United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Iowa

Section 01Filing Volume

Annual federal bankruptcy filings in N.D. Iowa, FY 2010–2026. The most recent fiscal year is rendered with a muted marker to indicate its incomplete status.

Section 02Chapter Mix

Distribution of cases filed in N.D. Iowa by bankruptcy chapter. Computed over the 60,325 cases with a non-blank chapter code in the FJC IDB.

Section 03Case Dispositions

Of cases filed in N.D. Iowa from FY 2005 onward, 37,097 have a terminal disposition recorded in the FJC Integrated Database (61.7% of 60,167 in-window cases). 23,070 remain unclassified — either still open at the last FJC extract or not yet coded.

Section 04Prior-Filer Rate (Chapter 13)

Of Chapter 13 cases in N.D. Iowa with a coded prior-filing flag in the FJC IDB, 25.44% (2,280 cases) carry a recorded prior bankruptcy filing. This metric is relevant to 11 U.S.C. § 1328(f) discharge eligibility.

National rank on Chapter 13 prior-filer rate: 56th of 94 (42th percentile).

Classified subset: 8,962 of 9,441 Chapter 13 cases. How this is computed.

Section 05Pro Se Filing Rate

Of classified N.D. Iowa filings, 2.54% (1,518 cases) were filed without an attorney of record.

National rank on pro se rate: 56th of 94 (42th percentile).

Classified subset: 59,690 of 60,325 cases. How this is computed.

Section 06National Rank

How N.D. Iowa compares to the other 93 US federal bankruptcy districts on the metrics above. A higher percentile indicates a higher value of the metric (e.g., 95th percentile on total volume means top 5% by case count).

Section 07Peer Districts

Three districts in the Eighth Circuit closest in total case volume to N.D. Iowa.

Section 08Sitting Judges

Judges listed on the official court website at https://www.ianb.uscourts.gov. Names and roles only; OBP does not publish qualitative characterizations of judges.

Section 09Courthouse & Divisions

Primary courthouse location as published on https://www.ianb.uscourts.gov.

Section 10Local Rules & Filing Fees

Statutory federal filing fees are uniform across all US bankruptcy districts: $338 for Chapter 7, $313 for Chapter 13, $1,738 for Chapter 11, and $278 for Chapter 12 (current as of 2025). N.D. Iowa administers its local rules at the following location:

Section 11Privacy Rule (FRBP 9037) Context

Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9037 requires that Social Security Numbers, dates of birth, financial account numbers, and minor-child identifiers be redacted in bankruptcy filings. The Federal Judicial Center’s April 2024 empirical study, Unredacted Social Security Numbers in Federal Court PACER Documents, measured compliance across the federal court system.

A small number of documents account for a disproportionate share of exposure: 45% of unredacted SSNs (10,042) appeared in just 17 documents, which the authors frame as evidence of systemic actors rather than widespread filer error. The study also documented 54 violations involving Bankruptcy Form 121 — the form the court tells debtors “will not make publicly available.”

The Federal Judicial Center’s findings are not broken out by district, and OBP does not publish per-district compliance rates. The FJC study measures appearance of noncompliance, not adjudicated Rule 9037 violations. See the methodology page for why that distinction matters.

Primary source: Unredacted Social Security Numbers in Federal Court PACER Documents (FJC, April 2024).

Section 12RECAP Coverage

Of the 60,325 cases recorded for N.D. Iowa in the FJC IDB, 0 dockets (0.0%) are available free of charge in the Free Law Project’s RECAP Archive. Every case link on this site resolves to a free CourtListener page — no PACER fee, no paywall, no login required.

If the coverage number is lower than you’d expect, you can help. Installing the free RECAP browser extension contributes any PACER documents you already pay for to the public archive, at no cost to you.