Several popular U.S. companies filed for bankruptcy in 2025 as economic pressures continued to weigh on retailers, restaurant operators, and manufacturers. Rising inflation and shifting consumer habits have hit pharmacy chains, jewelry retailers, automotive suppliers, fragrance brands, and restaurant operators particularly hard.

10 Popular Companies That Filed for Bankruptcy in 2025

​Several well-known U.S. brands filed for bankruptcy in 2025, including Joann Fabrics, Forever 21, Rite Aid, Claire’s, and IMG Holdings. These filings highlight how even long-standing and widely recognized businesses are navigating financial strain, with some using Chapter 11 as a path to restructure and survive.

1. Joann Fabrics​

Posted on: December 19, 2025, 09:56h. 

Last updated on: December 19, 2025, 09:56h.

• Nebraska’s casinos are helping the state recoup outstanding debts
• More than $215K in overdue child support has been secured through gambling winnings

Nebraska’s newly liberalized casino market is helping reduce property taxes for homeowners across the Cornhusker State. The racetrack slot machines, table games, and sportsbooks are additionally helping needy kids whose parents are behind on child support payments.

Ernest Hemingway famously described the process of going bankrupt as something that happens “gradually, then suddenly”, a phrase more pithily misremembered as “slowly, then all at once”. When it comes to the public sector, this second version really seems to be the case.

Before 2018, no UK council had issued a section 114 notice – the local government version of bankruptcy – for more than 16 years. Since then, 13 such notices have been issued, with many more councils reportedly on the brink after years of cuts. One of those to fall was Birmingham, by far the largest council in the country, affecting the service of millions of Brits.

When the dominoes started to fall in local government, it surprised absolutely no-one…

London-listed investment firm Agronomics has confirmed that its portfolio company Meatable will undergo liquidation after failing to secure continued financial backing. All operating activities at the cultivated meat startup will be terminated, and its legal entity dissolved under statutory procedures.

The decision follows an extended period in which Meatable faced multiple operational and financial challenges throughout 2025. Despite efforts to explore strategic options, the company was unable to raise sufficient funding from either existing shareholders or new investors.

Agronomics, which specializes in investments in cellular…

Another company that made big claims about its ability to scale and deploy EV battery swapping stations has just gone bankrupt – and, frankly, it’s not too surprising that it has.

Ample is a company that made big claims about its EV battery swapping technology. It claimed to have designed autonomous battery swapping stations that would be rapidly deployable, cheap to build, and could adapt to any EV design with a modular battery which would be easy for manufacturers to use.

An Ample battery swap would take around 5 minutes and cost as little as $13, the company said.

The plan was to use this technology to scale up EV charging much faster than traditional charging stations, with…

1. Main messages for England and Wales

• The number of registered company insolvencies in England and Wales was
  1,866 in November 2025, 8% lower than in October 2025 (2,034) and 7%
  lower than the same month in the previous year (2,001 in November
  2024). Monthly company insolvency numbers so far in 2025 have been
  slightly higher than in 2024, but lower than in 2023, which saw a
  30-year high annual number of insolvencies.

• Company insolvencies in November 2025 consisted of 250 compulsory
  liquidations, 1,461 creditors’ voluntary liquidations (CVLs), 136
  administrations, 18 company voluntary arrangements (CVAs) and one
  receivership appointment. The number of compulsory liquidations was
  21% lower than October 2025 and…

The Eindhoven startup Alphabeats, which developed a mental training app that allowed users to influence their brain activity through music, has been declared bankrupt. The Oost-Brabant court made that decision this week. The company had hoped for a breakthrough through a collaboration with Apple, but that didn’t happen. As a result, it was unable to achieve sufficient scale to cover its costs, according to reports in the Eindhovens Dagblad newspaper. Alphabeats won a Gerard & Anton award in 2023.

Alphabeats was founded by Han Dirkx and Jur Vellema and was based at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven. The company developed an app that subtly adjusted music based on brain waves measured via a headband. The goal: to bring users into a deep…