2026 Debt Collection Complaint Surge: Which States Are Rising Fastest

Consumers filed roughly 30% more debt collection complaints with the CFPB in the first seven months of 2026 than over the same window in 2025, across the 51 states and D.C. we cover. South Carolina, Mississippi, and Washington are rising fastest by percentage; Texas, Florida, and California generate the most complaints in raw terms. Snapshot pulled from the CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, current through July 2026.

Rising fastest: the 10 states with the sharpest percentage increase

Ranked by year-over-year percentage change, Jan 1–Jul 24, 2025 vs. the same window in 2026. Small-volume states can swing sharply on modest absolute changes, so we've included the raw counts alongside the percentage.

Highest raw volume: where the most complaints are actually filed

Percentage growth and raw volume tell different stories — South Carolina cracks the top 10 by volume despite a much smaller population than Texas or Florida, purely because its growth rate is so much steeper.

Getting collection calls or letters yourself? Start with what to do the first time a collector contacts you and how a debt validation request works before anything gets to a lawsuit — see how long a collector can legally sue you in your state.

Full state ranking

All 51 states we cover, sorted by percentage change.

Methodology

Source: the live CFPB Consumer Complaint Database public API, queried directly for product=Debt collection, filtered to each state and to two identical calendar windows: January 1–July 24, 2025 and January 1–July 24, 2026. These are exact complaint counts, not a sample or a projection — the only modeling here is the side-by-side comparison itself.

Why the window is Jan–Jul, not a full year: 2026 isn't over yet, so a full calendar-year comparison isn't possible without the second half of 2025 unfairly outweighing a partial 2026. Matching identical partial-year windows keeps the comparison fair.

What this measures and doesn't: a CFPB complaint means a consumer submitted one and the company was given a chance to respond — it isn't a lawsuit, a fine, a verified violation, or proof any particular collector did something wrong. Complaint volume is also affected by awareness of the complaint process itself, not just underlying collection activity, which is a meaningful part of why the entire database — not just debt collection — is growing so fast. States with fewer than 10 complaints in the 2025 baseline window are excluded to avoid reporting large percentages off tiny denominators.