Top 10 US States by Bankruptcy Filing Rate
PlainBankruptcy ranks US states by total bankruptcy filings per state population, using Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts data joined to Census state population estimates. Updated automatically as new data is processed.
This ranking is descriptive of where filings occur relative to population; it is not a measure of financial distress, economic decline, or quality of life (state exemption laws and legal culture shape the rate too). See "What this analysis cannot tell us" below.
Research period:
Research question
Across the 51 US states and territories tracked in PlainBankruptcy, which states show the highest rate of bankruptcy filings relative to their resident population, and what does the geographic distribution suggest about regional economic stress factors?
Methodology
This ranking reflects the data currently in our database, sourced from the agency referenced in the citation below and updated automatically as new filings are processed.
Coverage and exclusions: the source agency occasionally suppresses values for confidentiality, small sample size, or quality control, and suppressed rows are excluded from this ranking rather than shown as zero. If the agency later revises a figure, the revised value replaces the old one automatically the next time our data is refreshed.
Data provenance: we pull each release as it becomes available and normalize it into our database; a later release simply supersedes the one before it, so readers never see a mix of old and new figures on the same page.
Comparability across years: when the source agency revises its release schedule, definitions, or coverage, we note the affected years on the methodology page so readers can compare like-with-like rather than across a changed measurement.
Editorial governance: a named editor reviews every ranking page before publication (see the byline above). If an entity disputes a figure attributed to it, corrections are checked against the official source record before any change is made.
Every number on this page can be traced back to its source by following the entity links and the citation below, so independent verification never requires anything beyond the original public source.
See the methodology page for the complete ETL pipeline, source vintage, and column lineage.
Top 10 US States by Bankruptcy Filing Rate
Live data: reflects the current dataset
The ranked top 10
Every row below reflects the current 10-record dataset. Reload the page after new data is processed to see the latest values.
| # | Rank | State | Filings per 1,000 residents |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Alabama | 329.7 |
| 2 | 2 | Georgia | 315.7 |
| 3 | 3 | Nevada | 308.1 |
| 4 | 4 | Tennessee | 306.5 |
| 5 | 5 | Mississippi | 283.1 |
| 6 | 6 | Louisiana | 249.7 |
| 7 | 7 | Oklahoma | 232.4 |
| 8 | 8 | Utah | 217.1 |
| 9 | 9 | Arizona | 199.5 |
| 10 | 10 | Hawaii | 198 |
Source: Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Bankruptcy Filings by State (Table F-2). Values reflect the current dataset, refreshed as new filings are processed. Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Bankruptcy Filings by State (Table F-2). Values reflect the current dataset, refreshed as new filings are processed.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The top-ranked record in this dataset is Alabama, with a value of 329.7 on the Filings per 1,000 residents column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes directly from the current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record (329.7) and the 10th-ranked record (198) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.
Source provenance
The records in this ranking originate from Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, specifically the Bankruptcy Filings by State (Table F-2). PlainBankruptcy ingests the source vintage published by the agency and keeps this page current, there is no static export carrying stale numbers, and a newly published dataset is reflected here within hours. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and the steps applied to prepare the data.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.
What this analysis cannot tell us
Filing rates normalize total bankruptcy filings against state resident population from US Census Bureau estimates. The rate is per 1,000 residents and does not adjust for the share of the population eligible to file (adults over 18, businesses operating in-state). State assignment is based on the U.S. Bankruptcy Court district in which the case was filed; debtors with operations in multiple states are typically assigned to the district of their principal place of business or residence. States with high concentrations of small business activity, high consumer debt burdens, or specific regional economic stress factors (recent natural disasters, industry downturns) often show elevated filing rates. State-level rate variation reflects a mix of economic conditions, legal-services accessibility, state non-bankruptcy debtor protections (state exemption laws can make bankruptcy more or less attractive), and demographic composition. This ranking is descriptive of where filings occur; it is not a measure of financial distress, economic decline, or quality of life.
Secondary cut from the same source
Bottom 10 states by bankruptcy filing rate per 1,000 residents
Sources
- Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Bankruptcy Filings by State - https://www.uscourts.gov/statistics/table/f-2/bankruptcy-filings/
- US Census Bureau, State Population Estimates - https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest.html
Every figure on PlainBankruptcy is rendered directly from federal court source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page draws directly on federal court source data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.