[OC] Chapter 13 bankruptcy has a 48% national dismissal rate. In some districts, over 90% of cases fail, and most aren’t because clients missed payments.
Posted by ilikemath9999
![[OC] Chapter 13 bankruptcy has a 48% national dismissal rate. In some districts, over 90% of cases fail, and most aren't because clients missed payments.](https://www.byteseu.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/0ws08vj97apg1-1024x597.png "[OC] Chapter 13 bankruptcy has a 48% national dismissal rate. In some districts, over 90% of cases fail, and most aren’t because clients missed payments.")
[OC] Chapter 13 bankruptcy has a 48% national dismissal rate. In some districts, over 90% of cases fail, and most aren’t because clients missed payments.
Posted by ilikemath9999
4 Comments
Source: BAPCPA Report 2023, published by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (uscourts.gov). Tables 3 and 6. This is the federal judiciary’s own data on every Chapter 13 case closed during calendar year 2023.
Tools: Python, plotly (map), matplotlib (scatter).
What you’re looking at:
Image 1 is a map of Ch. 13 dismissal rates by state. 198,348 cases closed in 2023. National dismissal rate was 47.9%. New York is the worst at 70.6%, driven almost entirely by the Eastern District (91% dismissal rate, 3,226 out of 3,546 cases).
Image 2 is a scatter plot of every federal district. X axis is how long cases take (median time from filing to disposition). Y axis is dismissal rate. Color shows what percentage of dismissals were caused by the client missing payments (green) vs. everything else (red). Bubble size is case volume.
The pattern: districts in the upper left have high dismissal rates AND fast case deaths, and they’re red. That means almost none of those dismissals are for missed payments. Cases are dying in months from deficient petitions, missed deadlines, incomplete schedules. That’s attorney work product, not client failure.
NY Eastern: 91% dismissed, median case lasts 0.3 years. Only 18% of dismissals were payment failure.
TX Southern: 55% dismissed, median 3.4 years, but only 2% payment failure. 98% procedural.
GA Northern: 64% dismissed, median 1.5 years, 63% payment failure. Mix of both.
Compare to the green dots in the lower right: low dismissal, long case life, and when cases DO fail it’s because clients lost income. That’s the system working as intended, just sad.
Chapter 13 plans run 3 to 5 years. Filing costs money. When a case gets dismissed for procedural reasons in under a year, somebody dropped the ball and the client loses everything they paid in.
The data is free: [uscourts.gov](http://uscourts.gov), BAPCPA statistical reports.
What does a bankruptcy being dismissed mean? Why would some states vary in their rates more than others?
You might want to crosspost to r/bankruptcy – it could probably foster some good discussion and there are quite a few experts there who could explain (or at least speculate) why the dismissal rates are what they are where they are.
I’d also be interested in hearing them talk about what happens when an attorney drops the ball… because it seems to happen more than I would have suspected.
Are you accounting for cases that convert to Chapter 7?