Bankruptcy filings climbed across South Carolina over the past year, rising almost twice as fast as they did nationally. The Charleston area mostly sat out the increase.

Debtors in Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties filed 783 cases in South Carolina’s federal bankruptcy court in the 12 months that ended Sept. 30, up 6.4% from 736 a year earlier, according to a Charleston Business Report analysis of county-level tables the federal judiciary published this month.

Statewide, filings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of South Carolina rose 20.2%, to 5,931 from 4,933. Nationally, filings rose 11.4%, to 621,111.

Where filings rose fastest

Among the state’s six most populous counties, the biggest increases were upstate and in the Midlands. Filings rose 41.8% in Spartanburg County, 35.8% in Lexington County, 31.6% in Greenville County and 27.9% in Richland County, which had the most cases in the state at 817. Horry County’s rose 23.6%.

In the Charleston area, Dorchester County’s filings rose 8.5%, to 218. Berkeley County’s rose 7.2%, to 297. Charleston County’s rose 3.9%, to 268.

Measured against population, Charleston County stands out. Its 268 cases work out to about 0.61 for every 1,000 residents, using the Census Bureau’s 2025 population estimates. Only Oconee County, at 0.41, and Pickens County, at 0.55, had lower rates among the state’s 46 counties.

Berkeley County had more filings than Charleston County with about 160,000 fewer residents. Its rate was 1.08 per 1,000 residents, and Dorchester County’s was 1.22. The statewide rate was 1.06. Across the 50 states and the District of Columbia, it was about 1.8.

Still below 2019

The increase follows several years of low filings. The bankruptcy court’s own year-end county reports show debtors in the three counties filed 979 cases in calendar 2019. That fell to 480 in 2021, then rose every year after, to 723 in 2025.

The 783 cases in the latest 12 months are about 20% below the court’s 2019 calendar-year total, even though the three counties’ population has grown about 11% since 2020, according to the Census Bureau. Statewide, the latest 12-month count is about 87% of the 6,792 cases filed in 2019.

The court’s monthly reports, which run through August, show 535 cases from the three counties in the first eight months of 2026: 209 from Berkeley County, 175 from Charleston County and 151 from Dorchester County.

Business cases are few, but up

Most cases involve personal rather than business debt. Business cases, which the courts define as those filed by a corporation or partnership or in which business debt predominates, made up 27 of the 783 Charleston-area cases.

Charleston County accounted for most of them. Its debtors filed 20 business cases in the 12 months, up from 12 a year earlier, the second-most of any South Carolina county after Greenville County’s 22. Fifteen of Charleston County’s business cases were Chapter 7 liquidations, three were Chapter 11 reorganizations and two were Chapter 13 cases. Berkeley County had four business cases, up from three, and Dorchester County had three, down from eight.

Statewide, business filings rose 22.7%, to 173. Nationally they rose 12.5%, to 27,054. South Carolina, with about 1.6% of the nation’s population, accounted for about 0.6% of the country’s business bankruptcy cases.

The tables count cases in the district where they were filed. Over the past year, they list seven business cases from the three counties filed outside South Carolina: five Chapter 11 cases from Berkeley County, one Chapter 11 case from Dorchester County and one Chapter 7 case from Charleston County. The tables do not name debtors.

A Chapter 13 state

South Carolina’s filers lean heavily on Chapter 13, in which a debtor with regular income repays creditors under a court-approved plan, usually over three to five years, rather than Chapter 7, in which a trustee sells a debtor’s nonexempt assets to pay creditors.

Chapter 13 cases made up 64% of South Carolina’s filings in the latest 12 months, compared with 35% nationally. In Dorchester County the share was 73%, and in Berkeley County it was 70%.

Charleston County again looked different. Chapter 13 cases made up 59% of its filings, and Chapter 7 cases made up 40%, the highest Chapter 7 share in the Charleston area.

How the region compares

Filings in the 12 months ended Sept. 30, compared with the year before, and the rate per 1,000 residents:

  • Berkeley County: 297, up from 277 (7.2%); 1.08 per 1,000
  • Charleston County: 268, up from 258 (3.9%); 0.61 per 1,000
  • Dorchester County: 218, up from 201 (8.5%); 1.22 per 1,000
  • Three counties: 783, up from 736 (6.4%); 0.88 per 1,000
  • South Carolina: 5,931, up from 4,933 (20.2%); 1.06 per 1,000
  • United States: 621,111, up from 557,376 (11.4%); about 1.8 per 1,000

What the numbers don’t show

Bankruptcy filings are a narrow measure of financial stress. They do not count businesses that close without going to court, or households that fall behind on bills without filing. The counts also reflect the county a debtor listed, not necessarily where a business operated.

The figures are counts of cases, not debtors. Related companies that file together each count as a case, and a married couple filing jointly counts as one.

The 12-month numbers are also small enough in the Charleston area that a handful of cases can move the percentages. Charleston County’s increase of eight business cases, for example, accounts for its 67% jump in that category.

How we did this

We used Table F-5A of the federal judiciary’s bankruptcy statistics, which lists cases by chapter, business or nonbusiness debt and the debtor’s county, for the 12-month periods ending Sept. 30, 2025 and 2026, and Tables F and F-2 for district and national totals for the same periods. We added the county rows for Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties for cases filed in the District of South Carolina, and listed separately cases from those counties filed in other districts. We calculated rates per 1,000 residents with the Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 county population estimates, and the national rate excludes cases filed in territorial courts. Calendar-year and 2026 monthly counts come from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of South Carolina’s filings-by-county reports for 2019 through August 2026. The court had not yet posted its September report.