# Personal insolvency: bankruptcies, debt relief orders and IVAs

126,281 people in England and Wales entered a formal insolvency procedure in 2025, a rate of 25.3 per 10,000 adults, or one in 395. This page shows how the total has moved since 2000, how the mix of bankruptcies, debt relief orders and individual voluntary arrangements has changed, and where in the country insolvency rates are highest and lowest.

Source page: https://britishresilienceindex.com/deep-dive/personal-insolvency
Machine readable data: https://britishresilienceindex.com/data/deep-dive/personal-insolvency.json

## How to read this

A personal insolvency is a formal legal procedure: bankruptcy, a debt relief order (DRO) or an individual voluntary arrangement (IVA). It is not a measure of all financial difficulty, since most people struggling with debt never enter one of these procedures. Rates are per 10,000 adults aged 18 and over, using ONS mid-year population estimates, so areas of different sizes can be compared directly.

## 126,281 people, one in 395 adults

126,281 individuals in England and Wales entered a formal insolvency procedure in 2025, the Insolvency Service's own figure for the year. That is a rate of 25.3 per 10,000 adults, meaning one in 395 adults, up from one in 415 (24.1 per 10,000) in 2024. Rates vary sharply by area: from 9.4 per 10,000 in Richmond upon Thames to 63.0 per 10,000 in Halton.

- **Total2025**: 126,281
- **Rate2025**: 25.3
- **Rate2024**: 24.1
- **One in2025**: 395
- **One in2024**: 415

## Bankruptcy has become the minority route

In 2000, bankruptcy was 73.1 per cent of all individual insolvencies. Debt relief orders, a cheaper route for people with few assets, were introduced in 2009 and individual voluntary arrangements have grown steadily since the mid 2000s. By 2025, bankruptcy was just 5.9 per cent of the total, with debt relief orders at 37.2 per cent and IVAs at 56.9 per cent. The shift reflects both policy changes that made bankruptcy harder to access and cheaper alternatives becoming available, not necessarily fewer people in difficulty.

**Series**

| year | bankruptcyPct | droPct | ivaPct |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2,000 | 73.1 | 0 | 26.9 |
| 2,001 | 79 | 0 | 21 |
| 2,002 | 79.4 | 0 | 20.6 |
| 2,003 | 78.7 | 0 | 21.3 |
| 2,004 | 77 | 0 | 23 |
| 2,005 | 70.2 | 0 | 29.8 |
| 2,006 | 59 | 0 | 41 |
| 2,007 | 60.7 | 0 | 39.3 |
| 2,008 | 63.6 | 0 | 36.4 |
| 2,009 | 55.8 | 8.8 | 35.4 |
| 2,010 | 43.8 | 18.7 | 37.5 |
| 2,011 | 35 | 24.2 | 40.8 |
| 2,012 | 29 | 28.5 | 42.5 |
| 2,013 | 24.3 | 27.4 | 48.3 |
| 2,014 | 20.7 | 27.2 | 52.1 |
| 2,015 | 19.8 | 30.2 | 50 |
| 2,016 | 16.6 | 28.9 | 54.4 |
| 2,017 | 15.2 | 25.1 | 59.6 |
| 2,018 | 14.5 | 24.1 | 61.5 |
| 2,019 | 13.7 | 22.5 | 63.8 |
| 2,020 | 11.3 | 18.4 | 70.3 |
| 2,021 | 7.9 | 18.3 | 73.8 |
| 2,022 | 5.6 | 20.4 | 74 |
| 2,023 | 7.4 | 30.7 | 61.9 |
| 2,024 | 6.5 | 36.7 | 56.9 |
| 2,025 | 5.9 | 37.2 | 56.9 |

- **Bankruptcy pct2025**: 5.9
- **Dro pct2025**: 37.2
- **Iva pct2025**: 56.9
- **Bankruptcy pct2000**: 73.1
- **First dro year**: 2,009

## From 29,511 to 126,281 a year

Individual insolvencies in England and Wales have more than trebled since records began in 2000. Numbers surged through the financial crisis, fell back through most of the 2010s as bankruptcy rules tightened, then climbed again from 2016 as debt relief orders and IVAs grew. 2025 is the highest total in the series.

**Series**

| year | total |
|---|---|
| 2,000 | 29,511 |
| 2,001 | 29,821 |
| 2,002 | 30,518 |
| 2,003 | 35,619 |
| 2,004 | 46,568 |
| 2,005 | 67,589 |
| 2,006 | 107,107 |
| 2,007 | 106,537 |
| 2,008 | 106,551 |
| 2,009 | 134,407 |
| 2,010 | 134,969 |
| 2,011 | 119,913 |
| 2,012 | 109,497 |
| 2,013 | 100,990 |
| 2,014 | 98,144 |
| 2,015 | 80,031 |
| 2,016 | 90,502 |
| 2,017 | 99,108 |
| 2,018 | 114,997 |
| 2,019 | 122,141 |
| 2,020 | 111,563 |
| 2,021 | 110,041 |
| 2,022 | 118,749 |
| 2,023 | 103,432 |
| 2,024 | 117,958 |
| 2,025 | 126,281 |

- **Start year**: 2,000
- **Start total**: 29,511
- **End year**: 2,025
- **End total**: 126,281
**Markers**

| year | total |
|---|---|
| 2,000 | 29,511 |
| 2,008 | 106,551 |
| 2,015 | 80,031 |
| 2,020 | 111,563 |
| 2,025 | 126,281 |

## A gap of more than 7 times between local authorities

The individual insolvency rate is highest in Halton at 63.0 per 10,000 adults and lowest in Richmond upon Thames at 9.4 per 10,000, a gap of more than 7 times. The highest rates are concentrated in the North of England and other post-industrial areas; the lowest are mostly London boroughs, along with a handful of wealthier southern and university districts.

**Highest**

| name | rate |
|---|---|
| Halton | 63 |
| Kingston upon Hull, City of | 55.3 |
| Blackpool | 50.8 |
| Hartlepool | 44.9 |
| Nuneaton and Bedworth | 44.4 |
| North Tyneside | 44.2 |
| Gosport | 44.1 |
| Calderdale | 43.7 |

**Lowest**

| name | rate |
|---|---|
| Richmond upon Thames | 9.4 |
| Camden | 10.2 |
| Westminster | 10.5 |
| Wandsworth | 10.6 |
| Harrow | 10.8 |
| Kensington and Chelsea | 11.5 |
| Cambridge | 12.2 |
| Kingston upon Thames | 12.6 |

## For personal insolvency

- The insolvency rate rose in every region of England and Wales in 2025 and is now above its five year average everywhere. Is this a one year blip or the start of a longer climb?
- Bankruptcy has fallen from most of the insolvency total in 2000 to under 6 per cent in 2025, replaced mostly by debt relief orders and IVAs. Are people better served by these cheaper routes, or are they simply the only ones left open to them?
- The insolvency rate in Halton is roughly 7 times the rate in Richmond upon Thames. How much of that gap is explained by income, and how much by which procedures people can access or afford?
- Formal insolvency is only the visible tip of household debt problems. How many more people are in serious financial difficulty without ever entering a procedure the statistics can count?

## Sources

- Individual insolvencies by Location, Age and Gender, England and Wales, 2025 (Insolvency Service) (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/individual-insolvencies-by-location-age-and-gender-england-and-wales-2025) · Open Government Licence v3.0
- Individual insolvencies, June 2026: long run series (Insolvency Service) (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/individual-insolvencies-june-2026) · Open Government Licence v3.0
- Individual insolvency statistics: collection (Insolvency Service) (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/individual-insolvency-statistics-releases) · Open Government Licence v3.0

## Caveats and data notes

- An insolvency is a formal legal procedure: bankruptcy, a debt relief order or an individual voluntary arrangement. Many more people are in serious financial difficulty without entering one of these; informal debt problems are not counted here.
- Breathing space, a separate scheme giving people legal protection from creditor action while they get debt advice, is not an insolvency procedure and is not included in these figures.
- Rates are per 10,000 adults aged 18 and over, using ONS mid-year population estimates. The Insolvency Service notes that rates for the latest year use the previous year's population estimate, as the matching mid-year estimate is not yet available. Because of this, the location data tables' own computed national rate for 2025 (25.8 per 10,000 in the underlying spreadsheet) differs slightly from the rate quoted in the release's own narrative bulletin text, 25.3 per 10,000, which is used as the headline figure throughout this page.
- The trend series before 2015 is built from the Insolvency Service's monthly long run series, not seasonally adjusted, summed to calendar years; the 2015-2025 figures use the location release's own final, revised annual totals, which differ from the monthly series by a handful of cases due to routine revisions.
- City of London is included in Westminster and the Isles of Scilly in Cornwall in the location tables, as too small to report separately.
- Figures cover England and Wales; Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate insolvency regimes not covered by the Insolvency Service series.

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British Resilience Index, a non-partisan UK civic data project. Every figure is
reconciled to its primary official publisher before it is shown. Free to cite with
attribution: https://britishresilienceindex.com