Bankruptcies are exploding across the economy, hitting small businesses and households. Few industries are immune.

• From corporate giants to mom-and-pop shops, bankruptcies are piling up across the US this year.

• Large corporate bankruptcies have hit their highest level in 15 years.

• “Bankruptcies seem to be kind of all over the place,” one veteran bankruptcy attorney said.

Bankruptcies aren’t just rising — they’re suddenly everywhere.

From billion-dollar giants to mom-and-pop shops to everyday individuals, bankruptcies are piling up across the US this year, with large corporate bankruptcies already hitting their highest level in 15 years.

The surge in bankruptcies highlights the growing financial pressures facing consumers and companies as costs climb amid a tougher borrowing environment.

“Rising costs, tighter credit conditions, and ongoing geopolitical volatility continue to exert pressure on households and businesses already facing financial strain,” Amy Quackenboss, the executive director at the American Bankruptcy Institute, said earlier this month.

Unlike past downturns, this wave of bankruptcies appears to be hitting nearly every corner of the economy. It’s sweeping across a range of sectors in what one veteran bankruptcy attorney described as a strikingly “unusual” pattern.

Typically, corporate failures tend to be “industry sticky,” meaning they cluster within the same sectors, Robert Stark, a partner at the law firm Brown Rudnick and chair of its bankruptcy and corporate restructuring practice group, recently told Business Insider.

In 2022, for example, he said there was the “big crypto winter” culminating in a string of cryptocurrency firm bankruptcies, including Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX.

“That was a sticky event — a lot in the industry kind of went through bankruptcy at the same time,” Stark said. “What we have now, which is the thing that I find kind of interesting, is I don’t see as much stickiness as I’m used to seeing.”

“Bankruptcies seem to be kind of all over the place,” added Stark, who represents creditor groups in the 2025 bankruptcies of auto parts company First Brands and fintech startup Linqto, as well as the equity committee in the Chapter 11 case of genetic testing company 23andMe.

Stark said that he can’t pinpoint a clear cause for the “broad smattering of industries” now in bankruptcy, but he called it “unusual” in his 30 years of experience and “shockingly so.”

Major corporate bankruptcies this year have included hospitality company Sonder, Spirit Airlines, Del Monte Foods, retailer Claire’s, and CVS Health subsidiary Omnicare. Each, in court filings, listed more than $1 billion in liabilities, placing them among the largest bankruptcies of 2025.