Bankruptcy Filings Scraper - Chapter 11 Dockets (CourtListener)

Extract federal business bankruptcy dockets (Chapter 11 reorganizations, Chapter 7 liquidations, and Chapter 15 cross-border insolvencies) from the CourtListener RECAP archive via the official REST API v4. Filter by bankruptcy court district, filing date window, company keyword, and corporate entity markers.

Required: a free CourtListener API token. CourtListener has disabled anonymous access to its search API — runs without a token now fail immediately with an explanatory message. A free account at courtlistener.com gives you a token (API help); paste it into courtListenerApiToken. With a token, if CourtListener answers HTTP 429 (too many requests), the run stops early and its status message starts with PARTIAL.

What it does

Commercial bankruptcy petitions filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Courts—especially in major restructuring venues such as Delaware (deb), New Jersey (njb), the Southern District of Texas (txsb), and the Southern District of New York (nysb)—signal immediate restructuring, DIP financing, § 363 asset sale, and vendor claim opportunities.

This Actor:

• Queries the CourtListener REST API v4 RECAP search endpoint (https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/search/?type=r) with cursor pagination and automatic rate-limiting (at most 2 requests/second).
• Filters directly by Bankruptcy Code chapter (11, 7, 15, or 13) and court district (courtIds).
• Enforces a privacy-first businessOnly filter (true by default) that keeps only dockets whose caseName includes a recognized business entity marker (LLC, Inc, Corp, Co., LP, LLP, Ltd, Holdings, Group, Company, Partners, Trust, etc.) and blocks individual Chapter 13 wage-earner filings.
• Outputs normalized docket records with docketId, docketNumber, caseName, chapter, courtId, courtName, dateFiled, dateTerminated, assignedJudge, cause, natureOfSuit, pacerCaseId, and docketUrl.

Who it's for

• Restructuring advisors, turnaround consultants, and investment banks tracking new Chapter 11 and Chapter 15 petitions.
• Distressed debt investors and § 363 asset buyers identifying commercial debtors across key bankruptcy districts.
• Commercial credit, trade creditor, and supply-chain risk teams monitoring vendor or customer insolvency filings.
• Bankruptcy and commercial litigation law firms monitoring new docket activity by court and judge.

Input

• chapters (array of strings) — Bankruptcy chapters to include: "11" (Reorganization), "7" (Liquidation), "15" (Cross-Border), "13" (Individual Adjustment — never allowed when businessOnly is true). Default: ["11"].
• businessOnly (boolean) — Defaults to true to keep only cases with business entity markers in caseName and exclude consumer filings.
• courtIds (array of strings) — CourtListener bankruptcy court IDs. Default: ["deb", "njb", "txsb", "nysb"]. Leave empty ([]) to search all federal bankruptcy courts.
• filedDateFrom (string, YYYY-MM-DD) — Start of docket filing date window. Defaults to 14 days before filedDateTo.
• filedDateTo (string, YYYY-MM-DD) — End of docket filing date window. Defaults to today (UTC).
• query (string) — Optional keyword or company name filter. Default: "".
• courtListenerApiToken (string, secret) — Required free CourtListener API token (Authorization: Token <token>). CourtListener has disabled anonymous search access, so runs without a token fail immediately with an explanatory message. Get a free token from courtlistener.com (up to 5,000 requests/hour).
• maxItems (integer) — Maximum dockets to return. Default: 200.

Example input JSON

{
  "chapters": ["11"],
  "businessOnly": true,
  "courtIds": ["deb", "njb", "txsb", "nysb"],
  "filedDateFrom": "2026-10-09",
  "filedDateTo": "2026-10-23",
  "query": "",
  "maxItems": 200
}

Example run options (default max charge $50)

Set a default maximum charge of $50 ("maxTotalChargeUsd": 50) in your run options:

{
  "maxTotalChargeUsd": 50
}

Output

Results are deduplicated by docketId and sorted newest first by dateFiled descending.

Field	Type	Description
docketId	integer | string	Unique CourtListener RECAP docket ID.
docketNumber	string | null	Bankruptcy court docket number (e.g. 26-12345).
caseName	string | null	Debtor / case name.
chapter	string | null	Bankruptcy Code chapter (7, 11, 13, 15).
courtId	string | null	CourtListener court identifier (deb, txsb, nysb, njb, etc.).
courtName	string | null	Full name of the federal bankruptcy court.
dateFiled	string | null	Petition filing date (YYYY-MM-DD).
dateTerminated	string | null	Case termination date (YYYY-MM-DD) or null if active.
assignedJudge	string | null	Assigned bankruptcy judge name.
cause	string | null	Statutory cause if populated.
natureOfSuit	string | null	Nature of suit if populated.
pacerCaseId	string | null	PACER internal case ID.
docketUrl	string	Direct URL to the docket on courtlistener.com.
source	string	Always "CourtListener RECAP".

Sample output row (synthetic example)

Sample row (fictitious: debtor, judge and numbers are made up):

{
  "docketId": 99999999,
  "docketNumber": "26-10999",
  "caseName": "Example Logistics Holdings, LLC",
  "chapter": "11",
  "courtId": "deb",
  "courtName": "United States Bankruptcy Court, D. Delaware",
  "dateFiled": "2026-10-22",
  "dateTerminated": null,
  "assignedJudge": "Jane Q. Example",
  "cause": null,
  "natureOfSuit": null,
  "pacerCaseId": "500123",
  "docketUrl": "https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/99999999/example-logistics-holdings-llc/",
  "source": "CourtListener RECAP"
}

How pricing works

Pay per result. You only pay for rows returned. Set "maxTotalChargeUsd": 50 in your run options to cap spend automatically.

Data source and terms

• Credit & Official Source: Data from CourtListener, a project of the Free Law Project (REST API v4 Documentation).
• RECAP coverage note: The RECAP Archive holds federal court dockets and documents that have been contributed by RECAP extension users or public court feeds from PACER; therefore, it is not a complete census of every PACER filing.
• Affiliation disclaimer: This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by CourtListener, the Free Law Project, PACER, or the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Compliance

This Actor is designed strictly for commercial B2B research, restructuring analysis, and corporate credit monitoring. This Actor is not for consumer debt marketing, consumer collection, or credit/employment/tenant eligibility determinations under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) or the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). No party or attorney personal contact details are scraped. Buyers are responsible for complying with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), the National Do-Not-Call Registry, the CAN-SPAM Act, and all applicable federal and state privacy laws before any business outreach.

Limits and FAQ

• Do I need a CourtListener API token? Yes. CourtListener has disabled anonymous access to its search API (unauthenticated requests now return HTTP 401), so the run fails immediately with an explanatory message if no token is supplied. A token is free: create an account at courtlistener.com, copy the token from your profile, and pass it in courtListenerApiToken to unlock up to 5,000 requests/hour. If CourtListener answers HTTP 429 during a large pull, the run returns the rows collected so far, flagged PARTIAL in the status message.
• Why is Chapter 13 blocked when businessOnly is true? Chapter 13 ("Adjustment of Debts of an Individual with Regular Income") applies exclusively to individual consumers under 11 U.S.C. § 109(e).

Changelog

• v0.3 (2026-10-27): Buyer-token model only: runs use the CourtListener API token supplied in courtListenerApiToken; no account token is attached to this version, so tokenless runs fail immediately as documented. PARTIAL status messages now end with the Issues-tab call to action, the rate-limit message names the token's hourly quota, and the max-charge stop is reported as PARTIAL. No other behavior changed.
• v0.2 (2026-10-27): CourtListener disabled anonymous access to its search API (unauthenticated requests return HTTP 401; the previous build surfaced this as a raw HTTP error). A CourtListener API token is now required: runs without one fail immediately with an explanatory message instead of a raw API error, a rejected token is reported as such, and the token can also be supplied via the COURTLISTENER_API_TOKEN environment variable. No other behavior changed.
• v0.1 (2026-10-23): Initial release with CourtListener REST API v4 cursor pagination, chapter query pushdown, and businessOnly entity filtering.