Top 10 US States by Debt-Collection CFPB Complaint Volume
PlainCollector aggregates CFPB consumer-complaint records by the state of the consumer who filed the complaint, surfacing the geographic concentration of debt-collection complaints across the United States.
Research period:
Research question
Across the 50 US states plus the District of Columbia and US territories, which jurisdictions account for the highest volume of CFPB debt-collection complaints, and how does absolute volume compare to per-capita complaint rates?
Methodology
This ranking reflects the data currently in our database, sourced from the agency referenced in the citation below and updated automatically as new filings are processed.
Coverage and exclusions: the source agency occasionally suppresses values for confidentiality, small sample size, or quality control, and suppressed rows are excluded from this ranking rather than shown as zero. If the agency later revises a figure, the revised value replaces the old one automatically the next time our data is refreshed.
Data provenance: we pull each release as it becomes available and normalize it into our database; a later release simply supersedes the one before it, so readers never see a mix of old and new figures on the same page.
Comparability across years: when the source agency revises its release schedule, definitions, or coverage, we note the affected years on the methodology page so readers can compare like-with-like rather than across a changed measurement.
Editorial governance: this page is generated programmatically from the CFPB dataset described above, not hand-authored or individually reviewed - editorial work goes into the pipeline, methodology, and corrections process (see our editorial policy). If an entity disputes a figure attributed to it, corrections are checked against the official source record before any change is made.
Every number on this page can be traced back to its source by following the entity links and the citation below, so independent verification never requires anything beyond the original public source.
See the methodology page for the complete ETL pipeline, source vintage, and column lineage.
Top 10 US States by Debt-Collection CFPB Complaint Volume
Live data: reflects the current dataset
- Texas
Texas
172,149 complaints
- Florida
Florida
124,524 complaints
- California
California
112,020 complaints
- Georgia
Georgia
85,576 complaints
- New York 53,744
New York
53,744 complaints
- Illinois 41,794
Illinois
41,794 complaints
- Pennsylvania 40,073
Pennsylvania
40,073 complaints
- North Carolina 38,233
North Carolina
38,233 complaints
- New Jersey 30,806
New Jersey
30,806 complaints
- Ohio 30,195
Ohio
30,195 complaints
The ranked top 10
Every row below reflects the current 10-record dataset. Reload the page after new data is processed to see the latest values.
Based on consumer-filed CFPB complaints, not proven violations or a court finding of wrongdoing. Complaint volume also tracks population and reporting activity, not inherent risk.
| # | State | Total complaints | Companies named | Complaints per 100k |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas | 172,149 | 2,473 | — |
| 2 | Florida | 124,524 | 2,279 | — |
| 3 | California | 112,020 | 2,387 | — |
| 4 | Georgia | 85,576 | 1,879 | — |
| 5 | New York | 53,744 | 1,598 | — |
| 6 | Illinois | 41,794 | 1,540 | — |
| 7 | Pennsylvania | 40,073 | 1,429 | — |
| 8 | North Carolina | 38,233 | 1,462 | — |
| 9 | New Jersey | 30,806 | 1,278 | — |
| 10 | Ohio | 30,195 | 1,483 | — |
Source: U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CFPB Consumer Complaint Database (state-aggregated). Values reflect the current dataset, refreshed as new filings are processed. U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CFPB Consumer Complaint Database (state-aggregated). Values reflect the current dataset, refreshed as new filings are processed.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The top-ranked record in this dataset is Texas, with a value of 172,149 on the Total complaints column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes directly from the current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the source agency publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record (172,149) and the 10th-ranked record (30,195) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.
Source provenance
The records in this ranking originate from U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, specifically the CFPB Consumer Complaint Database (state-aggregated). PlainCollector ingests the source vintage published by the agency and keeps this page current, there is no static export carrying stale numbers, and a newly published dataset is reflected here within hours. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and the steps applied to prepare the data.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.
What this analysis cannot tell us
State-level complaint aggregations are keyed on the state of the consumer who filed the complaint, which can differ from the state where the underlying debt was incurred and from the state where the debt-collection company is headquartered. Population-normalized complaint rates use US Census Bureau population estimates and are sensitive to the choice of vintage; older vintages or different geographic boundary definitions can produce slightly different per-capita figures. Large-population states will appear high in any absolute-volume ranking simply because they contain more potential complainants. Conversely, per-capita ranking surfaces states where the underlying complaint generation rate is unusually high relative to population, which may reflect a combination of consumer-awareness levels, presence of large in-state collection operations, and the local mix of consumer-credit products. This ranking does not normalize for credit-product mix or for any state-specific regulatory framework that may encourage or discourage complaint filing.
Secondary cut from the same source
Top 10 states by per-capita debt-collection complaint rate
Sources
- CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, state field - https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-complaints/
- US Census Bureau, Annual Population Estimates - https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest.html