US Consumer Debt Delinquencies Soar To Highest Since 2017 While Office Delinquencies Hit Record High

ZeroHedge, Feb 10, 2026 – Excerpts:

It will come as a surprise to exactly nobody that the Fed’s latest quarterly Household Debt and Credit report (for Q4 2025) reported total household debt balances increased by $191 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025, a 1% rise from 2025 Q3, to a new all-time high. Balances now stand at $18.8 trillion and have increased by $4.6 trillion since the end of 2019, just before the pandemic recession. 

This is how various debt balances changed through the quarter: 

• Mortgage balances shown on consumer credit reports grew by $98 billion during the fourth quarter of 2025 and totaled $13.17 trillion at the end of December.
• Balances on home equity lines of credit (HELOC) rose by $12 billion, the 15th consecutive quarterly increase.There is now $433 billion in outstanding HELOC balances, $116 billion above the low reached in 2022Q1. In total, non-housing balances increased by $81 billion, a 1.6% increase from 2025Q3.
• Credit card balances rose by $44 billion during the fourth quarter and now total $1.28 trillion outstanding, up 5.5% since last year.
• Student loan balances increased by $11 billion and now stand at $1.66 trillion.
• Auto loan balances edged up by $12 billion to $1.66 trillion.
• Other balances, which include retail cards and consumer finance loans, rose by $14 billion and now total $564 billion.

New debt originations were also solid in the quarter:

• The volume of mortgage originations, which includes both refinance and purchase originations, increased with $524 billion newly originated in 2025 Q4, an uptick from the $512 billion seen in the previous quarter. It was the highest since 2022 when rates were far lower. 

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Taking a closer look at some of the negative changes below the surface, delinquency rates on loans ranging from mortgages to credit cards rose to 4.8% of all outstanding US household debt in the fourth quarter, up 0.3% sine Q3 2025 and the highest level since 2017, driven by higher defaults among low-income and young borrowers.

As Bloomberg notes, while the overall share of loans in some stage of default is near pre-pandemic averages, the rise in delinquencies among the lowest earners adds to evidence of an increasingly K-shaped economy, and nowhere was it more obvious than in the case of student loans – where with the Biden repayment moratorium has been over for the past year – we have seen a tsunami of both early delinquencies, with 16.3% of student-loan debt became delinquent in Q4 the biggest increase on record in data going back to 2004…

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