{"id":454230,"date":"2026-02-07T09:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T09:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/454230\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T09:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T09:37:08","slug":"bankruptcy-filings-rise-amid-slowing-economy-recession-signals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/454230\/","title":{"rendered":"Bankruptcy filings rise amid slowing economy, recession signals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bankruptcy filings hit a three-year high in 2025 \u2014 and 1 of every 15 of those was in a Texas bankruptcy<\/a> court.\u00a0Across the state, more than 38,000 individuals and businesses filed for protection from creditors in 2025, up more than 20% from 31,520 a year earlier.<\/p>\n

With Texas and the nation facing rising economic pressures tied to nagging inflation, the impact of tariffs and higher lending rates, bankruptcy filings across the U.S. jumped 11% last year to 574,315 from 517,308 in 2024, according to new data from the Federal Courts of the United States<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The pace of increase in Texas\u00a0\u2014 and in Travis and\u00a0Bexar counties\u00a0\u2014 was roughly twice that. In Travis County, 905 people and businesses filed<\/a> bankruptcy\u00a0last year, up 24% from 728 cases in 2024. In\u00a0Bexar County,\u00a0courts saw 2,300 filings last year, up about 18% from 1,948 in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The annual increase was expected, as the rate of filings was seen rising in quarterly data releases through the year. But it comes after bankruptcy filings had fallen from a 2010 high of 1.6 million to a June 2022 low of 380,634. The rise has mainly corresponded with the aggressive increase in interest rates, which is pushing up the cost of borrowing and eating up\u00a0cash flow of businesses and people with floating rates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Though it was a three-year high, the 2025 total is still far below historical highs, according to courts data.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Through 2025, nearly 25,000 businesses filed for some form of bankruptcy protection, a 7.1% increase from the year before. The largest category of filing was for the fully liquidating Chapter 7, with 14,259. That was followed by Chapter 11, in which debtors continue operating while trying to reduce debt and exit bankruptcy with a plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Texas courts represented 16% of all U.S. business bankruptcy filings. The state has struggled with a slowing economy as ramped-up immigration enforcement affected labor pools earlier in the year and continued uncertainty around President Donald Trump\u2019s tariffs have delayed corporate investment. A company doesn\u2019t have to be headquartered in Texas to file for bankruptcy in the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Though recent reports from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas showed an increase in manufacturing, that didn\u2019t translate to more hiring. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cForty-four percent of surveyed firms are currently trying to hire, down from 51 percent in July 2025 and representing the lowest share since this question was first posed in 2019,\u201d the Dallas Fed said in its January report.<\/p>\n

Businesses also have been hit with reduced spending from consumers who are increasingly worried about the state of the economy. The Consumer Confidence Index fell by 9.7% last month, according to The Confidence Board, which conducts the surveys.<\/p>\n

\u201cConfidence collapsed in January, as consumer concerns about both the present situation and expectations for the future deepened,\u201d said Dana M Peterson, the board\u2019s chief economist.<\/p>\n

Several other metrics also are signaling the economy could slip into recession later this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bankruptcy filings hit a three-year high in 2025 \u2014 and 1 of every 15 of those was in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101,117974],"class_list":["post-454230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-saen_share"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}