According to Epiq, there were 27,957 bankruptcy filings across all chapters in December, down 4.7% from November, which had 29,328 new filings. There were 1,650 total commercial filings across all chapters, up 4.8% compared with November, which had 1,575 new filings.
In addition, Epiq reported there were 401,398 total new filings across all chapters for all of 2021, down 24.2% compared with 2020, which had a total of 529,222 filings.
There were 309 new Chapter 11 Chapter 11 commercial filings, including Subchapter V filings, in December, a sharp increase of 56.1% compared with November, which had 198 Chapter 11 filings. Of these, 70 were Subchapter V filings, which was down from 76 in November. The full year 2021 had 3,596 new Chapter 11 filings, including Subchapter V filings, down 46.6% compared with 2020, which had 6,726 Chapter 11 filings.
There were 16,214 new Chapter 7 individual bankruptcy filings in December, down 6.8% compared with November, which had 17,395 new filings. For the full year, there were 265,948 new Chapter 7 individual bankruptcy filings, down 24.7% compared with 2020, which had 352,978 new filings. In 2021, the top five states with new Chapter 7 filings were California (30,917), Florida (21,329), Ohio (15,956), Illinois (13,868) and Michigan (12,337).
There were 10,024 new Chapter 13 individual bankruptcy filings in December, down 2.7% compared with November, which had 10,306. This is the second month where new Chapter 13 filings declined after six months of incremental month-over-month increases. For the full year, there were 112,197 Chapter 13 filings, down 21.4% compared with 2020, which had a total of 142,659 new filings. In 2021, the Southeast region continued to lead new Chapter 13 filings, with Georgia (10,556), Alabama (8,725), Florida (7,948) and Tennessee (7,372) leading the way as the states with the largest filing activity.
“December individual bankruptcy filing activity continued to trend down as has been the pattern since the COVID-19 global pandemic manifested in the U.S. in March 2020. Commercial filings spiked up sharply month over month, but levels continue to be way off pre-COVID-19 levels,” Chris Kruse, senior vice president of Epiq Bankruptcy Technology, said.
