Federal Judicial Center

The bankruptcy datasets in the IDB include all petitions filed under the Bankruptcy Code on or after October 1, 2007 and any petitions filed before October 1, 2007 still pending on that date. Each dataset corresponds to a “fiscal year snapshot” that includes one extract record for each unique case that was filed or terminated during that fiscal year, or was pending at the end of it. Each record in each fiscal year snapshot dataset contains both the filing and, if applicable, closing data for one unique case.

For records filed during the period and pending at the end of the period, the record contains the filing data but the closing data are blank.

For records filed prior to the current period and pending at the end of the period, the record contains the filing data but the closing data are blank.

For records filed during the period and closed during the period, the record contains both the filing data and the closing data.

For records filed prior to the current period and closed during the period, the record contains both the filing and the closing data.

Note: The FJC temporarily took down the bankruptcy integrated database in August 2021 after the Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AOUSC) made the FJC aware of data anomalies in the records submitted to the FJC that comprise the bankruptcy IDB. The following debtor fields were impacted in each of the datasets from FY 2008 through June 30, 2021, as well as the cumulative multi-year file and interactive view: debtor zip code (D1ZIP, D2ZIP); debtor county code (D1CNTY, D2CNTY); debtor pro se status (ORGD1FPRSE, D1FPRSE, D1CPRSE, ORGD2FPRSE, D2FPRSE); and debtor pro se date change (D1CHGDT, D2CHGDT). Revisions to the data also impacted the fields case key (CASEKEY) and original filing chapter (ORGFLCHP) in the FY 2019 and 2020 datasets and the June 30, 2021 dataset. The corrected files were posted in November 2021. Any bankruptcy data accessed prior to September 2021 should be redownloaded to account for the changes made. For more details, please see the bankruptcy codebook(link is external).

UPDATE 2/28/2023: The Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 (the “SBRA”) enacted a new subchapter V of Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code effective February 19, 2020. Three new variables were added to the bankruptcy integrated database beginning with the Fiscal Year 2023/December 31, 2022 datasets to identify Chapter 11 subchapter V small business debtor reorganization cases: original filing subchapter V (ORGFLSUBCHP), current subchapter V (CRNTFLSUBCHP), and closing subchapter V (CLSUBCHPT). These fields have also been added to the cumulative datasets. Please see the bankruptcy codebook(link is external) for additional information.