12,342 consumer credit lawsuits were filed in federal district courts in the 12 months ending June 30, 2026, up 37.8% from 8,958 a year earlier. That is the highest yearly count in the ten years of figures we checked, and the largest one-year increase in that span.
"Consumer credit" is one of the nature-of-suit categories that filers pick on the civil cover sheet when they start a case. The federal courts’ code description says it covers actions under the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. In practice these are mostly suits by consumers against credit bureaus, companies that furnish information to them, and debt collectors. Almost all of the 2026 cases (12,185 of 12,342) were filed under federal-question jurisdiction.
What changed
Yearly filings ran between about 10,000 and 11,000 from 2017 to 2021, then fell to a low of 8,159 in 2023. They rose modestly in 2024 and 2025, then jumped by 3,384 cases in the latest 12 months. Consumer credit suits were 3.44% of all federal civil filings, up from 3.12%, even though total civil filings also rose sharply, largely because of immigration detention habeas cases.
The courts’ figures do not say why filings rose. They also cannot show whether the increase is spread across many consumers or concentrated among a few law firms or defendants.
Consumer credit suits by year
| 12 months ending June 30 | Consumer credit suits filed | Change from prior year | All civil cases filed | Consumer credit share of civil cases |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 12,342 | 37.8% | 359,059 | 3.44% |
| 2025 | 8,958 | 1.7% | 287,441 | 3.12% |
| 2024 | 8,807 | 7.9% | 340,683 | 2.59% |
| 2023 | 8,159 | -16.0% | 295,215 | 2.76% |
| 2022 | 9,714 | -3.7% | 293,762 | 3.31% |
| 2021 | 10,091 | -4.0% | 374,250 | 2.70% |
| 2020 | 10,507 | -4.3% | 421,082 | 2.50% |
| 2019 | 10,978 | 2.3% | 293,520 | 3.74% |
| 2018 | 10,732 | 4.3% | 281,202 | 3.82% |
| 2017 | 10,287 | n/a | 271,721 | 3.79% |
Civil cases commenced in U.S. district courts. Each year runs July 1 to June 30. Changes and shares are our calculation. Truth in Lending Act claims are counted in a separate category, "Fraud, Including Truth in Lending" (2,925 cases in the latest 12 months, which also includes other fraud claims); telemarketing and robocall suits under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act have their own nature-of-suit code and are not shown separately in Table C-2.
Why it matters
A lawsuit count is one sign of how often people believe a credit bureau, lender or collector broke the law badly enough to go to court. Most credit reporting and collection problems never reach a courtroom: people dispute errors, file complaints with the CFPB or settle. The court figures show the most serious end of those disputes. To see what courts have actually said in these cases, our page on court opinions mentioning the Fair Credit Reporting Act tracks published decisions.
What you can do
- If your credit report has an error, dispute it with the credit bureau in writing and keep copies. Under the FCRA the bureau generally has 30 days to investigate. You can also dispute directly with the company that reported the information.
- If a debt collector harasses you, misstates what you owe or keeps contacting you after you ask it to stop in writing, write down dates and keep any letters, voicemails and texts.
- You can file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for free. A complaint is not a lawsuit, but it gets a response from the company.
- Deadlines are short. FDCPA suits generally must be filed within one year of the violation. FCRA suits generally must be filed within two years after you discover the violation and no later than five years after it happened. Both laws let a consumer who wins recover attorney’s fees, so some consumer lawyers will review a case without an upfront fee. Talk to a lawyer before a deadline passes.
What these numbers are
The counts are civil cases commenced, by the nature-of-suit code chosen when the case was filed. A case can involve several plaintiffs or claims, and one plaintiff can file more than one case. The code reflects the main claim as the filer saw it, so some FCRA or FDCPA claims may be coded elsewhere and some cases coded here may involve other laws. Filing counts say nothing about who won. State-court cases, including debt collection suits that creditors file against consumers, are not included.
Source
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Statistical Tables for the Federal Judiciary, Table C-2 (civil cases commenced by basis of jurisdiction and nature of suit), editions for the 12 months ending June 30 of 2018, 2020, 2022, 2024 and 2026, each of which also reports the prior year; downloaded October 19, 2026. Category description: U.S. Courts, Civil Nature of Suit Code Descriptions. FCRA and FDCPA deadlines: 15 U.S.C. 1681p and 15 U.S.C. 1692k(d). U.S. government data. Our tables are available under CC BY 4.0. Credit "My Credit Guide (mycreditguide.org)".
Steven Reynolds, "Consumer Credit Lawsuits in Federal Court," My Credit Guide, October 19, 2026, https://mycreditguide.org/data/consumer-credit-lawsuits/.