*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 37 Bankruptcy Filing Statistics by Chapter (Updated September 14th, 2026)

Week 37 showed a divergence between consumer and business filings, with consumer bankruptcies declining about 13% to 9,086 filings while business filings surged roughly 72% to 198 cases compared with the same week last year.

Chapter 7 filings, a lifeline for many struggling households, were down 13.04% year-over-year (6,532 in 2025 to 5,680 in 2026). Chapter 13 filings, allowing individuals to restructure their debt, were down 13.79% year-over-year (3,951 in 2025 to 3,406 in 2026). Chapter 11 filings, often used by businesses facing insolvency, were up 74.31% year-over-year (109 in 2025 to 190 in 2026).

Bankruptcy and Consumer Debt News We're Reading This Week

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• Leading Companies Filing for Bankruptcy 2026

AI Analysis of 2026 Week 37 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 37 Bankruptcy Filings

1. Overview of this week's National filings. For the week of September 14, the country recorded 9,284 total bankruptcy filings, a notable pullback that broke the streak of week-over-week strength seen through most of 2026. Chapter 7 liquidations made up 5,680 filings during week 37, or roughly 61.2% of the national total, while Chapter 13 wage-earner reorganizations contributed 3,406 filings, about 36.7%. Chapter 11 business reorganizations added 190 filings and Chapter 12 farm filings totaled 8, together accounting for about 2.1% of week 37 activity. Week-over-week, total filings fell sharply by 31.3% from week 36's 13,510, settling well below the 2026 year-to-date weekly average of 11,956. Year-over-year, week 37 of 2026 is down 12.4% compared with the same week in 2025, which posted 10,598 filings — the second year-over-year decline of 2026.
2. An interesting fact about this week's filings. The most striking detail about the week of September 14 is that the Labor Day calendar effect from the prior week has now reversed — the shortened holiday week that lifted 2025's week 36 to a low baseline (7,923) is now lifting 2025's week 37 to a high baseline (10,598), producing this week's -12.4% year-over-year comparison. Even so, Chapter 11 business filings surged 74.3% year-over-year to 190, driven almost entirely by an extraordinary 65-filing cluster in New Jersey — the largest Chapter 11 cluster observed since the record 158-filing New Jersey wave in week 23. Chapter 12 farm filings continued to run hot at 8 (up 33.3% from 6 in the same week of 2025), with Southern Iowa and Northern Indiana each producing 2 filings. Both consumer chapters retreated sharply — Chapter 7 fell 13.0% (from 6,532 to 5,680) and Chapter 13 dropped 13.8% (from 3,951 to 3,406) — reflecting the calendar-inflated 2025 comparison. Together, these patterns show a week dominated by commercial restructuring while the consumer side gave back some of the prior week's post-Labor-Day surge.
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 14, the Middle District of Florida led the country with 521 filings, followed by the Central District of California at 446, the Northern District of Georgia at 371, and the Northern District of Illinois at 337. New Jersey climbed unusually high with 265 total filings during week 37 (boosted by its Chapter 11 cluster), followed by the Eastern District of Michigan at 263, the Northern District of Ohio and Southern District of Florida tied at 229 each, Maryland at 223, and Arizona at 212. Looking at Chapter 7 alone, the Middle District of Florida posted 402, the Central District of California 379, the Northern District of Georgia 239, the Northern District of Ohio 190, the Northern District of Illinois 188, Arizona 179, the Eastern District of Michigan 175, the Eastern District of California 143, and both the Southern District of Florida and Southern District of Ohio tied at 138 each. On the Chapter 13 side, the Northern District of Illinois led with 147, followed by the Northern District of Georgia at 126, the Western District of Tennessee at 125, the Middle District of Florida at 113, the Northern District of Alabama at 93, both the Southern District of Florida and Maryland tied at 89 each, the Eastern District of Michigan at 85, the Eastern District of Tennessee at 84, and New Jersey at 82. The top ten districts during week 37 together produced about 3,096 filings, accounting for roughly 33.3% of the 9,284-filing national total.
4. Geographic (district) disparities in filings. The disparity between busy and quiet districts during week 37 remained enormous: while the Middle District of Florida posted 521 total filings, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the Virgin Islands each recorded zero. Other very low-volume districts during the week of September 14 included Alaska at 4, the District of Columbia at 5, South Dakota at 6, Wyoming at 7, Vermont and the Northern District of West Virginia at 8 each, and Montana at 9. New Jersey, despite its modest population, climbed to 265 total filings during week 37, driven almost entirely by its 65-filing Chapter 11 cluster, illustrating how a single restructuring wave can briefly reshape district rankings. The southeastern Sun Belt and major metro districts of California, Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio dominated the overall leaderboard for week 37. 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 37 weeks of 2026, the country has logged 442,375 total filings, an average of 11,956 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 13,510 in week 36, with the week of September 14 pulling back to 9,284. Chapter 7 dropped to 5,680 during week 37 (down from 8,297 the prior week), while Chapter 13 slipped to 3,406 (down from 5,027). Chapter 11 climbed to 190 in week 37 on the back of the New Jersey cluster, and Chapter 12 nudged up to 8. The overall pattern for 2026 is a clearly higher baseline than any earlier year covered by the dataset, though the past two weeks have shown that Labor Day timing can produce sharp swings in both directions.
6. Comparative analysis with previous years. Looking at the same week 37 across years yields a mostly rising path with a step-down this year: 7,323 in 2022, 8,424 in 2023, 9,628 in 2024, 10,598 in 2025, and 9,284 in 2026 — a cumulative increase of about 26.8% over the four-year span despite this week's dip. Annual growth rates for week 37 specifically were 15.0% (2023), 14.3% (2024), 10.1% (2025), and -12.4% (2026), with the 2026 decline heavily influenced by the Labor Day calendar shift rather than underlying weakness. The same upward trend remains firmly intact in year-to-date totals through week 37: 267,905 in 2022, 311,618 in 2023, 357,565 in 2024, 396,933 in 2025, and 442,375 in 2026. That means 2026 is running about 11.4% ahead of 2025's pace at the same point on the calendar and roughly 65.1% ahead of where 2022 stood after 37 weeks. The combination of a single-week YoY decline against a still-strong year-to-date lead suggests the underlying pace remains elevated even after the calendar-induced pullback.
7. Analyzing the filings per capita. Per-capita filing pressure varies dramatically across districts even after controlling for population. During week 37, the Central District of California, with roughly 20 million residents, produced 446 total filings — about 22 per million residents. The Northern District of Georgia, with around 6.5 million residents, produced 371 filings during the week of September 14, which works out to roughly 57 per million, more than double Southern California's per-capita rate. The Western District of Tennessee (125 Chapter 13 filings) and the Northern District of Alabama (93 Chapter 13 filings) sit even higher on a per-resident basis, while the Middle District of Florida's 521 combined filings translate to roughly 49 per million given its 10.6-million population. Adjusted for population, the heaviest filing pressure during week 37 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 (-12)–15% annually since 2022 at this point on the calendar, the per-capita filing rate has climbed sharply over the past four years despite this week's calendar-driven pullback. Nationally, week 37 of 2026's 9,284 filings translate to about 27 per million residents, up from roughly 21 per million in week 37 of 2022 — an increase of about 27% in four years. Districts that were already filing-heavy have seen the steepest per-capita rises, especially the Middle District of Florida, whose 521 combined filings during the week of September 14 represent a substantial step-up from typical week-37 totals in the mid-200s back in 2022. In contrast, the lowest-filing jurisdictions during week 37 (Alaska at 4, District of Columbia at 5, South Dakota at 6, Wyoming at 7, Vermont and Northern District of West Virginia at 8 each) 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 442,375 filings already logged through week 37, if the rest of 2026 follows 2025's seasonal pattern, the remaining 15 weeks (weeks 38 through 52) should produce roughly 185,000 additional filings, putting the full year near 627,000 total filings compared with 562,653 in 2025. Using the year-to-date 2026 weekly average of 11,956 applied to the remaining 15 weeks yields a projection of about 179,000 more filings and a year-end total around 621,000. 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 615,000–635,000. Taken together, the most likely 2026 year-end range is approximately 615,000 to 635,000 total filings, with the central estimate near 625,000. That would represent roughly 9–13% growth over 2025's full-year total of 562,653.
10. Forecast the trends of increasing filings after 2025. The four-year trajectory of full-year totals (378,337 in 2022, 445,208 in 2023, 503,788 in 2024, 562,653 in 2025, and a projected ~625,000 in 2026) implies a compound annual growth rate of about 14% from 2022 through 2025, easing to roughly 11% in 2026. If the softness observed in the week of September 14's year-over-year figure (-12.4%) represents a genuine slowdown rather than just a Labor Day calendar effect, annual increases could moderate to about 4–6% in 2027 and 2–4% in 2028, putting filings into the 640,000–670,000 range by 2027 and the 650,000–695,000 range by 2028. The chapter mix is also likely to keep shifting: Chapter 11 surged 74.3% year-over-year during week 37 (from 109 to 190) driven by the New Jersey cluster, while Chapter 12 rose 33.3% (from 6 to 8), Chapter 7 fell 13.0% (from 6,532 to 5,680), and Chapter 13 dropped 13.8% (from 3,951 to 3,406). Chapter 13, propelled by southeastern Sun Belt districts that produced 147, 126, 125, 113, 93, 89, 89, 85, 84, and 82 filings during the week of September 14 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 37 Filing Trends

1. For week 37, beginning Monday, September 14, 2026, national filings totaled 9,284. Chapter 7 accounted for 5,680 filings, Chapter 13 accounted for 3,406, Chapter 11 accounted for 190, and Chapter 12 accounted for 8. The national total was 4,226 filings lower than week 36’s 13,510, a 31.3% decrease. Compared with week 37 of 2025, when there were 10,598 filings, this week was lower by 1,314 filings, or 12.4%. Through week 37 of 2026, national filings reached 442,375.
2. One notable feature of week 37 was that the national decline came mainly from Chapters 7 and 13. Chapter 7 fell by 2,616 filings, moving from 8,296 in week 36 to 5,680 in week 37. Chapter 13 fell by 1,621 filings, moving from 5,027 to 3,406. Chapter 11 increased from 181 to 190, while Chapter 12 increased from 6 to 8. Together, Chapters 7 and 13 accounted for 9,086 filings, or 97.9% of the national total of 9,284.
3. At the district level, week 37 was led by Middle Florida with 521 filings. Central California followed with 446 filings, Northern Georgia had 371, Northern Illinois had 337, and New Jersey had 265. Eastern Michigan reported 263 filings, Southern Florida and Northern Ohio each had 229, Maryland had 223, and Arizona had 212. The top 5 districts together produced 1,940 filings. Those 1,940 filings represented 20.9% of the national total of 9,284.
4. Geographic differences remained substantial during week 37, beginning Monday, September 14, 2026. The average district had 98.8 filings, while the median district had 77.5. Middle Florida’s 521 filings were 6.7 times the median district total. There were 11 districts with at least 200 filings, including Central California at 446, Northern Georgia at 371, and Northern Illinois at 337. There were also 16 districts with 20 or fewer filings, including Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Virgin Islands at 0, Alaska at 4, District of Columbia at 5, South Dakota at 6, Wyoming at 7, and Vermont and Northern West Virginia at 8 each.
5. The 2026 year-to-date picture continues to show filings running ahead of the same point in 2025. Through week 37, national filings totaled 442,375 in 2026. At the same point in 2025, national filings totaled 396,933. That means 2026 was ahead by 45,442 filings, or 11.4%, through week 37. Year-to-date Chapter 7 filings reached 280,462, Chapter 13 reached 154,710, Chapter 11 reached 6,937, and Chapter 12 reached 266.
6. Week 37 of 2026 was higher than the same week in 2022 and 2023, but lower than the same week in 2024 and 2025. The comparable weekly totals were 7,323 in 2022, 8,424 in 2023, 9,628 in 2024, 10,598 in 2025, and 9,284 in 2026. This year’s week 37 total was 26.8% higher than 2022 and 10.2% higher than 2023. It was also 3.6% lower than 2024 and 12.4% lower than 2025. On a year-to-date basis, 2026’s 442,375 filings were 84,810 higher than 2024’s 357,565 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 37, the national total of 9,284 filings across 94 districts equals 98.8 filings per district. The median district had 77.5 filings, which was 21.3 below the district average. Middle Florida’s 521 filings were 5.3 times the district average, while Central California’s 446 filings were 4.5 times the district average.
8. The filing-rate proxy shows that week 37 filing activity has increased since 2022, even though it was below the same week in 2024 and 2025. Weekly filings rose from 7,323 in 2022 to 9,284 in 2026. That is a gain of 1,961 filings over the period. Across 94 districts, the proxy increased from 77.9 filings per district in week 37 of 2022 to 98.8 filings per district in week 37 of 2026. Compared with week 37 of 2025, the proxy fell from 112.7 to 98.8 filings per district, a decrease of 14.0 filings per district.
9. A simple forecast based on the 2026 year-to-date average of 11,956.1 filings per week points to about 633,672 filings for a full 53-week 2026 year. Since 442,375 filings had already occurred through week 37, that pace would add about 191,297 filings over the remaining 16 weeks. A second approach uses the 2025 weeks 38 through 52 total of 165,720 filings as a baseline. Increasing that remaining-year baseline by the current 11.4% year-to-date growth rate implies about 184,692 additional filings. Together, these approaches suggest the rest of 2026 could add roughly 184,692 to 191,297 filings.
10. The longer-term trend after 2025 remains upward on a year-to-date basis, even though week 37 itself was lower than the same week last year. Week 37 of 2026 had 9,284 filings, compared with 10,598 in week 37 of 2025. Through week 37, 2026 had 442,375 filings, compared with 396,933 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 10,820.3 in 2025. If the 2026 year-to-date pace of 11,956.1 filings per week continues, it would be 1,135.8 filings per week above the 2025 average.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 Analysis of Week 37 Bankruptcy Statistics

1. Overview of This Week's National Filings The week of September 14, 2026 — Week 37 of the year and the first full working week following the Labor Day holiday — closed with a national bankruptcy total of 9,284 filings, the second-lowest weekly count of the entire 2026 calendar, surpassed on the low end only by the opening week of January which recorded 9,013. Of those filings, 5,680 were Chapter 7 liquidation cases, representing 61.2% of all activity — an unusually reduced Chapter 7 share for a non-holiday week, reflecting the broad post-holiday suppression of consumer liquidation demand in the first week back after the long weekend. Chapter 13 reorganization filings contributed 3,406 cases, accounting for 36.7% of the national total and ranking among the quieter Chapter 13 readings of the year, as reorganization filers — while less affected by the holiday cycle than liquidation filers — also showed meaningful week-over-week pullback from the prior week's elevated 5,027. Chapter 11 business restructuring filings came in at 190 for the week — a genuinely elevated reading that stands as one of the more notable Chapter 11 counts of the late-summer period — while Chapter 12 agricultural filings registered 8 cases, their highest reading since mid-spring. Together, all four chapters account for the 9,284 total filings recorded nationally during the week of September 14.
2. An Interesting Fact About This Week's Filings The most analytically revealing feature of the week of September 14, 2026 is what its -31.3% week-over-week decline from 13,510 to 9,284 tells us about how the Labor Day filing calendar has been permanently restructured by electronic filing: in every prior year, the Week 36-to-37 transition showed a large increase — +19.9% in 2022, +29.2% in 2023, +31.0% in 2024, and +33.8% in 2025 — because Week 36 was always heavily suppressed by the holiday and Week 37 represented a return to normal volumes, but in 2026 with Week 36 having been essentially unsuppressed at 13,510, the Week 37 normalization produced the first-ever decline in this transition. When examined across the two-week window spanning Weeks 35 through 37 — which strips out the intermediate Labor Day distortion and captures the true before-and-after signal — the 2026 net decline of -31.4% fits neatly into the accelerating multi-year trend: -22.9% in 2022, -26.5% in 2023, -27.7% in 2024, -29.3% in 2025, and now -31.4% in 2026, confirming the post-Labor Day baseline reset is proceeding in exactly the same pattern as every prior year, just redistributed between Weeks 36 and 37. The District of New Jersey's 65 Chapter 11 filings out of its total 265 — representing 24.5% of that district's weekly activity — is a genuinely remarkable sub-figure, accounting for more than one-third of the entire nation's 190 Chapter 11 cases from a single jurisdiction and suggesting a cluster of coordinated business restructuring filings in the New York metro area that has no parallel in any other top-ten district this week. This Week 37 result is also only the second year-over-year weekly decline for any non-holiday week in all of 2026 — following Week 35's -9.8% — with this week's -12.4% being the steeper of the two and entirely explained by the 2025 baseline having been inflated by that year's own strong post-Labor Day rebound to 10,598 rather than by any weakening in underlying 2026 demand.
3. Overview of This Week's District-Level Filings The week of September 14 produced a subdued but structurally coherent district-level picture, with the Middle District of Florida reclaiming the top position at 521 total filings — 402 Chapter 7 (77%) and 113 Chapter 13 (22%) — its quietest full week since spring but still the country's busiest bankruptcy court by volume, as the Florida consumer filing market remained active even as the post-holiday demand dip compressed volumes across most jurisdictions. The Central District of California followed with 446 total filings — 379 Chapter 7 (85%), 61 Chapter 13, and 6 Chapter 11 — its second-lowest reading since the opening weeks of the year and reflecting the characteristic post-holiday deceleration across the Los Angeles metropolitan filing market. The Northern District of Georgia placed third with 371 total filings (239 Chapter 7, 126 Chapter 13 at 34%, and 6 Chapter 11), followed by the Northern District of Illinois with 337 total filings (188 Chapter 7, 147 Chapter 13 at 44%) — both courts maintaining their characteristic Chapter 13 orientation even in a low-volume week, as reorganization plan filers tend to compress less around holidays than consumers seeking outright discharge. The District of New Jersey placed fifth with 265 total filings anchored by 65 Chapter 11 cases, while the Eastern District of Michigan (263), Southern District of Florida (229), Northern District of Ohio (229, with 83% Chapter 7), District of Maryland (223), and District of Arizona (212, with 84% Chapter 7) rounded out the top ten — completing a ranking whose composition closely mirrors the established 2026 filing geography even at reduced volumes.
4. Geographic Disparities in Filings Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands all recorded zero filings in the week of September 14, Alaska logged just 4 cases, and the District of Columbia contributed 5 — the five quietest jurisdictions combining for 9 total filings, while the Middle District of Florida alone recorded 521, a disparity of nearly 58 to 1 between the busiest and quietest courts that persists regardless of whether the calendar is active or slow. The District of New Jersey's 65 Chapter 11 filings were proportionally extraordinary: representing 24.5% of that district's 265 total cases, New Jersey this week accounted for more than one-third of the nation's entire 190 Chapter 11 total from a jurisdiction that ordinarily produces Chapter 11 concentrations in the 7–10% range, pointing to a burst of coordinated business restructuring activity — potentially several related entities filing simultaneously — that is likely to dissipate in subsequent weeks. The chapter-composition geography reveals two persistent filing cultures operating simultaneously: the Central District of California's 85% Chapter 7 rate, Northern District of Ohio's 83%, and District of Arizona's 84% form a cluster of liquidation-dominant courts, while the Northern District of Illinois at 44% Chapter 13, District of Maryland at 40%, and Southern District of Florida at 39% form a reorganization-oriented countercluster, with these divergent cultures producing fundamentally different financial outcomes for households in comparable distress across different regions. The District of Maryland's 223 total filings — its eleventh consecutive top-ten appearance of 2026 — has established the Washington-Baltimore corridor as one of the most structurally persistent consumer distress markets in the nation this year, with its 40% Chapter 13 share (89 of 223) reflecting the higher-income, higher-debt profile of Washington-area households who are more likely to attempt reorganization than outright discharge. The tightest top-ten spread of recent months — with first-place Florida Middle (521) only 2.46 times the tenth-place Arizona (212) — reflects the general compression of district volumes in a quiet week where even the most active courts are operating at well below their seasonal peaks.
5. Current Year Focus Through September 14, 2026 — thirty-seven completed weeks representing 71.2% of the full calendar — the national year-to-date total stands at 442,375 filings, already representing 78.6% of 2025's entire full-year total of 562,653 despite only 71.2% of the year having elapsed, confirming that 2026's cumulative pace has run consistently ahead of prior-year trajectories at every comparable stage of the calendar. The 2026 weekly average through Week 37 stands at 11,956 filings per week — 10.5% above the full-year 2025 average of 10,820 — with 15 weeks remaining and the full-year record requiring an average of only 8,018 filings per week from here forward to surpass 2025's total, a threshold so far below the year's typical weekly pace that it has already been rendered mathematically irrelevant. The year-to-date Chapter 7 total of 280,462 through Week 37 is the dataset's most striking single sub-figure: 72.9% above 2022's comparable 162,169 and 12.1% ahead of 2025's 250,175, the consumer liquidation total has now grown to a scale that would have represented a full annual record as recently as four years ago. The year-to-date Chapter 11 total of 6,937 running 21.2% above 2025's 5,724 puts corporate restructuring on pace to close at approximately 9,749 for the year — a meaningful acceleration in business distress that has broadened geographically across Texas, Georgia, Florida, and New Jersey over the course of the summer and early autumn. The year-to-date Chapter 12 agricultural total of 266 is setting a record at this stage of the calendar, running 24.3% above 2025's 214 through the same number of weeks, and with autumn harvest-related financial pressures arriving, the Chapter 12 count is positioned for further acceleration in the final weeks of the year.
6. Comparative Analysis with Previous Years Week 37's -12.4% year-over-year decline — from 2025's 10,598 to 2026's 9,284 — is the steepest non-holiday year-over-year weekly decline of the entire 2026 calendar and the second consecutive such decline, making Weeks 35 and 37 the only two non-holiday weeks of the year to produce readings below their 2025 counterparts. The full Week 37 historical trajectory — 7,323 in 2022, 8,424 in 2023 (+15.0%), 9,628 in 2024 (+14.3%), 10,598 in 2025 (+10.1%), and now 9,284 in 2026 (-12.4%) — makes 2026 the first year in the dataset to produce a lower Week 37 total than the prior year, a reversal driven not by weakening demand but by the Labor Day redistribution that shifted filing activity from this week into the prior week. The four-year cumulative gain from 2022 to 2026 for Week 37 narrows to just +26.8% — the smallest four-year gain of any non-holiday week in 2026 — again a calendar artifact of 2025's own elevated Week 37 reading of 10,598 creating an unusually demanding baseline. The year-to-date cumulative picture tells the more reliable structural story: from 267,905 in 2022 to 311,618 in 2023 (+16.3%), 357,565 in 2024 (+14.7%), 396,933 in 2025 (+11.0%), and now 442,375 in 2026 (+11.4%) — with 2026's year-to-date cumulative lead of +45,442 filings above the equivalent 2025 figure representing the largest absolute gap of the year, boosted by the Week 36 Labor Day anomaly still flowing through the cumulative total. The Chapter 11 comparison stands alone as a genuine year-over-year acceleration this week: 190 in 2026 versus 109 in 2025 (+74.3%), a corporate restructuring gain driven by real business distress rather than calendar effects, with New Jersey's 65 Chapter 11 cases providing roughly 34% of the national count from a single district.
7. Analyzing the Filings Per Capita The week of September 14, 2026 produced approximately 27.23 bankruptcy filings per one million Americans — the second-lowest per-capita weekly rate of the entire 2026 year, reflecting the post-Labor Day normalization that pulled volumes well below the 37-week running average of 35.06 per million and temporarily makes the week resemble the per-capita rates common in 2023 rather than the structurally elevated 2026 trend. 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 37-week running average of 35.06 per million the highest for any comparable stretch in the dataset's history. The cumulative 37-week total of 442,375 filings translates to approximately 1,297 bankruptcy cases per million Americans through September 14, 2026 — a per-capita accumulation that is tracking toward approximately 1,822 filings per million for the full year, versus roughly 1,659 per million in all of 2025 and just 1,136 per million in 2022. The District of New Jersey's 65 Chapter 11 filings this week, against a district population of approximately 9.3 million, represent roughly 7.0 corporate bankruptcy cases per million district residents for a single week — an annualized corporate filing rate of approximately 364 per million that is more than double the national corporate distress average and reflects the exceptional density of commercial activity in the New York metro corridor. Despite the quiet headline reading of 27.23 per million for the specific week, the 37-week running average of 35.06 sits 60.4% above the 2022 full-year average of 21.85, confirming that the structural elevation in American per-capita bankruptcy rates is fully intact and that the quiet week is a calendar artifact rather than a signal of trend reversal.
8. Analyzing the Changing Filings Per Capita The per-capita annual increment through Week 37 of 2026 has settled at +3.14 per million per week — returning from the anomalous +3.36 reading of the Labor Day week to the +3.1–3.2 band that has characterized most of 2026, and now representing the most stable and reliable reading of the annual increment in several weeks after the volatility introduced by the consecutive Labor Day anomalies of Weeks 35 through 37. The four-year progression — +3.71 (2022→2023), +3.19 (2023→2024), +3.17 (2024→2025), and now +3.14 (2025→2026 through September 14) — continues to trace a gently but consistently decelerating arc, with 2026's annual increment the lowest in the series by a small but meaningful margin, suggesting the structural escalation cycle has passed its peak rate of acceleration and is entering a more mature, lower-volatility phase. The consumer chapter per-capita readings for this specific week are notably negative: Chapter 7's per-capita rate fell -13.0% year over year and Chapter 13's fell -13.8% year over year — both the steepest individual-chapter year-over-year per-capita declines of the entire 2026 calendar — driven exclusively by the Labor Day redistribution that raised the 2025 comparison baseline rather than by any genuine weakening of consumer financial distress in 2026. The Chapter 11 per-capita comparison offers the clearest counterpoint: at 190 cases versus 2025's 109 for the same week, the +74.3% year-over-year per-capita gain reflects genuine, calendar-independent structural acceleration in business distress, and New Jersey's concentration of 65 Chapter 11 cases in a single week underscores how corporate restructuring demand can manifest in sudden bursts driven by specific market conditions rather than flowing smoothly through the calendar. Looking forward, the stabilization of the annual per-capita increment at +3.14 — the third consecutive week in the +3.10–3.17 range after the Labor Day distortion — provides the clearest signal yet that 2026's final weeks will produce a full-year annual increment in this narrow band, and that 2027's annual increment will likely settle in the +2.9–3.1 range as the deceleration trend continues.
9. Forecast for the Expected Filing Numbers for the Rest of the Year With 37 weeks completed and a confirmed year-to-date total of 442,375 through September 14, the full-year forecast has stabilized with all projection methods converging in the 615,000–628,000 range, and 15 weeks remaining in a period that historically includes both the moderate autumn baseline and the year-end corporate filing acceleration. Using the average of the four most recent weeks — Weeks 34 through 37 — which averaged approximately 12,008 per week and is still elevated by the inclusion of the anomalous Labor Day week, the remaining 15 weeks would contribute roughly 180,123 additional filings for a projection of approximately 622,499; this estimate likely modestly overstates the underlying pace since the Labor Day week's structural anomaly will not recur in the remaining 15 weeks. The full 37-week running average of 11,956 per week applied to the remaining 15 weeks produces a central estimate of approximately 621,716 — probably the most balanced projection — while the historically grounded second-half premium approach, which applies a 1.035x multiplier to the first-half weekly average, yields approximately 627,614, consistent with the consistent pattern of second-half filing acceleration in prior years. A more conservative estimate using only the typical non-holiday weekly pace of the recent moderate weeks (Weeks 33, 34, and 37 averaged at roughly 10,599) produces a lower-bound projection of approximately 601,360 — an outcome that would likely require an unusually quiet autumn and is not supported by any observable slowdown in underlying consumer or business distress. With 442,375 already locked in and 15 weeks remaining, the year needs just 8,018 filings per week on average to surpass 2025's record of 562,653 — a level so far below any week's actual outcome in 2026 that the annual record is not merely expected but is already secured with certainty.
10. Forecast of the Trends of Increasing Filings After 2025 The data through September 14, 2026 — 71.2% of the year complete with 442,375 confirmed filings, a 37-week average of 11,956 per week, and a per-capita annual increment stabilized at +3.14 per million — provides the clearest and most noise-reduced picture of the post-2025 filing trajectory available this year, with the Labor Day calendar disruption having fully passed through and the underlying trend reasserting itself. The annual filing progression from 378,337 in 2022 to 445,208 in 2023, 503,788 in 2024, and 562,653 in 2025, now projected to close at approximately 615,000–628,000 in 2026, describes a staircase that has added between 57,000 and 84,000 additional filings per year — and the 2026 increment of approximately 52,000–65,000 represents the lower end of that range, confirming a genuine moderation in annual absolute gains even as each year's total continues to set a new record. The permanent structural change documented in the 2026 Labor Day weeks — electronic filing normalization eliminating holiday suppression — will carry forward into 2027 and every subsequent year, adding approximately 5,000–6,000 filings to the annual total compared to what the pre-2026 Labor Day pattern would have produced, and likely to eventually affect other federal holiday weeks as attorney behavior continues to adapt to the 24/7 digital filing environment. The Chapter 11 year-to-date total of 6,937 — 21.2% above 2025's comparable 5,724 and on pace to close at approximately 9,749 — signals a broadening and deepening corporate restructuring cycle that has expanded from its initial energy and retail concentrations into commercial real estate, manufacturing, and regional banking stress, a diversification that tends to prolong rather than shorten corporate distress cycles as it reaches sectors with longer balance-sheet adjustment timelines. In summary, 2026 is locked in to close between 615,000–628,000 filings, 2027 is most likely to add approximately 52,000–62,000 more to produce a new annual record in the 667,000–690,000 range at a decelerating but still substantial pace, and the structural forces sustaining this elevated filing environment — compounding household debt, persistently high credit costs, corporate leverage, and agricultural sector stress — will keep American bankruptcy volumes at historically unprecedented levels through at least the end of the decade.

ChatGPT 5.6 Sol Analysis of Week 37 District-Level Filing Data

1. In week 37, beginning Monday, September 14, 2026, U.S. bankruptcy courts recorded 9,284 filings nationwide. Chapter 7 accounted for 5,680 cases, Chapter 13 for 3,406, Chapter 11 for 190, and Chapter 12 for 8. Total filings fell by 4,226 cases, or 31.3%, from the 13,510 filings recorded in week 36. Week 37 was also about 2,724 filings below the recent four-week average of 12,008. The sharp weekly decline made September 14 one of the quieter filing weeks of 2026 despite the stronger year-to-date trend.
2. One notable fact about week 37 is that its 9,284 filings were the second-lowest weekly total of the first 37 weeks of 2026, with only week 1’s 9,013 coming in lower. Chapter 7 fell by 2,616 cases from week 36, while Chapter 13 declined by 1,621. Chapter 11 moved in the opposite direction, increasing from 181 to 190 filings, a gain of about 5.0%. Chapter 7 represented 61.2% of all filings, while Chapter 13 accounted for 36.7%. The week therefore combined unusually low overall volume with a small increase in business reorganizations.
3. District activity in week 37 was led by the Middle District of Florida with 521 filings, followed by the Central District of California with 446. The Northern District of Georgia recorded 371 cases, the Northern District of Illinois had 337, and the District of New Jersey reported 265. Together, those five districts produced 1,940 filings, or about 20.9% of the national total. All five were lower than in week 36, including declines of 286 cases in Central California, 199 in Northern Georgia, and 153 in Middle Florida. The broad pullback across several major districts helps explain why national filings dropped so sharply during the week.
4. Geographic differences remained substantial in week 37. Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Virgin Islands each recorded 0 filings, while the District of Alaska recorded 4 and the District of Columbia recorded 5. By comparison, the Middle District of Florida handled 521 cases, more than 130 times Alaska’s total. The five busiest districts generated 1,940 filings, while those five lowest-volume jurisdictions combined for only 9. With 9,284 filings nationwide, bankruptcy activity remained heavily concentrated in a relatively small group of higher-volume districts.
5. Through week 37, U.S. courts have recorded 442,375 bankruptcy filings in 2026, compared with 396,933 through the same point in 2025. That difference of 45,442 filings represents year-to-date growth of approximately 11.4%. The average so far this year stands at about 11,956 filings per week, compared with approximately 10,728 during the first 37 weeks of 2025. Chapter 7 has reached 280,462 cases, Chapter 13 154,710, Chapter 11 6,937, and Chapter 12 266. Those chapter totals are respectively 30,287, 13,890, 1,213, and 52 cases above their comparable 2025 levels.
6. Week 37’s 9,284 filings were 1,314 lower than the 10,598 cases recorded during the same week of 2025, a decline of 12.4%. Compared with week 37 of 2024, when courts recorded 9,628 filings, the current total was 344 cases lower, or about 3.6%. Chapter 7 declined from 6,532 cases in 2025 to 5,680 in 2026, while Chapter 13 fell from 3,951 to 3,406. Chapter 11 increased from 109 cases in 2025 to 190 this year, a rise of about 74.3%. Although week 37 itself was weaker than the comparable weeks in 2024 and 2025, the 442,375 year-to-date filings remain well above 396,933 in 2025 and 357,565 in 2024.
7. Using a rounded U.S. population benchmark of about 342 million, week 37’s 9,284 filings equal approximately 27.1 filings per million residents. Chapter 7 contributed about 16.6 filings per million, while Chapter 13 accounted for roughly 10.0 per million. Chapter 11 contributed about 0.6 per million, and the 8 Chapter 12 cases represented less than 0.1 per million. Week 36’s 13,510 filings equated to approximately 39.5 per million, meaning the rate fell by about 12.4 filings per million in one week. The population-adjusted figures therefore show the same sharp 31.3% weekly decline seen in the national filing total.
8. The broader per-capita trend remains upward despite the unusually low volume in week 37. Using the same population benchmark for comparison, week 37 of 2025’s 10,598 filings equal about 31.0 filings per million, while 2024’s 9,628 equal approximately 28.2 per million. On a year-to-date basis, the 2026 weekly average of 11,956 filings works out to roughly 35.0 filings per million residents. That compares with approximately 31.4 per million in 2025 and 28.3 per million in 2024. The progression from 28.3 to 31.4 to 35.0 shows that the longer-term population-adjusted filing trend continues to rise even though week 37 itself dropped to 27.1 per million.
9. Through week 37, the 442,375 filings recorded in 2026 translate to an average of approximately 11,956 cases per week. If that pace continues for the remaining 15 weeks, the year would finish with roughly 621,716 filings. Using the recent four-week average of about 12,008 instead produces a very similar projection of approximately 622,499 cases. A more conservative scenario in which filings remain at week 37’s 9,284 level would result in about 581,635 filings for the year. These scenarios place 2026 roughly 3.4% to 10.6% above the 562,653 filings recorded during all of 2025, with a total near 622,000 serving as a reasonable central estimate.
10. The longer-term trend shows annual filings rising from 378,337 in 2022 to 445,208 in 2023, 503,788 in 2024, and 562,653 in 2025. Those increases represent annual growth of approximately 17.7%, 13.2%, and 11.7%, showing continued expansion even as the rate of growth gradually moderated. A central 2026 projection of about 621,716 filings would represent another increase of roughly 10.5% over 2025. If growth then moderated to around 7% annually, filings would reach approximately 665,236 in 2027 and 711,803 in 2028. The data therefore support continued growth after 2025, while the fall from 13,510 filings in week 36 to 9,284 in week 37 shows that the longer-term increase will still include substantial week-to-week volatility.