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FinObservatory

Consumer finance

What Americans complain to their financial regulator about

Every complaint published in the CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, aggregated from the Bureau's full bulk export: 17,006,331 complaints from December 2011 through July 2026. Complaints are consumer submissions the Bureau routed to companies, not verified wrongdoing; the Bureau's own caveats are quoted below.

17,006,331
Complaints published
since December 2011
784,405
Latest full month
June 2026
88.4%
Credit-reporting share
of 2025 complaints
99.5%
Timely company response
2025 complaints

Data as of July 2026 (CFPB bulk export, refreshed daily by the Bureau; the newest month is partial)

What a complaint is, in the CFPB’s own words. “This database is not a statistical sample of consumers’ experiences in the marketplace” and complaints “are not necessarily representative of all consumers’ experiences with a financial product or company.” The Bureau does “not adopt their views or verify that their experiences are accurate or unbiased.” On volume: “companies with more customers may have more complaints than companies with fewer customers,” and a low count “does not necessarily mean there is little or no consumer harm.” Publication criteria: “Only complaints sent to companies for response are eligible to be published,” after the company responds or after 15 days, and complaints referred to other regulators, such as those about depository institutions with less than $10 billion in assets, are not published. All quotes from the database landing page, retrieved 2026-07-18. See the methodology for the full text and the product-family mapping.

Complaint mix

Credit reporting displaced mortgages as complaints multiplied

Monthly US published complaint counts by product family, from December 2011 through June 2026 across the complaint form's label changes (exact mapping in the methodology). The composition inverted over the collection's life: in 2012, the first full year, mortgage complaints were 52.7% of the total (the foreclosure-era servicing wave) and credit reporting 2.6%; in 2025 mortgage was 0.5% and credit reporting 88.4%. Total annual volume grew 75.2x, from 72,368 complaints in 2012 to 5,443,384 in 2025. Complaint counts reflect submission behavior and market size as much as conduct: the Bureau's caveats above apply to every line on this chart.
Credit reportingDebt collectionCredit card or prepaidMortgageBank accountAll other products
Hover for each family's monthly complaint count

Source: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database (bulk CSV export) Counts by month of Date received. The newest calendar month is dropped as partial (the bulk file refreshes daily). Product families group the form's relabeled products; see the mapping table in the methodology. Methodology

Complaints per 100,000 residents, 2025

Complaints received in 2025 per 100,000 residents, for the 50 states and DC. The 51-jurisdiction rate is 1,582 per 100,000; Georgia leads at 3,778 and South Dakota is lowest at 173. Population is the Census Bureau's annual resident population estimate for 2025, taken from FRED's {ST}POP series. The CFPB's own guidance applies: "When looking at complaint volume for a state or ZIP code, consider the population in that geography," which is exactly what this table does, and nothing more.

#StateComplaintsPopulationPer 100k
1Georgia GA426,96511,302,7483,778
2Mississippi MS101,4392,954,1603,434
3Florida FL791,28023,462,5183,373
4Louisiana LA129,6864,618,1892,808
5Alabama AL144,8875,193,0882,790
6Texas TX789,96931,709,8212,491
7District of Columbia DC17,159693,6452,474
8South Carolina SC126,1365,570,2742,264
9Delaware DE23,6691,059,9522,233
10Maryland MD132,8606,265,3472,121
11Nevada NV69,2183,282,1882,109
12Illinois IL237,67612,719,1411,869

Top 12 of 51 shown, ranked by per-capita rate. Records from territories, military post codes, and blank-state rows (36,230 complaints in 2025) are excluded here: FRED carries no {ST}POP population series for them. They remain in every national figure on this page.

Source: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database (bulk CSV export) | US Census Bureau resident population estimates, via FRED ({ST}POP) Numerator: complaints by State field and year of Date received. Denominator: Census annual resident population estimates via FRED, same year. Methodology

Respondent concentration

The three national credit bureaus now draw most complaints

Annual US share of all published complaints in percent, drawn by each year's three most-complained-about respondents. In 2012 the top three (BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION; WELLS FARGO & COMPANY; JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.) drew 45.2% of complaints; in 2025 the top three (EQUIFAX, INC.; TRANSUNION INTERMEDIATE HOLDINGS, INC.; Experian Information Solutions Inc.) drew 85.8%. The CFPB's own framing belongs next to this chart: complaint volume tracks company size and market share, and the three national credit bureaus sit in essentially every American consumer's file, whether or not that consumer ever chose them.
Top 3 respondents, share of all complaints
Hover for the top-3 respondent share of that year's complaints

Source: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database (bulk CSV export) Company names are the public respondents named in the database. A complaint against a company is not verified wrongdoing by that company; the Bureau publishes complaints it routed for response, and volume correlates with customer base. Methodology

#Respondent, 2025ComplaintsShare of all
1EQUIFAX, INC.1,680,53830.9%
2TRANSUNION INTERMEDIATE HOLDINGS, INC.1,601,92529.4%
3Experian Information Solutions Inc.1,388,83125.5%
4Block, Inc.48,0910.9%
5CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION34,1060.6%
6CBC Companies, Inc.30,7690.6%
7Early Warning Services, LLC24,5090.5%
8JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.24,4590.4%
9Resurgent Capital Services L.P.23,7420.4%
10CITIBANK, N.A.19,7920.4%

How companies responded, 2025

Company response categories as recorded in the database for complaints received in 2025. A "timely" response reached the consumer within the 15 days the CFPB allows; 99.5% of 2025 complaints got one. Response categories are the company's characterization of its own answer, recorded by the Bureau; "closed with explanation" makes no finding either way.

Company responseComplaintsShare
Closed with explanation3,194,53258.7%
Closed with non-monetary relief2,212,23140.6%
Closed with monetary relief26,1220.5%
Untimely response9,8720.2%
None recorded3320.0%
In progress2950.0%

Source: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database (bulk CSV export) Categories verbatim from the 'Company response to consumer' field; shares of all complaints received that year. Methodology

Complements the HMDA mortgage module: HMDA counts the loans made, this page counts the grievances filed. See the full methodology for the bulk-export pipeline, the dedupe rule, the product-family mapping, the per-capita denominator, and the CFPB’s publication criteria in full.