UK insolvency tracker
Monthly individual insolvency figures for England and Wales — IVAs, Debt Relief Orders and bankruptcies — taken from each named Insolvency Service release, with the series available as CSV.
August 2026: what moved
The August release (published 18 September) put total individual insolvencies at 11,644 — 2% lower than July, 3% higher than August 2025. IVAs eased to 7,039 (4% down on July, but 8% up on the year and still above the 12-month average); DROs held at 3,880, similar to July and below their 12-month average; and the quiet mover was bankruptcy: 725, higher than both July 2026 and August 2025 — worth watching against the year’s DRO-led pattern. Breathing Space registrations fell to 5,012, 32% lower than a year earlier; the Insolvency Service notes numbers have run lower since December 2025, after the largest money-advice provider tightened its suitability criteria for Breathing Space applications. Across the 12 months to 31 August, one in 360 adults in England and Wales entered insolvency.
You never have to pay for debt advice. MoneyHelper (government-backed), StepChange, National Debtline and Citizens Advice all give free, confidential advice with no obligation. We would rather you got good advice somewhere than bad advice from anyone.
The series
Only months verified against a named Insolvency Service release are plotted. Gaps are months we have not yet entered — we would rather show a gap than draw a line through a number nobody published.
| Month | Total | IVAs | DROs | Bankruptcies | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 2026 | 11,644 | 7,039 | 3,880 | 725 | -2% m/m · +3% y/y |
| July 2026 | 11,873 | 7,354 | 3,826 | 693 | +0% m/m · +14% y/y |
| June 2026 | 11,862 | 7,309 | 3,855 | 698 | +5% m/m · +15% y/y |
| May 2026 | 11,331 | 6,514 | 4,134 | 683 | +3% m/m · +10% y/y |
| April 2026 | 11,029 | 6,268 | 3,999 | 762 | -9% m/m · +8% y/y |
| March 2026 | 12,125 | 7,024 | 4,402 | 699 | +3% m/m · +30% y/y |
| February 2026 | 11,756 | 6,691 | 4,243 | 822 | +7% m/m · +18% y/y |
| January 2026 | 10,984 | 6,288 | 3,854 | 842 | -17% m/m · +13% y/y |
| December 2025 | 13,308 | 8,487 | 4,192 | 629 | +39% m/m · +35% y/y |
| November 2025 | 9,572 | 5,206 | 3,861 | 505 | -11% m/m · -5% y/y |
| October 2025 | 10,757 | 6,242 | 3,859 | 656 | -2% m/m · +15% y/y |
| September 2025 | 11,022 | 6,413 | 3,948 | 661 | -3% m/m · +6% y/y |
| August 2025 | 11,324 | 6,545 | 4,145 | 634 | +8% m/m · +17% y/y |
Every figure above is the Insolvency Service’s current published value from the August 2026 release (seasonally adjusted, England and Wales). The Insolvency Service revises earlier months in each release; this table always shows the latest vintage (2026-08), so figures here can differ from those quoted at first publication.
Download the series (CSV) Official release & long-run series
What the numbers actually show
The direction of 2026 is unmistakable even after August’s small step down: totals have run 11,000–12,000 a month all year against 9,000–10,500 through most of 2024–25, DROs have held near record levels since the fee was abolished and the limit rose in 2024, and IVAs remain above their 12-month average. August’s quiet detail is bankruptcy at 725 — higher than both July and a year earlier.
The composition matters more than the total. DROs hit 4,523 in March 2026, a record in the series since they were introduced in 2009, against a long-term monthly average of 2,114 across 2014-2023. That is not a sudden collapse in household finances — it follows the abolition of the £90 DRO application fee and the widening of the eligibility criteria. Remove a cost barrier from the cheapest formal route and more people use it.
Bankruptcies tell the opposite story: still running at roughly half pre-2020 levels. The 695 in June 2026 is a fraction of the total, which is worth remembering when bankruptcy is presented as the thing to fear most.
How common is this, really
In the 12 months to 31 march 2026, 1 in 379 adults in England and Wales entered insolvency — 26.4 adults per 10,000 entered insolvency. In the 12 months to 31 october 2024 it was 1 in 427 (23.4 adults per 10,000).
That is the figure worth carrying if you are in this position. Formal insolvency is not rare and it is not a moral event. It is a legal process that hundreds of thousands of people use, and the rate is rising because costs rose and one route got cheaper — not because people got worse.
Why the IVA line jumps around
IVA figures are registration dates, not agreement dates. A backlog cleared in one month lands in that month's number even though the arrangements were agreed earlier — which is what happened in December 2025 and why that month is excluded from "highest since" comparisons in the commentary. Read the IVA series as a trend over several months rather than reacting to any single one.
Bankruptcy numbers between November 2025 and February 2026 were also affected by the Insolvency Service moving to a new case management system, so those months are not clean comparisons.
Methodology and reuse
Source. Insolvency Service monthly individual insolvency statistics for England and Wales. Individual insolvencies, England and Wales, seasonally adjusted.
What we do. We take the seasonally adjusted totals from the commentary of each named release, record the release URL alongside every figure, and publish the series as CSV. We do not interpolate, smooth or estimate. Months we have not yet entered appear as gaps.
Percentage changes are those stated by the Insolvency Service, not recalculated by us, because seasonal adjustment means a naive month-on-month division gives a different answer from the official one.
Next release: 18 September 2026 (August 2026 figures).
Using this. The figures are Crown copyright, published under the Open Government Licence, and you should cite the Insolvency Service as the source — our data & press page covers reuse, citation and our revision policy. If our compilation, chart or commentary is useful, attribution as "My Debt Cleared analysis of Insolvency Service data" is welcome but not required. If you are a journalist and want a figure we have not published, ask — we will point you at the primary table rather than guess.
Not sure which of these applies to you?
Answer eight questions about your circumstances and see which routes are worth understanding, before you speak to anyone.
Related guides
We are a marketing introducer. We publish information and, if you ask us to, we pass your details to an FCA-authorised debt advice firm we work with so they can contact you. We do not give debt advice, we do not provide debt solutions, and we do not decide whether any solution is right for you. We are paid by the firms we introduce people to, never by you. Read exactly how we make money.