Personal Bankruptcies Surge While Corporate Filings Drop: What Regional Debt Maps Reveal in 2025
An analysis of bankruptcies in Russia in 2025: why individual filings are up by a third while corporate bankruptcies have fallen by a quarter. Data on overdue debt and debt pressure across the economy.
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In 2025, individuals filed for bankruptcy one-third more frequently, while companies did so almost a quarter less often, although overdue debt grew in both sectors. The increase in personal bankruptcies is linked to the simplified procedure through MFC and reduced social stigma, rather than deteriorating financial conditions. The decline in corporate bankruptcies reflects banks' strategy of restructuring problem loans instead of writing them off.
In 2025, personal bankruptcies rose by a third, while corporate bankruptcies fell by nearly a quarter. At first glance, these appear to be diverging trends. In reality, they represent two institutional responses to the same debt pressure. According to Fedresurs1, courts declared nearly 568,000 individuals bankrupt compared to 432,000 the year before, while corporate bankruptcy proceedings numbered 6,477 versus 8,561—the lowest figure in ten years of observations. If you ignore the banking data, the numbers are confusing, but the reality is this: overdue debt among individuals grew by nearly 29% over the same year, while corporate overdue debt rose 14%. Financial pressure in both sectors is comparable. What differs are the channels through which it flows into bankruptcy statistics.
13. Banerjee, R., & Hofmann, B. (2022). Corporate zombies: Anatomy and life cycle. Economic Policy, 37(112), 757–803.
14. Albuquerque, B., & Mao, C. (2023). The Zombie Lending Channel of Monetary Policy. IMF Working Paper WP/23/192.
15. Opler, T., Pinkowitz, L., Stulz, R., Williamson, R. (1999). The Determinants and Implications of Corporate Cash Holdings. Journal of Financial Economics, 52(1), 3–46
For individuals, total debt grew by less than 1% over the year: new credit issuance contracted sharply. According to Frank RG estimates, 9.89 trillion rubles were issued in 2025—the lowest in six years and 25.6% less than the year before2. Portfolio quality deteriorated in the process: the Bank of Russia attributes the growth in overdue debt to "deteriorating servicing quality on loans issued since late 2023," when banks ramped up lending at high rates and attracted less creditworthy borrowers3. The accumulated debt from 2023–2024 is increasingly shifting into the problem category, without any portfolio expansion.
Изменение ключевых показателей в 2025 году к 2024 году
Источник: Федресурс, Банк России
Долг, просроченная задолженность и банкротства
Группа↕
Показатель↕
2024↕
2025↕
Изменение, %↕
Граждане
Долг физлиц, трлн руб.
35,50
35,90
1,0 %
Граждане
Просрочка физлиц, трлн руб.
1,29
1,66
28,9 %
Граждане
Все банкротства граждан, тыс.
487,40
635,60
30,4 %
Бизнес
Долг бизнеса, трлн руб.
78,20
84,00
7,4 %
Бизнес
Просрочка бизнеса, трлн руб.
2,66
3,03
13,8 %
Бизнес
Средства бизнеса на счетах и депозитах, трлн руб.
67,70
70,80
4,7 %
Бизнес
Корпоративные банкротства, тыс.
8,60
6,50
-24,5 %
Источник: Банк России, Федресурс
Young bankrupts: an institutional mechanism, not a generational crisis
The main surprise in the personal bankruptcy data is the age breakdown. According to Intel Collect, the share of bankrupts under 25 rose from 1.5% in 2023 to 14% by the end of 20254—a tenfold shift in two years. The "over-indebted youth" hypothesis doesn't hold here: over-indebtedness builds gradually; such a sharp shift is not the result of increased debt burden, but rather a change in the rules governing access to the bankruptcy procedure.
In August 2024, Federal Law No. 282-FZ expanded the parameters for out-of-court bankruptcy through MFC centers: the lower debt threshold was reduced to 25,000 rubles (from 50,000), while the upper limit was raised to 1 million rubles (from 500,000). The procedure is free, takes six months, and requires no legal representation5; it has become technically accessible to borrowers with small debts—primarily credit cards and microloans, which concentrate the debt burden of young borrowers6.
A behavioral effect compounds the institutional one. In the classic work by Gross and Souleles7 , the reduction in social stigma around the procedure is identified as an independent driver of rising bankruptcy numbers in the U.S. during the 1990s: the more people go through it, the lower the barrier for those who follow. Russia's bankruptcy institution has traveled a similar path over ten years—from a rarely used procedure to widespread practice. This is confirmed by observations from the Debtor Protection Fund: bankruptcy today is perceived by clients not as a source of stress, but as a way out of "constant problems with frozen accounts, travel bans, calls to relatives and employers"8.
Both effects—simplification of the procedure and reduction of stigma—operate uniformly across the country. In national data, the specific contribution of financial pressure cannot be separated from them. This can be tracked at the regional level: with a unified institutional context, actual debt pressure varies across regions.
Все банкротства граждан на 100 тыс. населения, 2025
Сведения о размещенных и привлеченных средствах | Банк России
Regions with the highest frequency of procedures per 100,000 residents—the Altai Republic, North Ossetia-Alania, Adygea, Orenburg Oblast, Altai Krai, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Omsk Oblast, Kalmykia—are not leaders in credit portfolio volume. They share something else: high debt-to-income ratios and a significant share of overdue debt.
Долг физлиц к годовой зарплате, 2025
Сведения о размещенных и привлеченных средствах | Банк России
Debt relative to average annual salary reflects the real burden of servicing, not portfolio size. At the top are Tyva, Kalmykia, Adygea, Bashkortostan, Udmurtia, Krasnodar Krai, Novosibirsk Oblast, Buryatia, and Chuvashia. Resource-rich regions of the North and Far East with the largest per capita portfolios don't appear here: high nominal amounts there are offset by equally high salaries.
Доля просроченной задолженности по кредитам физлиц, 2025
Сведения о размещенных и привлеченных средствах | Банк России
By share of overdue debt9 the republics of the North Caucasus consistently stand out: Ingushetia, Dagestan, Chechnya, North Ossetia–Alania, Karachay-Cherkessia, and Kabardino-Balkaria. This hierarchy has been reproduced in Bank of Russia data for many years running—a longstanding structural feature of local credit markets, not a cyclical effect of 2025.
Банкротства граждан и просроченная задолженность физлиц по регионам
Сведения о размещенных и привлеченных средствах | Банк России
The number of bankruptcies and the share of overdue debt are distributed unevenly across regions: the Caucasus republics show a high share of overdue debt with moderate bankruptcy frequency, while a number of regions in Siberia, the South, and the Volga area show the opposite. This is not a contradiction but a reflection of the fact that the two indicators describe different parts of the same process.
A borrower with overdue debt has several trajectories: restructuring, collection by a collector or the Federal Bailiff Service, out-of-court bankruptcy at a multifunctional center, or judicial bankruptcy in arbitration court. The distribution across regions is uneven. According to Sberbank data, in Q1 2026 the South-Western Territorial Bank settled 5.7 thousand client debts out of court10 —the highest in the country, with about 65% of its problem portfolio concentrated in North Caucasus regions. A significant portion of debt is closed through negotiations with the bank, never reaching either formal proceedings or bailiffs.
A high bankruptcy rate in a region means that a significant portion of problem debt has already passed through the formal channel; a high share of overdue debt means that a comparable volume still awaits resolution. Regions with a high share of overdue debt and low bankruptcy frequency are not healthier markets, but markets with a larger backlog of unprocessed problem debt. Part of it will be closed through restructurings and collections, part will sooner or later show up in bankruptcy statistics.
Corporate sector: bankruptcy has become irrational
Business operates on different logic. The decline in the number of liquidation proceedings amid rising overdue debt is not recovery but a deliberate refusal by creditors to pursue formal liquidation. Kommersant, citing market participants, provides an estimate11: unsecured creditors recover an average of 6–8% of their claims in corporate bankruptcy. With such recovery rates, initiating proceedings is simply unprofitable.
The Bank of Russia confirms this as well. The regulator notes12 a growing share of borrowers with an interest coverage ratio (ICR) below 3 among the largest companies, records "high credit risks," and indicates that banks are actively resorting to restructuring. Operating profit for a significant portion of large businesses does not cover interest expenses with a comfortable margin—and the financial system responds not with write-offs, but with extensions.
Корпоративные банкротства на 10 тыс. организаций, 2025
Источник: ЕМИСС
Banerjee and Hofmann, in their work on zombie companies, describe13 the same logic: it's unprofitable for a bank to recognize losses, because recognition requires reserves and capital write-downs; restructuring keeps the loan in its current quality category and postpones loss recognition. In the Japanese case of the 1990s, the mechanism worked under zero interest rates; in Russia in 2025 the environment is reversed, but the logic is the same. A high key rate increases the number of companies with insufficient interest coverage, and the bank chooses between additional provisioning for their loans and extension. Albuquerque and Mao, using OECD data, showed14that during phases of monetary policy tightening, banks systematically choose the latter. Russian data follows the same logic: problem business debt growing by nearly 14% while the number of liquidation proceedings drops by almost a quarter.
Доля просроченной задолженности по кредитам бизнеса, 2025
Источник: ЦБ
Корпоративные банкротства и просроченная задолженность бизнеса по регионам
Источник: ЦБ
The geography of bankruptcies and the geography of overdue business debt don't align. Leaders in bankruptcy frequency per 10,000 organizations are Kabardino-Balkaria, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Magadan Oblast, Ingushetia, Moscow Oblast, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Komi, Tver Oblast, Karachay-Cherkessia, and Sakhalin. Leaders in share of overdue debt are Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Ingushetia, and Karachay-Cherkessia. There's almost no overlap. The explanation is straightforward: proceedings primarily involve small companies without bargaining power and without restructuring offers; problem debt is concentrated in portfolios with large borrowers—those very companies with ICR below 3, with whom banks work in extension mode.
Долг бизнеса к последнему доступному ВРП, 2025 к ВРП 2024
Источник: ЦБ
The map of business debt to GRP yields a third group of regions: Chukotka, Leningrad Oblast, Moscow, Kaliningrad Oblast, Kamchatka, Krasnodar Krai, Khabarovsk Krai, and Tula Oblast. The composition is mixed—regions with large export and infrastructure businesses and territories where even moderate debt produces a high ratio due to a small regional economy. High debt to GRP by itself says nothing about the share of problem loans within it.
Средства бизнеса на счетах и депозитах / долг бизнеса, 2025
Источник: ЦБ
The ratio of business funds in accounts and deposits to bank debt shows the liquidity cushion relative to obligations15. Over the year, business debt to banks grew by 7%, while funds in accounts and deposits rose by just 4.7%. The cushion is shrinking faster than obligations are growing.
One Environment, Two Outcomes
The bottom line for 2025: bankruptcy statistics in both sectors have ceased to be a meaningful indicator of financial pressure. For individuals, the increase conflates the actual deterioration in borrowers' positions with the simplified procedure introduced in 2024 and the multi-year normalization of the institution. For businesses, the decline in the number of procedures amid rising problem debt reflects not the state of companies, but banks' decision to replace liquidation with restructuring.
Behind the corporate portion of these statistics lies deferred stress. Each restructuring postpones the recognition of losses into the future, but doesn't eliminate the source of the problem: a company whose operating profit is insufficient to service debt at a high key rate won't start earning more just because loan terms have been eased. As long as the rate remains high, the share of problem loans will grow, requiring ever-larger reserves and ever more extensive rollovers. This process has two possible outcomes. The first: a rate cut to a level where the operating profit of debtor companies begins to cover interest expenses, and debt gradually returns to normal servicing. The second: the exhaustion of banks' tolerance for problem loans, after which their recognition will shift into formal procedures all at once. For now, bankruptcy statistics describe not the pressure on the economy, but the financial system's response to it—and describe it with a lag that grows longer the more prolonged high rates remain.
