U.S. Bankruptcy filing data, as reported on uscourts.gov, show Q3 and Q4 filing rates to typically decline over posted numbers for the first half of the year and from the previous year as well. 2015, based on recent filing data, may finally follow a different trend.

Based on past years’ filing data, LeadQ anticipates U.S. bankruptcy filing rates to fall just slightly in Q3 2015, when final reporting data is released in October. October filings typically increase slightly during Q4, and thus we expect total U.S. filings to total just over 71,000 for the month this Fall. We believe it is likely that total monthly filings will end the year at approximately 62,000, not far below 2014’s filing rate of 65,161 total cases in December.

Outlook for 2016?

Currently, 2016 looks to be a fairly similar to 2015, with approximately 67,000 cases projected to be filed across the U.S. in January – unless economic conditions change. This marks a significant change from past years in which filing rates declined by double digit percentages.