Bankruptcy Filings Continue to Dip Substantially

Epiq Systems has sent their latest bankruptcy filing statistics, and the numbers continue to show a dramatic drop in the bankruptcy filing rate. There were just over 110,000 bankruptcy filings in September which translates to 5,239 bankruptcies per day. Although that rate is about the same as it was in August, it is a 17.9% year-over-year drop from 2010.

Last year, there were 1.56 million bankruptcy filings. This year, we are on a pace to be just above or below 1.40 million bankruptcy filings. Specifically, there will be

• 1,417,000 filings if bankruptcy filings continue for the rest of the year at the same daily rate (5,644 per day) as they have averaged for the first nine months of 2011
• 1,392,000 filings if bankruptcy filings continue for the same daily rate (5,293 per day) as they have averaged for September 2011
• 1,416,000 filings if bankruptcy filings for the remaining three months of 2011 constitute the same proportion of total filings as the average for the last three months of 2009 and 2010 constituted for total filings those years (about 24.3%)