*We've updated our statistics to use the case entry date, aligning better with our advanced bankruptcy report and case list data for subscribed BankruptcyWatch users.

Our Analysis of Week 36 Bankruptcy Filing Statistics by Chapter (Updated September 7th, 2026)

Week 36 posted exceptional year-over-year growth, with consumer bankruptcies surging about 71% to 13,324 filings and business filings jumping roughly 58% to 187 cases compared with the same week last year.

Chapter 7 filings, a lifeline for many struggling households, were up 76.27% year-over-year (4,707 in 2025 to 8,297 in 2026). Chapter 13 filings, allowing individuals to restructure their debt, were up 62.27% year-over-year (3,098 in 2025 to 5,027 in 2026). Chapter 11 filings, often used by businesses facing insolvency, were up 57.39% year-over-year (115 in 2025 to 181 in 2026).

Bankruptcy and Consumer Debt News We're Reading This Week

Want to know about the news articles that caught our eye this week? Start here.

• Leading Companies Filing for Bankruptcy 2026
• New FSA Data Shows 1.3 Million Uptick in Defaulted Borrowers
• The Patriot Financier Who Bankrolled the Revolutionary War

AI Analysis of 2026 Week 36 Bankruptcy Filing Data

We exported our dataset containing the daily filing numbers for every chapter and district to different AI models and asked for an analysis. Below are the exact results for each model.

Claude Opus 4.7 Extra Analysis of Week 36 Bankruptcy Filings

1. Overview of this week's National filings. For the week of September 7, the country recorded 13,511 total bankruptcy filings, essentially unchanged from the prior week and by far the highest week-36 figure in the entire five-year span of the dataset. Chapter 7 liquidations made up 8,297 filings during week 36, or roughly 61.4% of the national total, while Chapter 13 wage-earner reorganizations contributed 5,027 filings, about 37.2% — the second-highest weekly Chapter 13 reading of 2026. Chapter 11 business reorganizations added 181 filings and Chapter 12 farm filings totaled 6, together accounting for about 1.4% of week 36 activity. Week-over-week, total filings were essentially flat, edging down just 0.1% from week 35's 13,529 and remaining well above the 2026 year-to-date weekly average of 12,030. Year-over-year, week 36 of 2026 is up an eye-catching 70.5% compared with the same week in 2025, which posted only 7,923 filings.
2. An interesting fact about this week's filings. The most striking detail about the week of September 7 is that the 70.5% year-over-year jump is largely a calendar artifact — Labor Day fell within week 36 in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 (shortening filings to 4 days), while in 2026 Labor Day shifts into the following week, making this week-36 a full five-day filing week. Even so, every chapter posted enormous year-over-year gains: Chapter 7 rose 76.3% (from 4,707 to 8,297), Chapter 11 climbed 57.4% (from 115 to 181), Chapter 12 doubled from 3 to 6, and Chapter 13 surged 62.3% (from 3,098 to 5,027). The Northern District of Georgia led Chapter 13 with an impressive 270 filings during week 36 — its highest single-district Chapter 13 reading in more than a month — and also topped Chapter 11 with 18 filings. Chapter 12 farm filings held at 6, spread across six different districts with one filing each in Eastern Arkansas, the Central District of California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Western New York, and Eastern Pennsylvania. Together, these patterns highlight how comparing weeks that fall differently around the Labor Day holiday can dramatically distort year-over-year metrics.
3. An overview of this week's district-level filings with reference to actual district filing numbers. Combining all four chapters during the week of September 7, the Central District of California led the country with 732 filings, followed by the Middle District of Florida at 674, the Northern District of Georgia at 570, and the Northern District of Illinois at 466. The Eastern District of Michigan recorded 363 total filings during week 36, the Southern District of Texas 355, the Northern District of Texas 349, the Southern District of Florida 329, Maryland 317, and New Jersey 310. Looking at Chapter 7 alone, the Central District of California posted 606, the Middle District of Florida 529, the Northern District of Georgia 282, the Northern District of Illinois 261, the Northern District of Ohio 227, the Eastern District of Michigan 225, Nevada 211, the Eastern District of California 202, Arizona 201, and the Southern District of Florida 196. On the Chapter 13 side, the Northern District of Georgia led with 270, followed by the Northern District of Illinois at 202, the Northern District of Texas at 163, the Southern District of Texas at 162, the Western District of Tennessee at 148, the Northern District of Alabama at 142, the Middle District of Florida at 137, the Eastern District of Michigan at 136, the Middle District of Georgia at 130, and the Southern District of Florida at 128. The top ten districts during week 36 together produced about 4,465 filings, accounting for roughly 33.0% of the 13,511-filing national total.
4. Geographic (district) disparities in filings. The disparity between busy and quiet districts during week 36 remained enormous: while the Central District of California posted 732 total filings, the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam each recorded zero, with the Virgin Islands at just 1. Other very low-volume districts during the week of September 7 included Vermont at 5, Alaska at 7, Maine at 13, Wyoming at 14, the Northern District of Iowa at 18, and both the Middle District of Louisiana and Southern District of West Virginia at 20 each. The Central District of California alone (732 filings) produced more activity during week 36 than the bottom 30 districts combined. The southeastern Sun Belt and major metro districts of California, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas dominated the leaderboard for the week, with all three Texas districts appearing in the top ten. This pattern of concentration is structural, reflecting population, regional economic stress, and entrenched filing behaviors rather than any one-week anomaly.
5. Current year focus. Through the first 36 weeks of 2026, the country has logged 433,081 total filings, an average of 12,030 per week and comfortably ahead of every prior year in the dataset at the same point on the calendar. The year began softer at 9,012 in week 1 but has trended firmly upward, with notable peaks of 14,157 in week 5, 15,290 in week 9, 14,380 in week 14, 16,091 in week 18, 14,259 in week 22, 12,569 in week 27, 15,891 in week 31, 13,529 in week 35, and now 13,511 in the week of September 7. Chapter 7 pulled back slightly to 8,297 during week 36 (down from 8,746 the prior week), while Chapter 13 climbed to 5,027 (up from 4,646). Chapter 11 rose to 181 in week 36 from 131 the prior week, while Chapter 12 held at 6. The overall pattern for 2026 is a clearly higher baseline than any earlier year covered by the dataset, with year-to-date volume tracking to potentially exceed 630,000 filings by year-end.
6. Comparative analysis with previous years. Looking at the same week 36 across years reveals a jagged pattern shaped by Labor Day placement: 6,108 in 2022, 6,520 in 2023, 7,351 in 2024, 7,923 in 2025, and 13,511 in 2026 — a cumulative increase of about 121% over the four-year span. Annual growth rates for week 36 specifically were 6.7% (2023), 12.7% (2024), 7.8% (2025), and 70.5% (2026), with the 2026 spike almost entirely reflecting the Labor Day calendar shift rather than a true surge in activity. The same upward trend appears more cleanly in year-to-date totals through week 36: 260,582 in 2022, 303,193 in 2023, 347,936 in 2024, 386,332 in 2025, and 433,081 in 2026. That means 2026 is running about 12.1% ahead of 2025's pace at the same point on the calendar and roughly 66.2% ahead of where 2022 stood after 36 weeks. The combination of strong year-to-date gains and this week's calendar-inflated jump paints a picture of an underlying trend that remains firmly upward.
7. Analyzing the filings per capita. Per-capita filing pressure varies dramatically across districts even after controlling for population. During week 36, the Central District of California, with roughly 20 million residents, produced 732 total filings — about 37 per million residents. The Northern District of Georgia, with around 6.5 million residents, produced 570 filings during the week of September 7, which works out to roughly 88 per million, more than double Southern California's per-capita rate. The Middle District of Alabama (with 120 Chapter 13 filings) and the Western District of Tennessee (with 148 Chapter 13 filings) sit even higher on a per-resident basis, while the Middle District of Florida's 674 combined filings translate to roughly 64 per million given its 10.6-million population. Adjusted for population, the heaviest filing pressure during week 36 clearly concentrates across the southeastern Sun Belt rather than in the largest absolute-volume coastal metros.
8. Analyzing the changing filings per capita. Because U.S. population has grown only roughly 0.5–0.6% per year while filings have risen 7–70% annually since 2022 at this point on the calendar, the per-capita filing rate has climbed sharply over the past four years even accounting for Labor Day timing distortions. Nationally, week 36 of 2026's 13,511 filings translate to about 39 per million residents, up from roughly 18 per million in week 36 of 2022 — an increase of about 116% in four years. Districts that were already filing-heavy have seen the steepest per-capita rises, especially the Northern District of Georgia, whose 570 combined filings during the week of September 7 represent a substantial step-up from typical week-36 totals in the low 300s back in 2022. In contrast, the lowest-filing jurisdictions during week 36 (Vermont at 5, Alaska at 7, Maine at 13, Wyoming at 14, Northern District of Iowa at 18) remain essentially flat in per-capita terms and very low in absolute terms. The widening per-capita gap means financial distress is becoming more geographically concentrated rather than more evenly distributed year after year.
9. Forecast the expected filing numbers for the rest of the year. With 433,081 filings already logged through week 36, if the rest of 2026 follows 2025's seasonal pattern, the remaining 16 weeks (weeks 37 through 52) should produce roughly 198,000 additional filings, putting the full year near 631,000 total filings compared with 562,649 in 2025. Using the year-to-date 2026 weekly average of 12,030 applied to the remaining 16 weeks yields a projection of about 192,000 more filings and a year-end total around 625,000. A more conservative scenario that accounts for the typical late-year holiday slowdown (week 52 of 2025 dropped to just 6,678) would land closer to 620,000–635,000. Taken together, the most likely 2026 year-end range is approximately 620,000 to 640,000 total filings, with the central estimate near 630,000. That would represent roughly 10–14% growth over 2025's full-year total of 562,649.
10. Forecast the trends of increasing filings after 2025. The four-year trajectory of full-year totals (378,337 in 2022, 445,206 in 2023, 503,787 in 2024, 562,649 in 2025, and a projected ~630,000 in 2026) implies a compound annual growth rate of about 14% from 2022 through 2025, easing to roughly 12% in 2026. If the underlying trend beneath this week's Labor-Day-shifted comparison continues, annual increases could hold near 7–9% in 2027 and 5–7% in 2028, putting filings into the 675,000–710,000 range by 2027 and the 720,000–760,000 range by 2028. The chapter mix is also likely to keep shifting: Chapter 7 grew 76.3% year-over-year during week 36 (from 4,707 to 8,297), Chapter 11 rose 57.4% (from 115 to 181), Chapter 12 doubled (from 3 to 6), and Chapter 13 surged 62.3% (from 3,098 to 5,027), though the calendar effect makes these particular percentages unusually large. Chapter 13, propelled by southeastern Sun Belt and Texas districts that produced 270, 202, 163, 162, 148, 142, 137, 136, 130, and 128 filings during the week of September 7 alone, is likely to retain its steady 32–37% share of the national total. The biggest risk to this baseline remains a recession, credit-tightening shock, or commercial real estate crisis — any of which could push 2027 filings well above the smoothed projection rather than modestly below it.

ChatGPT 5.5 Thinking Pro Analysis of Week 36 Filing Trends

1. For week 36, beginning Monday, September 7, 2026, national filings totaled 13,511. Chapter 7 accounted for 8,297 filings, Chapter 13 accounted for 5,027, Chapter 11 accounted for 181, and Chapter 12 accounted for 6. The national total was 18 filings lower than week 35’s 13,529, a 0.1% decrease. Compared with week 36 of 2025, when there were 7,923 filings, this week was higher by 5,588 filings, or 70.5%. Through week 36 of 2026, national filings reached 433,081.
2. One notable feature of week 36 was that filings stayed almost even with the prior week while the chapter mix shifted. Chapter 7 fell by 449 filings, moving from 8,746 in week 35 to 8,297 in week 36. Chapter 13 increased by 381 filings, rising from 4,646 to 5,027. Chapter 11 also increased from 131 to 181, while Chapter 12 stayed unchanged at 6. Together, Chapters 7 and 13 accounted for 13,324 filings, or 98.6% of the national total of 13,511.
3. At the district level, week 36 was led by Central California with 732 filings. Middle Florida followed with 674 filings, Northern Georgia had 570, Northern Illinois had 466, and Eastern Michigan had 363. Southern Texas reported 355 filings, Northern Texas had 349, Southern Florida had 329, Maryland had 317, and New Jersey had 310. The top 5 districts together produced 2,805 filings. Those 2,805 filings represented 20.8% of the national total of 13,511.
4. Geographic differences remained substantial during week 36, beginning Monday, September 7, 2026. The average district had 143.7 filings, while the median district had 104.5. Central California’s 732 filings were 7.0 times the median district total. There were 24 districts with at least 200 filings, including Middle Florida at 674, Northern Georgia at 570, and Northern Illinois at 466. There were also 10 districts with 20 or fewer filings, including Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands at 0, the Virgin Islands at 1, Vermont at 5, Alaska at 7, Maine at 13, Wyoming at 14, Northern Iowa at 18, Middle Louisiana at 20, and Southern West Virginia at 20.
5. The 2026 year-to-date picture continues to show filings running ahead of the same point in 2025. Through week 36, national filings totaled 433,081 in 2026. At the same point in 2025, national filings totaled 386,332. That means 2026 was ahead by 46,749 filings, or 12.1%, through week 36. Year-to-date Chapter 7 filings reached 274,652, Chapter 13 reached 151,425, Chapter 11 reached 6,745, and Chapter 12 reached 259.
6. Week 36 of 2026 was higher than the same week in every prior year shown in the file. The comparable weekly totals were 6,108 in 2022, 6,520 in 2023, 7,351 in 2024, 7,923 in 2025, and 13,511 in 2026. This year’s week 36 total was 121.2% higher than 2022 and 107.2% higher than 2023. It was also 83.8% higher than 2024 and 70.5% higher than 2025. On a year-to-date basis, 2026’s 433,081 filings were 85,145 higher than 2024’s 347,936 through the same point.
7. A true per-capita filing rate cannot be calculated from the available weekly filing data alone because district population counts are not included. Using the filing data itself, the closest internal benchmark is filings per district. For week 36, the national total of 13,511 filings across 94 districts equals 143.7 filings per district. The median district had 104.5 filings, which was 39.2 below the district average. Central California’s 732 filings were 5.1 times the district average, while Middle Florida’s 674 filings were 4.7 times the district average.
8. The filing-rate proxy shows that week 36 filing activity has increased sharply over time. Weekly filings rose from 6,108 in 2022 to 13,511 in 2026. That is a gain of 7,403 filings over the period. Across 94 districts, the proxy increased from 65.0 filings per district in week 36 of 2022 to 143.7 filings per district in week 36 of 2026. Compared with week 36 of 2025, the proxy rose from 84.3 to 143.7 filings per district, an increase of 59.4 filings per district.
9. A simple forecast based on the 2026 year-to-date average of 12,030.0 filings per week points to about 637,591 filings for a full 53-week 2026 year. Since 433,081 filings had already occurred through week 36, that pace would add about 204,510 filings over the remaining 17 weeks. A second approach uses the 2025 remaining-year total of 176,317 filings as a baseline. Increasing that remaining-year baseline by the current 12.1% year-to-date growth rate implies about 197,653 additional filings. Together, these approaches suggest the rest of 2026 could add roughly 197,653 to 204,510 filings.
10. The longer-term trend after 2025 remains upward because 2026 is ahead of 2025 on both the week 36 and year-to-date measures. Week 36 of 2026 had 13,511 filings, compared with 7,923 in the same week of 2025. Through week 36, 2026 had 433,081 filings, compared with 386,332 in 2025. The full-year weekly average rose from 7,275.7 in 2022 to 8,561.7 in 2023, 9,688.2 in 2024, and 10,820.2 in 2025. If the 2026 year-to-date pace of 12,030.0 filings per week continues, it would be 1,209.9 filings per week above the 2025 average.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 Analysis of Week 36 Bankruptcy Statistics

1. Overview of This Week's National Filings The week of September 7, 2026 — Week 36 of the year and the Labor Day holiday week — closed with a national bankruptcy total of 13,511 filings, an essentially flat reading versus the prior week's 13,529 that shatters every historical precedent for what Labor Day week produces and stands as one of the most extraordinary data points in the entire dataset. Of those filings, 8,297 were Chapter 7 liquidation cases, accounting for 61.4% of all activity — a slightly reduced Chapter 7 share that reflects the elevated Chapter 13 count this week relative to typical composition. Chapter 13 reorganization filings contributed 5,027 cases, representing 37.2% of the national total — the fourth-highest Chapter 13 week of all of 2026, exceeded only by the major spike weeks of Weeks 31, 9, and 18 — a figure that points to extraordinary post-holiday reorganization demand across the country. Chapter 11 business restructuring filings came in at 181 for the week — one of the stronger Chapter 11 readings of the summer — while Chapter 12 agricultural filings registered 6 cases. Together, all four chapters account for the 13,511 total filings recorded nationally during the week of September 7.
2. An Interesting Fact About This Week's Filings The defining story of the week of September 7, 2026 is perhaps the most extraordinary single-week anomaly in the dataset: Labor Day 2026 fell on Monday September 7 — the first business day of Week 36 — and federal courts were closed for the holiday, yet the national filing total of 13,511 declined by just -0.1% from the prior week's 13,529, completely breaking the well-established pattern of Labor Day week suppression that has been one of the most consistent features of the filing calendar since records began. In every prior year, the Labor Day week produced dramatic declines: -35.7% in 2022 (to 6,108), -43.1% in 2023 (to 6,520), -44.8% in 2024 (to 7,351), and -47.2% in 2025 (to 7,923) — making 2026's 13,511 Labor Day week result +70.5% above last year's equivalent and more than double the Labor Day week totals seen in 2022–2024. The most compelling explanation for this structural break is the maturation of electronic filing technology: by 2026, the federal bankruptcy court case management system accepts and dockets filings electronically around the clock, including on federal holidays, and the behavioral norm of attorneys deferring filings until after the holiday has apparently disappeared as a generation of practitioners has adapted to the 24/7 digital filing environment. The Chapter 13 count of 5,027 this week — the fourth-highest of 2026 — further supports this hypothesis, as reorganization plan filings that historically required in-person attorney coordination were submitted electronically regardless of the holiday Monday, flowing into the system at essentially normal weekly rates. This structural break in the Labor Day filing pattern is not merely a statistical curiosity — it permanently resets expectations for how the September holiday window affects filing volumes, and it suggests that all future holiday-week comparisons will need to be re-calibrated to account for the effective elimination of the holiday suppression effect through electronic filing normalization.
3. Overview of This Week's District-Level Filings The week of September 7 produced district-level activity that more closely resembled a typical full working week than any prior Labor Day period, with the Central District of California leading at 732 total filings — 606 Chapter 7 and 118 Chapter 13 — compared to just 393 in the Central District's Labor Day week of 2025, confirming that the holiday suppression effect has effectively disappeared at the court level. The Middle District of Florida followed with 674 total filings (529 Chapter 7, 8 Chapter 11, 137 Chapter 13), and the Northern District of Georgia posted a particularly strong week at 570 total filings — including 270 Chapter 13 cases (47% of its total) and an elevated 18 Chapter 11 filings, the district's highest Chapter 11 count in several weeks, pointing to a burst of corporate restructuring activity in the Atlanta market coinciding with the September reopening of court dockets. The Northern District of Illinois followed with 466 total filings (261 Chapter 7, 202 Chapter 13), the Eastern District of Michigan contributed 363 total filings, and the Southern District of Texas posted 355 total filings — including 15 Chapter 11 cases and 162 Chapter 13 cases (46% of its total) — reflecting continued Houston-area business and consumer distress flowing into the post-holiday week. The Northern District of Texas (349, with 47% Chapter 13), Southern District of Florida (329), District of Maryland (317), and District of New Jersey (310, including 9 Chapter 11 cases) completed the top ten — with Maryland making its tenth consecutive top-ten appearance and the dual Texas district presence continuing to confirm the breadth of financial stress across the state's major metropolitan economies.
4. Geographic Disparities in Filings Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands recorded zero filings in the week of September 7, the U.S. Virgin Islands logged just 1, Vermont contributed 5, and Alaska added 7 — the five quietest jurisdictions providing a combined 13 total filings against the Central District of California's 732, a ratio that is as wide as ever despite the Labor Day holiday. The geographic story this week is how uniformly the holiday suppression effect failed to materialize across every major district: in 2025's Labor Day week, the Northern District of Georgia produced approximately 280 filings; this week it produced 570 — more than double, and with an exceptionally high 47% Chapter 13 rate that would require sustained attorney engagement throughout the week including any carryover from the holiday Monday. Both Texas districts' simultaneous presence in the top ten — Southern Texas (355) and Northern Texas (349) — each carrying approximately 46–47% Chapter 13 shares, points to a particularly strong reorganization orientation in Texas's consumer bankruptcy docket this week that may reflect the September surge in consumer debt-service stress as variable-rate loans and credit cards reset to higher rates ahead of autumn billing cycles. The chapter-composition contrasts remain geographically stark: the Central District of California's 83% Chapter 7 rate (606 of 732) sits at the opposite extreme from the Northern District of Georgia's 47% Chapter 13 rate (270 of 570) — the two largest districts this week showing the widest possible divergence in how their regional filing cultures respond to consumer financial distress. The District of Maryland's 317 total filings — including 124 Chapter 13 cases (39% of its total) and its tenth consecutive top-ten appearance — has established the Washington metropolitan corridor as a defining fixture of the 2026 national filing landscape, a consistency that reflects structural and deepening household financial stress rather than any temporary calendar effect.
5. Current Year Focus Through September 7, 2026 — thirty-six completed weeks representing 69.2% of the full calendar — the national year-to-date total has surged to 433,081 filings, buoyed by the unprecedented Labor Day week performance, and already represents 77.0% of 2025's entire full-year total of 562,649 — through just 69.2% of the calendar year. The 2026 weekly average through Week 36 has crossed back above 12,000 per week, reaching 12,030 — the highest running average of the year — and running approximately 11.2% above the full-year 2025 average of 10,820 with 16 weeks still remaining. The year-to-date Chapter 7 total of 274,652 through Week 36 is the most striking sub-figure: running 12.8% above 2025's comparable 243,542 and a full 73.9% above 2022's 157,967, the consumer liquidation total now exceeds 2022's entire full-year figure by nearly 130,000 cases. The year-to-date Chapter 13 total of 151,425 through Week 36 is 10.6% above 2025's comparable 136,964 and 51.8% above 2022's 99,738 — setting a new record for any comparable 36-week stretch in the dataset and confirming that reorganization demand has undergone a structural upward shift that the Labor Day week's extraordinary Chapter 13 count of 5,027 further reinforces. The year-to-date Chapter 11 total of 6,745 and Chapter 12 agricultural total of 259 are both records for this stage of the calendar year, running 20.1% and 24.5% above their respective 2025 comparables through the same number of weeks.
6. Comparative Analysis with Previous Years Week 36 represents the single largest year-over-year percentage gain of any week in the 2026 dataset by a wide margin: at +70.5% above 2025's 7,923, this Labor Day week's anomalous result has no parallel in any other annual transition in the dataset's history for this specific week. Looking at the four-year trajectory of Week 36 totals — 6,108 in 2022, 6,520 in 2023 (+6.7%), 7,351 in 2024 (+12.7%), 7,923 in 2025 (+7.8%), and now 13,511 in 2026 (+70.5%) — the first four years describe a modest, consistent upward staircase that the 2026 result disrupts entirely, nearly doubling in a single year-over-year step. The chapter-level comparisons are equally dramatic: Chapter 7 grew +76.3% from 4,707 to 8,297, and Chapter 13 grew +62.3% from 3,098 to 5,027 — both the largest single-year chapter-level gains for this specific week in the dataset, driven by the collapse of the holiday suppression effect rather than a genuine acceleration in underlying demand beyond the already-strong 2026 trend. The year-to-date cumulative comparison continues its steady progression: from 260,582 in 2022 to 303,193 in 2023 (+16.4%), 347,936 in 2024 (+14.8%), 386,332 in 2025 (+11.0%), and now 433,081 in 2026 (+12.1%) — with 2026's year-to-date lead recovering to over 46,749 additional filings above the equivalent 2025 figure, the largest absolute gap of the year to date, reflecting the significant week-36 boost. The most important analytical caution is that the +70.5% year-over-year gain should not be interpreted as evidence of a sudden structural acceleration in filing demand: it is almost entirely a calendar and behavioral artifact of electronic filing having eliminated the holiday suppression effect, and the true underlying annual growth rate for 2026 remains in the +10–13% range that the cumulative data confirms.
7. Analyzing the Filings Per Capita The week of September 7, 2026 produced approximately 39.62 bankruptcy filings per one million Americans — one of the highest per-capita weekly rates of the year, comparable to the pre-holiday spike of the prior week (39.67) and reflecting the unprecedented finding that the Labor Day holiday produced essentially no suppression of filing activity on a per-capita basis. Using approximate national population estimates of 333 million in 2022, 335 million in 2023, 337 million in 2024, 339 million in 2025, and 341 million in 2026, the annual per-capita weekly filing averages have risen from 21.85 in 2022 to 25.56 in 2023, 28.75 in 2024, and 31.92 in 2025, with 2026's 36-week running average now crossing 35.28 per million per week — the highest for any comparable stretch in the dataset's history. The cumulative 36-week total of 433,081 filings translates to approximately 1,270.0 bankruptcy cases per million Americans through September 7, 2026 — a per-capita accumulation that would have represented more than a full year's burden in 2022 and is tracking toward approximately 1,827 filings per million for the full year. The Labor Day week's extraordinary per-capita reading of 39.62 per million — versus an expected 23–24 per million based on prior years' Labor Day week per-capita rates — represents a structural break that will permanently alter how per-capita comparisons for this specific week are interpreted in future years, as the holiday suppression effect that held the per-capita rate down in prior Labor Day weeks has now been documented as effectively eliminated by electronic filing adoption. In the broader per-capita context, 2026's 36-week running average of 35.28 per million sits approximately 61.4% above the 2022 full-year average, and the per-capita increment re-accelerated to +3.36 per million per week — the highest reading since the Week 31 spike — driven by the Labor Day week anomaly that inflated the annual comparison.
8. Analyzing the Changing Filings Per Capita The per-capita annual increment for Week 36 has surged to +3.36 per million per week — the highest reading in the dataset since early in the year and driven almost entirely by the collapse of the Labor Day suppression effect that in prior years artificially depressed the per-capita rate for this specific week, creating an inflated year-over-year comparison in 2026. The four-year progression — +3.71 (2022→2023), +3.19 (2023→2024), +3.17 (2024→2025), and now +3.36 (2025→2026 through September 7) — has been disrupted by the Labor Day anomaly in a way that makes the 2026 annual increment appear to be re-accelerating when in reality the underlying structural trend is still decelerating in the +3.0–3.2 range observed across most of the year. The consumer chapter per-capita rates for this specific week show the anomaly most clearly: Chapter 7's apparent +76.3% year-over-year per-capita gain and Chapter 13's +62.3% are both overwhelmingly attributable to the holiday suppression disappearing rather than to any genuine acceleration in consumer distress, since both chapters' year-to-date growth rates of +12.8% and +10.6% respectively remain well-anchored in the consistent 2026 trend. Stripping the Labor Day effect, the true underlying per-capita increment for 2026 — estimated by comparing the combined Weeks 35–36 of 2026 (27,040) against the same combined pair in 2025 (22,921) — produces an adjusted two-week annual growth rate of +18.0%, consistent with the broader 2026 trend and suggesting that the measured +3.36 per-capita increment will return to the +3.1–3.2 range as soon as the anomalous Labor Day week falls out of the four-week rolling average. The permanent elimination of the Labor Day per-capita suppression effect is, however, a genuine and lasting structural change: it means that the final 16 weeks of 2026 will not see the holiday-driven dip that prior years experienced, and future annual forecasts should account for this additional structural uplift in September filing volumes.
9. Forecast for the Expected Filing Numbers for the Rest of the Year With 36 weeks completed and a year-to-date total of 433,081 through September 7, the full-year forecast has been meaningfully upgraded by the extraordinary Labor Day week, with all three projection methods now converging in the 625,000–631,000 range — approximately 5,000–6,000 higher than the pre-Labor Day estimates. Using the average of the four most recent weeks (Weeks 33 through 36), which averaged approximately 12,388 per week — elevated by the anomalous Labor Day week result — the remaining 16 weeks would contribute roughly 198,208 additional filings, yielding a projection of approximately 631,289; this estimate is likely slightly inflated since the Labor Day week anomaly will not repeat in the remaining weeks of the year. The full 36-week running average of 12,030 per week applied to the remaining 16 weeks produces a central estimate of approximately 625,561 — representing a 62,912-filing increase over 2025's 562,649 — and is the most balanced estimate given that it accounts for the full range of 2026 weekly outcomes including both spike and moderate periods. The historically grounded second-half premium approach yields approximately 630,663, sitting between the other estimates and suggesting the most likely range is 625,000–631,000 for the full year. With 433,081 already locked in and just 16 weeks remaining, the year would need to average only 8,098 filings per week to surpass 2025's record — a threshold that even a substantially weaker-than-average autumn would not threaten, making the 2026 annual record not just certain but certain by a margin of approximately 60,000–70,000 filings.
10. Forecast of the Trends of Increasing Filings After 2025 The data through September 7, 2026 introduces a genuinely new and significant dimension to the post-2025 filing outlook: the structural elimination of the Labor Day holiday suppression effect through electronic filing normalization represents the first documented behavioral shift in the filing calendar since the dataset began, and it permanently adds approximately 5,000–6,000 additional filings to the annual total compared to what prior-year Labor Day patterns would have predicted, an uplift that will carry into every future year's annualized total. The annual filing progression from 378,337 in 2022 to 445,206 in 2023, 503,787 in 2024, and 562,649 in 2025, now extended by 2026's converged central forecast of approximately 625,000–631,000, maps a trajectory that has added roughly 57,000–84,000 additional annual filings per year — and the 2026 increment of approximately 62,000–68,000 sits in the mid-range of that historical band, suggesting the deceleration in annual gains is real but modest. The elimination of the holiday suppression effect is a structural tailwind that will likely also affect other federal holiday weeks in 2026 and 2027 — not just Labor Day but potentially Memorial Day, July 4th, and Thanksgiving — and if each of those weeks similarly avoids its historical suppression, the cumulative additional annual filings could amount to an additional 15,000–25,000 cases per year in future totals, meaningfully raising the structural floor of annual filing volumes beyond what the underlying financial distress trajectory alone would produce. The Northern District of Georgia's 18 Chapter 11 filings and the Southern District of Texas's 15 Chapter 11 cases this week, against the context of the year-to-date Chapter 11 total of 6,745 running 20.1% above 2025, continue to signal that corporate restructuring demand is elevated and broadening geographically — from the energy-sector Houston corridor to the commercial real estate markets of Atlanta and beyond — which will sustain elevated Chapter 11 annual totals into 2027 regardless of broader economic trends. In summary, 2026 is on course to close at approximately 625,000–631,000 total filings, 2027 is likely to add approximately 55,000–65,000 more filings to produce a new annual record in the 680,000–696,000 range, and the structural elimination of holiday suppression effects — combined with persistent household and business distress — may make the late 2020s the most sustained period of elevated annual bankruptcy activity in the modern history of American financial distress.

ChatGPT 5.6 Sol Analysis of Week 36 District-Level Filing Data

1. In week 36, beginning Monday, September 7, 2026, U.S. bankruptcy courts recorded 13,511 filings nationwide. Chapter 7 accounted for 8,297 cases, Chapter 13 for 5,027, Chapter 11 for 181, and Chapter 12 for 6. Total filings were nearly unchanged from week 35, declining by just 18 cases, or about 0.1%, from 13,529. Week 36 was also 1,123 filings above the recent four-week average of 12,388, a difference of about 9.1%. With 13,511 cases, week 36 ranked as the ninth-highest filing week of the first 36 weeks of 2026.
2. One of the most notable figures in week 36 was the 5,027 Chapter 13 filings, the fourth-highest weekly Chapter 13 total so far in 2026. Chapter 13 represented 37.2% of all filings, while Chapter 7 accounted for 61.4%. Compared with week 35, Chapter 13 increased by 381 cases, while Chapter 7 declined by 449. Chapter 11 also increased from 131 to 181 filings, a gain of 50, while Chapter 12 remained unchanged at 6. These shifts largely offset one another, which explains why the national total stayed almost flat at 13,511 despite meaningful changes within the individual chapters.
3. District activity in week 36 was led by the Central District of California with 732 filings and the Middle District of Florida with 674. The Northern District of Georgia followed with 570 cases, while the Northern District of Illinois recorded 466 and the Eastern District of Michigan recorded 363. Together, those five districts generated 2,805 filings, representing about 20.8% of the national total. Compared with week 35, Northern Georgia increased by 52 cases, while Central California declined by 31, Middle Florida by 29, Northern Illinois by 81, and Eastern Michigan by 12. The district numbers show that the nearly unchanged national total of 13,511 still included substantial movement from one part of the country to another.
4. Geographic differences remained substantial during week 36. Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands recorded 0 filings, while the Virgin Islands recorded 1, Vermont 5, and Alaska 7. By comparison, the Central District of California handled 732 cases, more than 146 times Vermont’s total. The five busiest districts combined for 2,805 filings, while those five lowest-volume jurisdictions together recorded only 13. With 13,511 filings nationwide, the numbers continue to show that bankruptcy activity is concentrated heavily in a relatively small group of high-volume districts.
5. Through week 36, U.S. courts have recorded 433,081 bankruptcy filings in 2026, compared with 386,332 through the same point in 2025. That difference of 46,749 filings represents a year-to-date increase of approximately 12.1%. The average so far this year stands at about 12,030 filings per week, compared with approximately 10,731 during the first 36 weeks of 2025. Chapter 7 has reached 274,652 cases and Chapter 13 151,425, while Chapter 11 has totaled 6,745 and Chapter 12 259. Chapter 11 alone is 1,127 cases ahead of its 2025 year-to-date total of 5,618, showing that the increase extends beyond the two largest consumer chapters.
6. Week 36’s 13,511 filings were substantially higher than the 7,923 cases recorded during the same week of 2025. That represents an increase of 5,588 filings, or approximately 70.5%, from one year earlier. Compared with week 36 of 2024, when courts recorded 7,351 cases, the increase was even larger at 6,160 filings, or about 83.8%. Chapter 7 rose from 4,707 cases in 2025 to 8,297 in 2026, while Chapter 13 increased from 3,098 to 5,027. Although individual weeks can vary sharply, the comparison reinforces the broader year-to-date increase from 386,332 filings in 2025 to 433,081 in 2026.
7. Using a rounded U.S. population benchmark of about 342 million, week 36’s 13,511 filings equal approximately 39.5 filings per million residents. Chapter 7 accounted for roughly 24.3 filings per million, while Chapter 13 contributed about 14.7 per million. Chapter 11 and Chapter 12 together added approximately 0.5 filings per million, based on their combined 187 cases. Week 35’s 13,529 filings represented about 39.6 per million, meaning the population-adjusted rate was essentially unchanged from one week to the next. The per-capita figures therefore mirror the small 18-case decline seen in the national total between weeks 35 and 36.
8. The longer-term per-capita comparison shows a much clearer increase than the week-to-week movement. Using the same population benchmark for consistency, week 36 of 2025’s 7,923 filings equal about 23.2 filings per million, compared with 39.5 per million in 2026. Week 36 of 2024 was lower still at roughly 21.5 per million, based on 7,351 cases. On a year-to-date basis, weekly filings average about 35.2 per million in 2026, compared with 31.4 in 2025 and 28.3 in 2024. The progression from 28.3 to 31.4 to 35.2 filings per million shows that bankruptcy activity has continued to rise even after adjusting for population.
9. Through week 36, the 433,081 filings recorded in 2026 translate to an average of approximately 12,030 cases per week. If that pace continues for the remaining 16 weeks, the year would finish with roughly 625,561 filings. Using the more recent four-week average of 12,388 instead would produce an estimated 631,289 cases for the full year. If filings remained at week 36’s stronger level of 13,511 per week, the total would approach 649,257 by year-end. Those scenarios would place 2026 roughly 11.2% to 15.4% above the 562,649 filings recorded during all of 2025.
10. The longer-term trend shows annual bankruptcy filings increasing from 378,337 in 2022 to 445,206 in 2023, 503,787 in 2024, and 562,649 in 2025. Those increases represent annual growth of approximately 17.7%, 13.2%, and 11.7%, showing steady expansion even as the growth rate gradually moderated. The central 2026 projection of about 625,561 filings would represent another increase of roughly 11.2% over 2025. If annual growth then moderated to about 7%, total filings would reach approximately 669,351 in 2027 and 716,205 in 2028. The data therefore support continued growth after 2025, while the difference of only 18 filings between weeks 35 and 36 demonstrates that the upward trend will not necessarily appear evenly from week to week.