases in total, 554 were non-business.
Chapter 7 rose by 48,840 cases (382,161 − 333,321), or 14.7%. Chapter 13 rose by 15,200 (215,490 − 200,290), or 7.6%. Chapter 13's share of all filings fell from 36.9% (200,290 ÷ 542,529) to 35.4% (215,490 ÷ 608,511). Chapter 11, the reorganization chapter used mostly by businesses, rose 22.7% and was 43.5% above its 2019 level of 7,193.
New York's share
Table F-2 also breaks the total down by court district. New York's four districts together received 23,668 cases in the 12 months to June 30, 2026: 11,396 in the Eastern District, 5,742 in the Southern, 3,928 in the Northern and 2,602 in the Western. By our calculation that is 3.9% of the national total. Business cases were 1,166 in the Eastern District and 673 in the Southern District.
What it means for your money
For a household, the chapter matters more than the total. Under Chapter 7, a trustee can sell property the law does not exempt and pay the proceeds to creditors. Chapter 13 keeps the property and replaces the debts with a court-approved plan paid from income over three to five years. That is why it is the chapter the courts associate with saving a home from foreclosure.
The courts charge a $245 filing fee, a $75 administrative fee and a $15 trustee surcharge for Chapter 7, a total of $335 by our addition. Chapter 13 carries a $235 filing fee and a $75 administrative fee, $310 in total. Chapter 13 is open to an individual whose unsecured debts are less than $526,700 and secured debts less than $1,580,125 at filing. Chapter 7 applies a means test that compares income, net of allowed expenses, with the debtor's unsecured debt.
Bankruptcy also leaves a record. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York's report on household debt for the second quarter of 2026, released in August 2026, says “about 137,000 consumers had a bankruptcy notation added to their credit reports in 2026Q2, a small increase from the previous quarter.” That figure counts people with a new notation in one quarter; the court figures count cases filed over 12 months. They measure different things and are not interchangeable.
The practical arithmetic is the one behind an emergency fund: the bankruptcy statistics are a count of households for whom income stopped covering debt payments. Higher interest rates raise the payment on variable-rate debt such as credit cards, but the court tables do not record why any case was filed.
Sources
- Bankruptcies Rise 12.2 Percent (12-month period ending June 30, 2026), July 28, 2026Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts · Oct 4, 2026 · Primary source
- Table F-2: U.S. Bankruptcy Courts, Business and Nonbusiness Cases Commenced, by Chapter of the Bankruptcy Code, During the 12-Month Period Ending June 30, 2026Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts · Oct 4, 2026 · Primary source
- June 2019 Bankruptcy Filings Fall 0.3 Percent, July 26, 2019Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts · Oct 4, 2026 · Primary source
- Table F-2: U.S. Bankruptcy Courts, Business and Nonbusiness Cases Commenced, by Chapter of the Bankruptcy Code, During the 12-Month Period Ending September 30, 2010Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts · Oct 4, 2026 · Primary source
- Bankruptcies Increase 11.9 Percent (12-month period ending March 31, 2026), April 23, 2026Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts · Oct 4, 2026 · Primary source
- Bankruptcy Filings Increase 10.6 Percent (12-month period ending September 30, 2025), November 24, 2025Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts · Oct 4, 2026 · Primary source
- News and Announcements (list of releases, checked for a September 30, 2026 bankruptcy release)Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts · Oct 4, 2026 · Primary source
- Chapter 7 - Bankruptcy BasicsAdministrative Office of the U.S. Courts · Oct 4, 2026 · Primary source
- Chapter 13 - Bankruptcy BasicsAdministrative Office of the U.S. Courts · Oct 4, 2026 · Primary source
- Chapter 11 - Bankruptcy BasicsAdministrative Office of the U.S. Courts · Oct 4, 2026 · Primary source
- Process - Bankruptcy BasicsAdministrative Office of the U.S. Courts · Oct 4, 2026 · Primary source
- Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, 2026:Q2 (released August 2026)Federal Reserve Bank of New York · Oct 4, 2026 · Primary source
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