Personal and business bankruptcy filings rose 16.2 percent in the 12-month period ending Sept. 30, compared with the previous year, according to the latest quarterly report released by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
The office reported annual bankruptcy filings totaled 504,112 for the 12-month period ending with September 2024, compared with 433,658 cases for the same period ending with September 2023.
Business filings rose 33.5 percent, from 17,051 to 22,762, over the same period last year. Meanwhile, non-business bankruptcy filings rose 15.5 percent to 481,350, compared with 416,607 in the previous year.
In Massachusetts, a total of 4,534 bankruptcy cases were filed in the year ending with Sept. 30, a 22.7 percent increase from 3,695 total filings in the commonwealth over the same reporting period ending with Sept. 30, 2023.
Meanwhile, Rhode Island saw an 8.5 percent increase in filings from 2023 to 2024 (904 total filings for the year ending Sept. 30, compared with 833 in the 12-month period ending Sept. 30, 2023).
In Massachusetts, for the most recent reporting period there were 2,806 Chapter 7 filings, with 94 cases being filed under Chapter 11 and 1,632 cases being filed under Chapter 13.
Of the 904 bankruptcy cases filed in Rhode Island for the reporting period, 636 were filed under Chapter 7, while 7 cases were filed under Chapter 11. There were 261 Chapter 13 cases filed in Rhode Island during the same period.