Corporate Bankruptcy Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-author: Mia Scarlett (Business) | Last updated: September 17, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
U.S. business bankruptcy filings reached 26,941 in the 12 months ending June 30, 2026, up 16.9% year over year, and business Chapter 11 cases rose to 9,766. Axis Intelligence Research finds that two Texas districts now handle 26.01% of all business Chapter 11 filings, while Delaware’s count fell 69.7%.
Quick Answer
- 26,941 business bankruptcy filings in the 12 months to June 30, 2026, versus 23,043 a year earlier (Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Table F-2).
- 372 large U.S. companies filed for bankruptcy in the first half of 2026, after 785 in full-year 2025, the highest annual count since 828 in 2010 (S&P Global Market Intelligence).
- 561: the Axis Chapter 11 Venue Concentration Index (CVCI) reading for the 12 months to June 30, 2026, up from 489 a year earlier. Mega-case filings are consolidating into fewer courtrooms, and the courtroom of choice is no longer Wilmington.
Key Findings
- According to U.S. Courts data, business bankruptcy filings rose 16.9% to 26,941 in the 12 months ending June 30, 2026.
- Axis Intelligence Research finds the Southern and Northern Districts of Texas received 26.01% of U.S. business Chapter 11 filings in the year to June 30, 2026, up from 12.94%.
- Axis Intelligence Research finds business Chapter 11 filings in the District of Delaware fell 69.7%, from 1,093 to 331, in the 12 months to June 30, 2026.
- The Axis Chapter 11 Venue Concentration Index (CVCI) rose 72 points to 561 in the year to June 30, 2026, per Axis Intelligence Research.
- Axis Intelligence Research finds business Chapter 11 filings outside the five largest venues grew 19.6%, showing the 2026 distress cycle is national, not a venue artifact.
How Many Businesses Filed for Bankruptcy in 2026?
Three datasets answer this question, and they measure three different things. Quoting one as if it were another is the most common error in bankruptcy coverage, so the table below keeps them apart.
| Dataset | What it counts | Latest reading | Prior-year comparison | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. Courts, Table F-2 | Every business case filed, each debtor entity separately | 26,941 (12 months to June 30, 2026) | 23,043 (12 months to June 30, 2025) | Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts |
| Epiq AACER / ABI | Commercial filings, calendar periods | 17,285 (H1 2026) | 15,340 (H1 2025) | Epiq AACER |
| S&P Global Market Intelligence | Companies with public debt and $2M+ in assets or liabilities, or private companies with $10M+ | 372 (H1 2026) | 785 (full-year 2025) | S&P Global Market Intelligence |
Across all filers, consumer and business, total U.S. bankruptcy filings climbed 12.2% to 608,511 in the 12 months to June 30, 2026. Business cases are a small slice of that total: Axis Intelligence Research calculates they represent 4.43% of all filings. That ratio matters because headline “bankruptcies are up” stories are driven by the 581,570 nonbusiness cases, while the balance-sheet story lives in the remaining 4.43%.
The judiciary’s own baseline is worth keeping in view. Total filings bottomed at 380,634 in the 12 months to June 30, 2022, according to the U.S. Courts release, and have climbed every quarter since.
Mia Scarlett, analyst read: The large-company count is the one credit desks watch, and the pace is not accelerating uniformly. S&P Global Market Intelligence counted 229 filings through April 2026, fewer than the 242 in the same stretch of 2025, then May and June carried the half to 372. A flat spring followed by a heavy early summer is what a maturity schedule looks like when it hits, not what a recession looks like when it starts.
Chapter 11 vs. Chapter 7: Are Companies Reorganizing or Liquidating?
Business filings split into liquidations (Chapter 7), reorganizations (Chapter 11), and a smaller tail of Chapter 13, 9, 12, and 15 cases. The mix shifted toward reorganization in 2026.
| Business filings by chapter | 12 months to June 30, 2025 | 12 months to June 30, 2026 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chapter 7 (liquidation) | 13,314 | 15,298 | U.S. Courts Table F-2 |
| Chapter 11 (reorganization) | 7,900 | 9,766 | U.S. Courts Table F-2 |
| Chapter 13 | 1,319 | 1,337 | U.S. Courts Table F-2 |
| Other chapters (9, 12, 15) | 510 | 540 | U.S. Courts Table F-2 |
| Total business filings | 23,043 | 26,941 | U.S. Courts Table F-2 |
Business Chapter 11 filings grew 23.6%; business Chapter 7 filings grew 14.9%. Axis Intelligence Research tracks the gap with a simple ratio.
Axis Reorganization-to-Liquidation Ratio (RLR) = business Chapter 11 filings ÷ business Chapter 7 filings.
- 12 months to June 30, 2026: 9,766 ÷ 15,298 = 0.638
- 12 months to June 30, 2025: 7,900 ÷ 13,314 = 0.593
Chapter 11’s share of all business filings rose from 34.28% to 36.25% over the same window.
Mia Scarlett: A rising RLR is not automatically good news. It says more debtors believe there is enterprise value worth reorganizing around, and more lenders agree to fund the attempt. Whether that belief survives confirmation is a question for plan outcomes, not filing counts.
Where Are Chapter 11 Cases Filed? The 2026 Venue Map
This is the section no other public source publishes in this form. Axis Intelligence Research extracted business Chapter 11 counts for every federal bankruptcy district from two consecutive U.S. Courts Table F-2 releases (12 months to June 30, 2026 and 12 months to June 30, 2025), reconciled both to the national totals exactly, and ranked the districts.
Largest Chapter 11 Venues, 12 Months to June 30, 2026
| Rank | District | Business Ch. 11, 2026 | Business Ch. 11, 2025 | Change | Share of U.S. business Ch. 11, 2026 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Southern District of Texas (TX,S) | 1,569 | 557 | +181.7% | 16.07% | U.S. Courts F-2; Axis calc. |
| 2 | Northern District of Texas (TX,N) | 971 | 465 | +108.8% | — | U.S. Courts F-2; Axis calc. |
| 3 | District of New Jersey (NJ) | 668 | 342 | +95.3% | — | U.S. Courts F-2; Axis calc. |
| 4 | Eastern District of New York (NY,E) | 554 | 485 | — | — | U.S. Courts F-2 |
| 5 | Middle District of Florida (FL,M) | 507 | 454 | — | — | U.S. Courts F-2 |
| 6 | Central District of California (CA,C) | 405 | 335 | — | — | U.S. Courts F-2 |
| 7 | Southern District of Florida (FL,S) | 381 | 296 | — | — | U.S. Courts F-2 |
| 8 | District of Delaware (DE) | 331 | 1,093 | −69.7% | 3.39% | U.S. Courts F-2; Axis calc. |
| — | Southern District of New York (NY,S) | 271 | 464 | −41.6% | — | U.S. Courts F-2; Axis calc. |
A year earlier, Delaware ranked first with 13.84% of the national business Chapter 11 caseload. It now ranks eighth. The two Texas districts together went from 12.94% to 26.01%.
One mechanic has to be understood before reading this table: court statistics count each debtor entity as a case. A holding company that files alongside dozens of subsidiaries adds dozens of cases to one district. Epiq AACER flags the same effect nationally, noting 166 related corporate-subsidiary filings in March 2026 against 307 in March 2025 (Epiq AACER). District counts therefore measure where corporate families file, weighted by how many entities they bring, which is exactly the signal a restructuring practice, a claims agent, or a DIP lender wants.
Is the Chapter 11 Surge Only a Texas Story?
No. Axis Intelligence Research stripped out the five venues that dominate large-case filing (TX,S, TX,N, NJ, DE, NY,S) and counted what remained. Business Chapter 11 filings everywhere else rose from 4,979 to 5,956, an increase of 19.6%. Combined share of those five venues moved only from 36.97% to 39.01%. The mega-venues reshuffled among themselves; the rest of the country got busier on its own.
The Axis Chapter 11 Venue Concentration Index (CVCI)
CVCI — Chapter 11 Venue Concentration Index. A single number that tells restructuring professionals how concentrated U.S. business Chapter 11 filing is across the federal bankruptcy courts, built the same way antitrust economists measure market concentration (a Herfindahl-Hirschman calculation).
Formula: CVCI = Σ (district business Chapter 11 filings ÷ national business Chapter 11 filings × 100)², summed across every bankruptcy district.
Scale: 0 to 10,000. A reading near zero means filings are spread evenly across districts; 10,000 would mean every case sits in one court.
Inputs: business Chapter 11 counts for each district from U.S. Courts Table F-2 (93 districts reporting in the 2026 table, 92 in the 2025 table).
| Period | CVCI reading | Largest district | Its share | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 months to June 30, 2025 | 489 | Delaware | 13.84% | Axis calc. from U.S. Courts F-2 |
| 12 months to June 30, 2026 | 561 | Southern District of Texas | 16.07% | Axis calc. from U.S. Courts F-2 |
Reading, as of June 30, 2026: 561 (+72 points). Concentration increased even as the leading venue changed. The exact values are 560.98 and 489.01; anyone with the two public Table F-2 files can reproduce them.
A companion measure captures the churn behind the reading.
Axis Venue Shift Score = ½ × Σ |district share 2026 − district share 2025|. Result: 21.8%. Roughly one in five business Chapter 11 cases would have to be reassigned to a different district to reproduce the prior year’s geographic distribution. That is a large number for a system where filing venue rules did not change during the period.
Mia Scarlett: The index answers a practical question for anyone pricing a restructuring mandate: how many judges, local rules, and fee examiners you realistically need to know. At 561 the answer is “fewer than last year, and a different set.” Watch what happens to the CVCI if a single large corporate family files elsewhere. A concentrated reading built on entity counts can move fast, which is precisely why it is worth tracking quarterly.
Cross-Border Cases: Where Foreign Companies Seek U.S. Recognition
Chapter 15 lets a foreign insolvency proceeding be recognized in a U.S. court, which is how non-U.S. groups protect U.S. assets during a home-country restructuring. It is a small, high-signal series.
| Chapter 15 filings | 12 months to June 30, 2025 | 12 months to June 30, 2026 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States total | 225 | 202 | U.S. Courts Table F-2 |
| Southern District of New York | 68 | 80 | U.S. Courts Table F-2 |
| District of Delaware | 46 | 70 | U.S. Courts Table F-2 |
| NY,S + DE share of U.S. total | 50.7% | 74.3% | Axis calc. |
Axis Intelligence Research finds that the Southern District of New York and Delaware handled 74.3% of Chapter 15 cases in the year to June 30, 2026. Texas, the new domestic magnet, has not become the cross-border one: the Southern District of Texas logged 5 Chapter 15 cases in the same table. Delaware lost domestic Chapter 11 volume and gained cross-border volume in the same twelve months.
Which Industries Have the Most Corporate Bankruptcies in 2026?
Among large companies tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence, industrials led the first half of 2026 with 50 filings, followed by consumer discretionary with 35 and healthcare with 26, according to S&P data reported by CFO Dive.
| Sector (S&P classification) | Large-company bankruptcies, H1 2026 | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Industrials | 50 | S&P Global Market Intelligence, as reported by CFO Dive |
| Consumer discretionary | 35 | S&P Global Market Intelligence, as reported by CFO Dive |
| Healthcare | 26 | S&P Global Market Intelligence, as reported by CFO Dive |
Earlier in the year the pattern was already visible: in April 2026 alone, S&P counted 50 large filings in total, with industrials and consumer discretionary again the most represented sectors (S&P Global Market Intelligence).
Mia Scarlett: Industrials leading is the less-reported half of this story. Consumer names generate the headlines because shoppers recognize the logos. Industrial filers are mid-cap manufacturers, distributors, and packaging groups whose problem is usually visible two filings earlier in the 10-Q: interest coverage slipping below the level the credit agreement assumed, and input-cost pass-through lagging a quarter behind.
Are Private Equity-Backed Companies Driving 2026 Bankruptcies?
Not by count. S&P Global Market Intelligence recorded 24 bankruptcies by private equity-backed U.S. companies in the first half of 2026, down from 36 in the first half of 2025. PE-backed companies represented 6% of the 372 large filings in H1 2026, against 9.7% a year earlier (S&P Global Market Intelligence).
S&P named U.S. TelePacific Corp., Multi-Color Corp., Pretium Packaging LLC, and Saks Global Enterprises LLC among the PE-backed filers with the largest liabilities in the half.
Mia Scarlett: Fewer sponsor-backed filings does not mean fewer sponsor-backed problems. It means more of them are being handled out of court first. The court count only captures the ones where the amend-and-extend ran out of runway.
Largest Corporate Bankruptcies of 2026
Liability figures at filing come from petitions and first-day declarations, which list ranges and consolidated estimates that often differ between sources. Axis Intelligence Research lists the cases below using the tier that primary data providers confirm, rather than repeating unverified point estimates.
| Company | Filing date | Sector | Liabilities at filing | Status noted by source | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saks Global Enterprises | January 13, 2026 | Luxury retail | Above $1 billion | Emerged June 26, 2026, renamed Exemplar Luxury Group | S&P Global Market Intelligence (via WWD); S&P Global Market Intelligence |
| Eddie Bauer LLC | February 9, 2026 | Apparel retail | Above $1 billion | — | S&P Global Market Intelligence (via WWD) |
| QVC Group Inc. | April 2026 | Video and online retail | Above $1 billion | Only April filer above $1 billion | S&P Global Market Intelligence |
| Multi-Color Corp. | H1 2026 | Packaging labels | Among largest PE-backed | Emerged; Clayton Dubilier & Rice remains majority owner | S&P Global Market Intelligence |
| U.S. TelePacific Corp. | H1 2026 | Managed IT services | Among largest PE-backed | — | S&P Global Market Intelligence |
| Pretium Packaging LLC | H1 2026 | Packaging | Among largest PE-backed | — | S&P Global Market Intelligence |
How Fast Are Small Business Chapter 11 Cases Growing?
Subchapter V is the streamlined Chapter 11 track for smaller debtors, and it is the fastest-growing corner of the commercial docket. Epiq AACER data shows:
| Period | Subchapter V elections | Commercial Chapter 11 filings | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| H1 2025 | 1,107 | 3,595 | Epiq AACER / ABI |
| Q1 2026 | 833 | 2,422 | Epiq AACER / ABI |
| H1 2026 | 1,663 | 4,589 | Epiq AACER / ABI |
| June 2025 | — | 631 | Epiq AACER / ABI |
| June 2026 | — | 812 | Epiq AACER / ABI |
| August 2025 | 185 | 618 | Epiq AACER, as reported by ABF Journal |
| August 2026 | 302 | 623 | Epiq AACER, as reported by ABF Journal |
Axis Intelligence Research calculates that Subchapter V elections made up 36.2% of commercial Chapter 11 filings in H1 2026, up from 30.8% in H1 2025. August is the tell: commercial Chapter 11 filings were nearly flat year over year (623 against 618), while Subchapter V elections went from 185 to 302. The large-case surge of the spring has cooled; the small-business surge has not.
What Comes Next: Default Forecasts and the European Signal
S&P Global Ratings’ base case has the U.S. trailing-12-month speculative-grade corporate default rate stabilizing at 3.75% by June 2027 (S&P Global Ratings). Stabilizing is not falling: a steady default rate on a larger high-yield universe still feeds a steady flow of Chapter 11 petitions.
Europe is moving in the same direction. Eurostat reported that seasonally adjusted bankruptcy declarations rose 5.7% in the EU and 6.9% in the euro area in Q2 2026 compared with Q1, while EU business registrations fell 0.5% (Eurostat). By sector, EU bankruptcy declarations rose 21.1% in education and social activities, 11.4% in transport, and 6.8% in financial services, according to Eurostat figures reported by EUbusiness.
Mia Scarlett: Two lines to watch into year-end: the Texas share in the September U.S. Courts table, which will show whether 2026’s venue shift is a regime or a spike, and Subchapter V volume against commercial Chapter 11. If the small-business line keeps rising while large filings flatten, the next wave of distress is in the lower middle market, where recoveries are thinner and the lenders are private credit funds rather than syndicated banks.
Methodology
Collection. Axis Intelligence Research retrieved every figure on this page from its originating publication on September 17, 2026. Court data comes from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts Table F-2 for the 12-month periods ending June 30, 2026 and June 30, 2025. Large-company counts come from S&P Global Market Intelligence. Monthly and half-year commercial counts come from Epiq AACER releases published with the American Bankruptcy Institute. European data comes from Eurostat. Where a figure was accessed through a secondary publication, the CSV marks is_primary = no and names both the data owner and the publication.
District extraction. Business Chapter 11 counts were transcribed for all 93 districts in the 2026 table and 92 in the 2025 table. Both district sums were checked in Python against the national totals (9,766 and 7,900) and matched exactly. Business filing totals (26,941 and 23,043) also reconciled exactly.
Axis calculations. CVCI, the Venue Shift Score, the Reorganization-to-Liquidation Ratio, venue shares, Chapter 15 venue share, and the Subchapter V share are all computed with exact rational arithmetic and published with formula and inputs in the CSV method_note column.
Why datasets are not merged. U.S. Courts counts debtor entities by 12-month period. Epiq AACER counts commercial filings by calendar month. S&P Global Market Intelligence counts companies above a size threshold. Axis Intelligence Research presents them side by side and does not combine them into a single “total bankruptcies” number, because the result would describe nothing real.
What the CVCI measures. CVCI measures the geographic distribution of business Chapter 11 debtor entities, including affiliated subsidiaries. It is a venue-concentration measure, not a measure of liabilities or of the number of distinct corporate groups.
About This Dataset
The file corporate-bankruptcy-statistics.csv contains 150 rows in long format: one observation per row, with metric, value, unit, as_of_date, period, geography, segment, and full provenance (source_org, source_document, source_url, retrieved_date, is_primary, axis_calculated, method_note). It covers U.S. bankruptcy filings by chapter and district for the 12-month periods ending June 30, 2025 and 2026; S&P Global Market Intelligence large-company counts for 2010, 2025, and H1 2026; Epiq AACER commercial and Subchapter V series for 2025–2026; Eurostat Q2 2026 bankruptcy declarations; and every Axis-calculated metric on this page.
License: CC BY 4.0. Reuse is permitted with attribution.
Suggested attribution: Axis Intelligence Research, Corporate Bankruptcy Statistics 2026, 2026.
Cite This Page
APA Axis Intelligence Research, & Scarlett, M. (2026, September 17). Corporate bankruptcy statistics 2026: Chapter 11 filings, venues & largest cases. Axis Intelligence. https://axis-intelligence.com/corporate-bankruptcy-statistics/
MLA Axis Intelligence Research, and Mia Scarlett. “Corporate Bankruptcy Statistics 2026: Chapter 11 Filings, Venues & Largest Cases.” Axis Intelligence, 17 Sept. 2026, axis-intelligence.com/corporate-bankruptcy-statistics/.
Chicago Axis Intelligence Research, and Mia Scarlett. “Corporate Bankruptcy Statistics 2026: Chapter 11 Filings, Venues & Largest Cases.” Axis Intelligence, September 17, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/corporate-bankruptcy-statistics/.
Corporate Bankruptcy FAQ
How many U.S. companies filed for bankruptcy in the first half of 2026?
S&P Global Market Intelligence counted 372 large U.S. company bankruptcies in H1 2026. Across all business sizes, Epiq AACER recorded 17,285 commercial bankruptcy filings in the same half, and U.S. Courts recorded 26,941 business filings in the 12 months to June 30, 2026.
Why did Delaware lose its lead as the top Chapter 11 court?
Court data shows the outcome, not the motive. Delaware’s business Chapter 11 count fell from 1,093 to 331 in the year to June 30, 2026, while the Southern District of Texas rose from 557 to 1,569. Because each subsidiary counts as a case, a handful of multi-entity corporate families choosing Texas can move these totals sharply.
Which bankruptcy court handles the most business Chapter 11 cases?
The Southern District of Texas, with 1,569 business Chapter 11 filings in the 12 months to June 30, 2026, equal to 16.07% of the national total, per Axis Intelligence Research calculations from U.S. Courts Table F-2.
Are more companies liquidating or reorganizing in 2026?
More are liquidating in absolute terms (15,298 business Chapter 7 cases against 9,766 Chapter 11 cases), but reorganization is gaining ground. The Axis Reorganization-to-Liquidation Ratio rose from 0.593 to 0.638 over the year to June 30, 2026.
Is the 2025–2026 corporate bankruptcy cycle the worst since the financial crisis?
By large-company count, 2025 was the heaviest year since 2010: S&P Global Market Intelligence recorded 785 filings in 2025 against 828 in 2010. Total U.S. filings, including consumers, remain well below the levels of that period.
What share of large bankruptcies involve private equity-backed companies?
6% in the first half of 2026: 24 of 372 large filings, down from 9.7% in H1 2025, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
How is Subchapter V changing small business bankruptcy?
It is absorbing a growing share of Chapter 11. Subchapter V elections rose from 1,107 in H1 2025 to 1,663 in H1 2026, and Axis Intelligence Research calculates they now make up 36.2% of commercial Chapter 11 filings.
Where do foreign companies file Chapter 15 cases in the U.S.?
Mostly in Manhattan and Wilmington. The Southern District of New York (80) and Delaware (70) received 74.3% of the 202 Chapter 15 cases filed in the 12 months to June 30, 2026.
What does the Chapter 11 Venue Concentration Index (CVCI) show?
CVCI measures how concentrated business Chapter 11 filings are across U.S. bankruptcy districts on a 0–10,000 scale. It reached 561 in the year to June 30, 2026, up from 489, meaning filings consolidated into fewer courts even as leadership passed from Delaware to Texas.
What default rate is expected for U.S. high-yield companies?
S&P Global Ratings’ base case is for the U.S. speculative-grade corporate default rate to stabilize at 3.75% by June 2027.