{"id":460525,"date":"2026-02-10T17:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T17:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/460525\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T17:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T17:24:12","slug":"canadians-increasingly-layering-loans-as-debt-loads-soar-report-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/460525\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadians increasingly layering loans as debt loads soar, report finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Shoppers pass through Toronto’s Eaton Centre on Boxing Day, 2025. Even with a bigger debt burden, more Canadians delayed filing for insolvency in 2025, new study shows.Sammy Kogan\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Canadians are borrowing money across more accounts and at later stages of financial stress as debt balances hit record highs, a new bankruptcy study has found.<\/p>\n

The average insolvent debtor owed $67,496 in unsecured debt, including credit card loans and payday loans, in 2025, Monday\u2019s report from Ontario bankruptcy trustee firm Hoyes, Michalos & Associates Inc. found. It\u2019s the highest average level the firm has recorded since it began tracking that debt 15 years ago. <\/p>\n

The study, which reviewed the details of 3,870 personal insolvencies in Ontario from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, found that even with a bigger debt burden, more Canadians delayed filing for insolvency by layering their loans. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re kicking the can down the road,\u201d said Doug Hoyes, a licensed insolvency trustee and co-founder of Hoyes, Michalos & Associates. \u201cCanadians are borrowing more, they\u2019ve got more accounts and larger balances \u2013 it\u2019s just more and more and more.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The average number of creditors for each debtor now sits at 10.5 \u2013 levels unseen since 2013 \u2013 while their average number of credit cards in rotation increased 13 per cent from the year before to 3.5.<\/p>\n

The data contrasts recent findings that show consumer insolvencies have largely flatlined in recent months, suggesting that the headline figures miss a harsher reality in which Canadian households are stretched thin. <\/p>\n

Data from the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, for instance, showed that consumer insolvencies dipped 3.8 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to the third quarter, and were slightly above the fourth quarter of 2024 by 3.3 per cent.<\/p>\n

In recent months, Statistics Canada data has shown that while overall inflation has hovered around 2.2 per cent, grocery prices climbed by multiyear highs of 4.7 per cent or more. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

While the country\u2019s unemployment rate fell to 6.5 per cent in January, the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada\u2019s chief economist warned that the numbers reflect a shrinking labour force, a decline driven by slower population growth.<\/p>\n

As Canadians weather employment and food expense challenges, overall debt loads have grown about 11 per cent from the year prior, Monday\u2019s report found, and nearly 37 per cent over the past three years.<\/p>\n

The profile of people reaching insolvency is also shifting. A bigger share of insolvencies now involve homeowners and two-income households, while the average monthly income of insolvent individuals rose by 6.1 per cent to $3,434 in 2025.<\/p>\n

Canadians\u2019 outlook on debt improved in December, report finds \u2013 but signs of trouble persist<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYou would think that\u2019s great, their income went up,\u201d said Mr. Hoyes. \u201cBut I\u2019m dealing with people who are making more money but can\u2019t make a go of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Canadian singles still bear most of the burden when it comes to debt \u2013 accounting for 44 per cent of insolvency filings \u2013 the share of married or common-law filers is also rising.<\/p>\n

The report found that the proportion of two-income households reaching insolvency rose to 23 per cent, the highest level since 2017. This also lines up with rising homeowner insolvencies, which now make up eight per cent of filings compared to five per cent in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cOwning a home used to give you a certain amount of protection,\u201d said Mr. Hoyes. \u201cIt\u2019s now the opposite \u2013 mortgage renews at a higher interest rate, now I\u2018ve got to pay more each month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nearly one in four homeowner insolvencies last year involved negative equity, the report found, and hundreds of thousands of mortgage renewals at higher rates are still set to work their way through the system. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat all this is telling us is the fact that insolvencies were low in 2025, doesn\u2019t mean Canadians are doing better,\u201d said Mr. Hoyes. \u201cThey\u2019re borrowing more to pay the piper.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Shoppers pass through Toronto’s Eaton Centre on Boxing Day, 2025. Even with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101,82240],"class_list":["post-460525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-pf-ca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460525","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=460525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}