U.S. Bankruptcy Statistics

All bankruptcy filing counts are sourced from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts Table F-2, which reports total filings by chapter and district for each federal judicial district. Table F-2 is published quarterly as part of the judiciary's official statistical tables and represents the most authoritative public record of bankruptcy activity in the United States.

Population denominators used to calculate per-capita filing rates come from the U.S. Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program (PEP), which provides annual state-level population estimates based on the decennial census with intercensal adjustments for births, deaths, and migration.

Chapter-level breakdowns (Chapter 7, 11, 13) are derived from the same Table F-2 releases. Business vs. consumer classification follows the Courts' own designation, where "business" filings are those in which the debtor is a business entity or an individual filing primarily for business debts.

The U.S. Courts report filings on a 12-month rolling basis, with each quarterly release covering the 12-month period ending on the last day of the reported quarter (March 31, June 30, September 30, or December 31). This page displays the most recent 12-month period as the headline figure and labels it by the terminal calendar year for readability.

Quarterly figures shown in the "Quarterly" toggle reflect actual 3-month filing totals for the most recently reported quarter, not annualized projections.

Year-over-year (YoY) change is calculated by comparing each period's filings to the corresponding period one year earlier — i.e., the same 12-month or 3-month window shifted back 12 months.

Per-capita filing rates are expressed as filings per 100,000 residents. The formula is: rate = (filings / population) × 100,000. State-level rates use the most recent Census population estimate available for the corresponding filing year.

District-level filings are aggregated to the state level by summing all districts within a state. States with multiple judicial districts (e.g., California has four, New York has four) are combined into a single state total before computing the rate.

Filing data is retrieved from the U.S. Courts' published statistical tables and processed through an automated pipeline that parses, validates, and normalizes the raw data. Processing includes deduplication checks, district-to-state aggregation, chapter-level breakdowns, and YoY calculations.

The dashboard is refreshed each time new quarterly data is published by the Courts, typically within one to two weeks of the official release date. The "Updated" timestamp in the sidebar reflects the most recent processing run, not the Courts' publication date.

Filing counts represent cases filed, not cases concluded, discharged, or dismissed. A single debtor may appear in multiple filings over time (e.g., a dismissed Chapter 13 followed by a new Chapter 7). Joint spousal filings are counted as a single case.

Table F-2 covers filings in the 94 federal judicial districts (50 states, D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Northern Mariana Islands). Territorial filings are included in national totals but excluded from state-level rate calculations where Census population estimates are unavailable.

Historical comparisons should account for legislative changes — most notably the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA), which caused a surge in filings immediately before its effective date and a sharp decline afterward. Trend lines spanning 2005–2006 reflect this structural break rather than organic changes in filing behavior.