Debt collection lawsuit statistics: every number, source-verified

How many debt collection lawsuits are filed each year in the U.S.?

There is no official national count — no federal agency tallies state civil filings by case type. The number everyone quotes, “about 4 million,” comes from the Pew Charitable Trusts’ 2020 report: “From 1993 to 2013, the number of debt cases rose from fewer than 1.7 million to about 4 million,” growing from an estimated 1 in 9 civil cases (11.6%) to about 1 in 4 (23.6% of 16.9 million civil cases). Be careful citing it: that estimate is for 2013 — it is over a decade old and describes a docket that has kept changing.

The most recent national estimate we could verify: Pew’s September 2025 analysis puts filings at up to 4.7 million cases in 2022 (“according to Pew calculations”), and reports a sharp post-pandemic surge — by 2024, filings in Connecticut, North Dakota, and Texas reached 123% of their 2019 levels (Minnesota 100%, Wisconsin 87%, Indiana 83%, Virginia 76%). The National Center for State Courts separately found contract-case filings (which include debt suits) rose 21% in 2022 and 15% in 2023. In states with data, about half of all debt collection cases seek less than $2,000.

Statewide counts we compiled directly from official court reports point the same direction: Texas justice courts alone opened 457,212 debt claim cases in FY2025 — 55% of all new civil filings in those courts and a six-year high — and Wisconsin small-claims money cases peaked at 96,601 opened in 2024.

Sources: Pew Charitable Trusts, How Debt Collectors Are Transforming the Business of State Courts (May 2020), pp. 1, 8; Pew, Debt Collection Lawsuits Surge to Pre-Pandemic Highs (Sept. 2, 2025); NCSC via Pew (2025); Answered Research from Texas OCA and Wisconsin Court System published statistics (see below).

What percentage of debt lawsuits end in default judgment?

Pew’s exact claim (2020): “Over the past decade in the jurisdictions for which data are available, courts have resolved more than 70 percent of debt collection lawsuits with default judgments for the plaintiff.” The caveat matters — in 2018 only two states published default-judgment figures for debt cases, so the 70% figure describes the places that report, not a measured national rate. Pew’s jurisdiction examples: 4 in 5 New York City debt-buyer cases (2006–2008), 71% of debt-buyer suits in five Colorado counties (2013–2015), and more than 80% of debt-buyer cases in Washington superior courts (2012–2016).

Sources: Pew (2020), pp. 2, 16; Answered Research — Texas OCA Justice Courts Activity Detail reports FY2020–FY2025 (CSV) and Wisconsin Court System circuit court statistics 2020–2025 (CSV). The Texas “64% of judgments” figure = defaults ÷ (default + agreed + trial judgments). The Debt Collection Lab independently reports about two-thirds of disposed Wisconsin cases (2018–2024) ending in default judgment, corroborating our range.

What share of debt lawsuits are filed by debt buyers?

No national breakdown exists — most court systems do not distinguish debt buyers from original creditors. What the verified state data show is heavy concentration among a few filers:

Source: Pew (Sept. 2025), reporting January Advisors’ analysis of Debt Collection Lab and state court data. The top-10 filers are “generally debt buyers and banks.”

Other verified concentration figures: nine debt buyers represented 43% of Massachusetts civil and small-claims caseloads in 2015, and six debt buyers accounted for 25% of all Oregon civil cases from 2012 to 2016 (Pew, 2020). One debt buyer, LVNV Funding, increased its filings 350% from 2019 to 2024 across the states January Advisors examined (Pew, 2025). In Wisconsin, the top 10 plaintiffs — led by national debt buyers like LVNV Funding and Midland Funding — filed nearly half of all 2018–2024 cases (Debt Collection Lab).

What debt buyers pay: the FTC’s study — data on more than 5,000 portfolios containing nearly 90 million consumer accounts with a face value of $143 billion, for which buyers paid nearly $6.5 billion — found from its price analysis of more than 3,400 portfolios that buyers paid an average of 4.0 cents per dollar of debt face value. Older debt sold for significantly less; the price of debt more than 15 years old was “virtually zero.” Honesty check: that report was published in 2013 and its purchase data are now well over a decade old, yet it remains the most recent comprehensive federal study of debt-buying prices — treat any “pennies on the dollar” claim as a dated data point, not a current market quote.

Source: FTC, The Structure and Practices of the Debt Buying Industry (Jan. 2013), Executive Summary. The same report estimated consumers disputed about one million purchased debts each year, and buyers reported verifying only about half of disputed debts.

How many debt lawsuit defendants have a lawyer?

Pew’s review of studies from 2010 through 2019: “less than 10 percent of defendants have counsel, compared with nearly all plaintiffs.” Across the seven jurisdictions Pew charted, representation among served defendants ranged from 10% (Texas, 2007) to effectively zero (New York City, 2006–2008). Pew’s 2025 update reports the same pattern — “consumers are represented in fewer than 10% of cases (or as low as 0.6%).” The Debt Collection Lab’s Wisconsin study (2018–2024) found about 1% of defendants had an attorney while nearly all plaintiffs did.

Representation changes outcomes: in a study of more than 165,000 debt cases disposed in Utah from 2015 to 2017, 53% of represented defendants won their cases versus 19% of unrepresented defendants (cited in Pew, 2020).

Sources: Pew (2020), pp. 2, 13–15 and Figure 8; Pew (Sept. 2025); Debt Collection Lab, Consumer Debt Collection Lawsuits in Wisconsin (2018–2024 data).

What happens when defendants actually respond?

The largest recent answered-vs-unanswered analysis covers California debt lawsuits from 2021 to 2023 (14 of the 15 most populous counties, roughly 80% of the state’s population; by January Advisors, using Debt Collection Lab data). Among served cases: no answer → 78% default judgments and 22% dismissals; answer filed → zero default judgments — 51% ended in trials or non-default judgments and 49% in settlements.

Our Texas data add a related pattern: plaintiffs themselves walk away from a large share of cases — 124,110 of FY2025’s 373,132 dispositions (33%) were nonsuited or dismissed by the plaintiff, consistent with suits filed in bulk on thin documentation. In Wisconsin, 21–25% of small-claims money cases were dismissed before trial each year from 2020 to 2025. The honest summary, same as on our state studies: answering does not guarantee a win, but not answering nearly guarantees a loss.

Sources: January Advisors — answered vs. unanswered case outcomes (California, 2021–2023, using Debt Collection Lab data); Answered Research — Texas OCA FY2025 and Wisconsin Court System 2020–2025 statistics.

How much consumer debt is in collections?

As of August 2025 credit bureau data, 22.7% of Americans with a credit record — nearly 1 in 4 — have debt in collections, with a median of $2,528 in collections among those who do (Urban Institute, Debt in America). The burden is uneven: 29.0% in communities of color versus 19.3% in majority-white communities. For context, Pew’s 2020 report cited an estimated 71 million people — nearly 32% of U.S. adults with a credit history — with debt in collections as of 2018; the definitional and reporting changes since (especially medical-debt reporting) mean the two figures are not directly comparable.

Complaint volume: the CFPB received approximately 207,800 debt collection complaints in 2024 (of roughly 3.19 million total complaints). The most common debt-collection issue — every year since the CFPB began accepting these complaints in 2013 — is “attempts to collect debt not owed.”

Sources: Urban Institute, Debt in America: An Interactive Map (updated Nov. 20, 2025; August 2025 credit bureau panel — national figures from the published state/national dataset); CFPB, Consumer Response Annual Report, Jan. 1 – Dec. 31, 2024 (May 2025), §4.2; Pew (2020), p. 11.

What is the deadline to answer, and the statute of limitations, in each state?

The table below comes from Answered’s attorney-reviewed state dataset — the same data that powers our state guides — not from third-party web summaries. Deadlines are the general written-Answer clock; many states run different tracks (small claims, hearing-based courts, service-method variants), so treat the linked state page as the controlling detail.

* Deadline varies by court track or service method — see the state page for the statute citations, accrual rules, and track-by-track detail. Statute-of-limitations years reflect the limitations period our attorney-reviewed dataset applies to typical credit-card / consumer-debt claims in that state; some states apply different periods to written contracts vs. open accounts. Not sure of your date? Check your deadline free.

Numbers we looked for and could not verify

• • A current official national filing total. None exists. Anyone quoting a single national number is quoting an estimate — usually Pew’s 2013-vintage ~4 million or its 2022 ~4.7 million calculation.
• • A measured national default-judgment rate. Most states do not publish default-judgment counts for debt cases; the “70%+” figure covers only jurisdictions with data.
• • A national debt-buyer share of filings. Court systems generally do not tag plaintiffs as debt buyers; only state-level studies exist.
• • Current debt-portfolio pricing. The 4-cents figure is the FTC’s 2013 study of late-2000s purchases; no comparable federal study has been published since.

Cite this page

Primary sources

• Pew Charitable Trusts — How Debt Collectors Are Transforming the Business of State Courts (May 2020)
• Pew — Debt Collection Lawsuits Surge to Pre-Pandemic Highs (Sept. 2, 2025)
• FTC — The Structure and Practices of the Debt Buying Industry (Jan. 2013)
• Texas Office of Court Administration — Annual Statistical Reports (FY2020–FY2025)
• Wisconsin Court System — circuit court statistics (2020–2025)
• January Advisors — answered vs. unanswered case outcomes (California, 2021–2023)
• Debt Collection Lab — Consumer Debt Collection Lawsuits in Wisconsin (2018–2024)
• Urban Institute — Debt in America: An Interactive Map (Aug. 2025 credit data)
• CFPB — Consumer Response Annual Report, Jan. 1 – Dec. 31, 2024 (May 2025)

Methodology: each statistic on this page was checked against the cited source document (report PDF, article, or published dataset) before publication, and stale or non-comparable figures are labeled as such. Answered’s Texas and Wisconsin figures are transcribed from official court statistical reports — see each study’s methodology section for line-level detail. State deadlines and limitation periods come from Answered’s attorney-reviewed state dataset, not from third-party summaries.

Go deeper

• Texas debt lawsuits: what six years of official court data show
• Wisconsin debt lawsuits: what six years of official data show
• Debt lawsuit deadline checker — how long do you have to answer?
• Statute of limitations on debt, state by state