U.S. bankruptcy filings totaled 58,340 in March 2026, up 12,427 filings from February’s 45,913 and up 8,036 from March 2025, a 16.0% year-over-year increase.
At a high level, March reflects a market where normal seasonality is now playing out against a materially higher filing base. The increase from February was sharp, but it was also in line with the typical February-to-March pattern. What stands out is where March landed and what that suggests about filing activity as the market moves into the second quarter.
March filings were also 15.97% higher than the same point in 2025, though still 24.29% below the pre-Covid March average based on the 2017-2019 baseline. That puts the current environment in a useful frame: filings are clearly moving higher, but they have not yet fully returned to more typical pre-pandemic March levels.
March filings remained concentrated in the same two chapters that have been driving the broader trend.
Together, Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 accounted for 98.6% of all March filings.
Compared with February, Chapter 7 filings rose by 10,410, a 37.0% increase, while Chapter 13 increased by 2,183, or 13.0%. Chapter 11 declined by 179 filings and Subchapter V fell by 47. That tells a clear story: March volume did not rise because every chapter moved higher together. It rose because consumer liquidation activity moved sharply upward.
The same pattern held year over year. Chapter 7 was up 18.3% and Chapter 13 was up 12.3%, while Chapter 11 was essentially flat.
The first quarter totaled 150,086 filings, compared with 142,708 in Q4 2025 and 132,301 in Q1 2025. That puts Q1 2026 up 5.2% from the prior quarter and up 13.4% year over year.
Even so, the quarter did not build evenly month by month. January came in at 45,833, February at 45,913, and March at 58,340. January and February were essentially flat. March drove the increase.
That is an important distinction. The quarter’s strength is real, but it came from a late-quarter step-up rather than a steady climb across all three months. For teams watching filing momentum closely, March is the month that changed the shape of the quarter.
The composition of filings also shifted as the quarter progressed. In January, Chapter 7 represented about 59.6% of total filings. By March, that had risen to 66.0%. Over the same period, Chapter 13’s share fell from about 38.1% to 32.6%, while Chapter 11’s share also moved lower. That shift points to growing pressure on consumer households.
The largest filing states in March were familiar:
Florida stood out for both size and growth, with filings up 31.1% year over year. California rose 18.2%, Texas 14.9%, Georgia 10.4%, and Michigan 16.9%. Other states posting strong gains with meaningful volume included Maryland, North Carolina, Washington, Arizona, and Kentucky.
The increase was broad-based rather than concentrated in one region, though the Sun Belt and Southeast continue to account for a large share of the growth. For lenders and servicers, that matters because rising national volume is still being shaped heavily by the same high-volume states that often drive operational pressure.
March 2026 ranks as the 7th highest March total since 2000 and the highest March since 2020.
At the same time, the 27.1% increase from February to March was almost exactly in line with the long-run average February-to-March increase of 27.3%. So, the size of the monthly jump was not unusual by itself. March often rises sharply from February.
What makes this month notable is where that normal seasonal move landed. March followed a familiar seasonal pattern, but it did so on top of a much higher filing base than the market has seen in recent years.
The pre-Covid comparison adds another useful measure. Even with March reaching its strongest level in six years, filings were still 24.29% below the average March level from 2017 through 2019. That helps frame the current environment more accurately. Filings are clearly rising, but they have not fully returned to the levels that were typical before the pandemic and its aftermath disrupted longer-term filing patterns.
The quarterly view points in the same direction. Q1 2026 was the highest first quarter since 2020 and finished above Q1 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021. It remains below the more extreme filing periods seen before the 2005 law change and during the financial crisis, but compared with the last several years, the direction is still clearly upward.
The broader economic backdrop continues to support higher filing activity.
Consumers are still dealing with elevated borrowing costs, tighter monthly cash flow, and heavier debt burdens. Credit card utilization and missed-payment trends continue to point to ongoing household stress. Housing affordability also remains a pressure point, especially for borrowers carrying high mortgage payments with limited room for error.
Small businesses are still navigating higher financing costs and softer demand, but March’s filing mix suggests those pressures have not yet translated into a broader lift in business reorganizations. That does not mean commercial stress is absent. It means it is not yet the main factor behind the national filing increase.
From an operational standpoint, March matters because it combined a seasonally expected increase with a materially elevated level of volume.
January and February were relatively stable, then March stepped up quickly. That kind of pattern can create backlog risk, especially in:
It also points to a near-term capacity challenge that is more about scale than complexity. Because Chapter 7 drove most of the increase and Chapter 11 declined month over month, the pressure is more likely to show up in high-volume execution than in a sudden rise in complex reorganization work.
For lenders and servicers, the focus should be on whether current workflows, staffing models, and automation are built to absorb sustained growth without creating delays, exceptions, or control gaps.
The March numbers continue a trend that has been building over the past several quarters. Filings reached their highest monthly level since 2020, Q1 finished above both the prior quarter and the same quarter last year, and consumer cases remained the clear driver of volume.
At the same time, filings are still below pre-Covid March norms, which is a useful reminder that this market is rising, but has not fully returned to earlier cycle levels. That tension is what makes the current environment worth watching closely.
For bankruptcy operations leaders, the question is no longer whether filings are rising. The question is whether the organization is prepared to handle a filing environment that continues to move higher and is still being driven primarily by high-volume consumer cases.