Cities Where People Are the Most Delinquent on Debt

Being delinquent on debt payments can cause a lot of harm to your credit score, and late payments will remain on your credit report for seven years. People who are delinquent on any debt should try to get current as quickly as possible in order to minimize credit score damage and avoid other consequences like additional late fees, closed accounts, or lawsuits.

People in some cities will have a much harder time catching up on delinquent debt payments than others, though. To highlight the places where people are having the biggest issues paying their bills, WalletHub analyzed proprietary user data from Q4 2025 for the 100 largest cities. In this ranking, WalletHub considered both the percentage of individual tradelines that were delinquent, as well as the percentages of residents’ total loan balances that were delinquent.

“Being delinquent on debt can significantly damage a person’s credit score and make it more difficult to get a credit card, rent apartments, or buy cars and homes in the future. People who miss a loan payment should try to get current as quickly as possible. The good news is that for many types of debt, borrowers have at least 30 days before delinquency gets reported to the credit bureaus. That allows people a little leeway to get the funds together and avoid credit score damage, though the issuer will still likely charge a late fee.”

Chip Lupo, WalletHub Analyst

1. Main Findings
2. In-Depth Look at the Most Delinquent Cities
3. Methodology

Main Findings

Cities Most Delinquent on Debt Payments

Note: *No. 1 = Most Delinquent.

In-Depth Look at the Most Delinquent Cities Detroit, MI

Detroit is the most delinquent city, with residents delinquent on 15.7% of all their loans and lines of credit. This is the highest delinquency rate in terms of the number of individual tradelines.

When you look at dollar amounts, Detroit residents are delinquent on 20.2% of their entire debt, the highest rate in the country. Given that this report takes both metrics into consideration, Detroit ranks first in the study overall (other cities that ranked higher in one metric ranked lower in another).

Newark, NJ

Newark, NJ, has the second-biggest debt delinquency problem. About 15.5% of loans and lines of credit in the city were delinquent in Q4 2025, the third-highest percentage in the country.

However, just looking at the number of accounts that are delinquent doesn’t give the full picture. The amount of debt that’s delinquent matters, too. When all the dollar amounts are added together, Newark residents are actually delinquent on 17.8% of their overall debt. That is the third-highest percentage in the country and why Newark ranks second in this study.

Greensboro, NC

Greensboro, NC has the third-worst debt delinquency problem, with nearly 15.5% of loans and lines of credit in the city delinquent as of Q4 2025, the second-highest percentage in the country.

When it comes to dollar amounts, Greensboro, NC residents are delinquent on 13.7% of their entire debt. This is the 13th highest percentage in the country.

Methodology

To determine the cities most delinquent on debt payments, WalletHub compared the 100 largest cities for which we could obtain a complete data set across two key metrics, listed below. We used data from Q4 2025, the latest quarter for which data is available.

• Percentage of Tradelines Delinquent in Q4 2025: Full Weight (~50.00 Points)
• Percentage of Loan Balance Delinquent in Q4 2025: Full Weight (~50.00 Points)

  Sources: Data used to create this ranking was collected as of February 25, 2026 from WalletHub’s database.

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