Bank Failures 2026: Six Banks Failed, Costing the FDIC $243M

Six banks have failed in the United States so far in 2026. They were all small institutions. Together they held roughly $1.43 billion in assets at failure, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) estimates the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will lose about $243 million of that. No failure was large enough to threaten the fund, none set off contagion, and in five of the six cases every depositor was made whole through a purchase and assumption transaction. One failure, Community Bank and Trust West Georgia, stands apart because a portion of uninsured deposits went to the receivership rather than to the assuming bank.

This explainer is the scorecard for the year. It answers the questions readers ask when the phrase "bank failures 2026" comes up: how many banks failed, how big they were, what happened to the deposits, and who ultimately bore the cost. The short version is that 2026 has been an uneventful year by post-crisis standards. That is not a prediction about the rest of the year. It is a description of the six failures that have actually occurred, drawn from the FDIC press releases that accompanied each closure.

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The FDIC is the independent agency that insures deposits at U.S. banks and credit unions. When a bank fails, the FDIC usually closes it on a Friday, markets the deposits to other institutions over the weekend, and reopens the branches under new management by Monday morning. Most failed banks are not liquidated at all. They are sold, and a healthier bank takes over the deposits and typically some of the assets. The fund absorbs the difference when the assets acquired are worth less than the deposits assumed.

The six failures so far in 2026

The table below lists every FDIC-insured bank failure of 2026 through October 6, 2026, with the figures as reported in each press release. Asset and deposit amounts are as of an institution's most recent financial report before closure, and the DIF cost is the FDIC's preliminary estimate as of the closure.

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Date	Bank	City, State	Assets	Acquirer	Est. DIF cost
Jan 30	Metropolitan Capital Bank & Trust	Chicago, IL	$261.1M	First Independence Bank	$19.7M
May 1	Community Bank and Trust West Georgia	LaGrange, GA	$288M	Anchor Bank (insured deposits only)	$97M
Jul 10	Kentland Federal Savings and Loan Association	Kentland, IN	$3.73M	Kentland Bank	$1.2M
Jul 17	Small Business Bank	Lenexa, KS	$73M	Farmers State Bank of Oakley	$5.7M
Aug 21	Tioga-Franklin Savings Bank	Philadelphia, PA	$68M	Second Federal Savings	$5.5M
Sep 25	Nano Banc	Irvine, CA	$736M	Sunwest Bank	$114M

The largest of the six was Nano Banc of Irvine, California, which failed on September 25 with $736 million in assets and roughly $686 million in deposits. It was the only 2026 failure large enough to draw standalone coverage, and it was also the one whose uninsured deposits were covered in full: Sunwest Bank agreed to assume all deposits, including those above the $250,000 insurance cap. We covered Nano Banc in detail when it happened; this piece places it in the full-year context.

The smallest was Kentland Federal Savings and Loan Association of Kentland, Indiana, a tiny institution with $3.73 million in assets that regulators closed on July 10. Its roughly $3.65 million in deposits were assumed by the unrelated Kentland Bank. Measured by assets, the six failures ranged from less than $4 million to $736 million. The median failed bank held about $70 million.

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A year of small failures, one with real losses

The pattern across 2026 is that the failures were small and isolated. The aggregate of roughly $1.43 billion in failed assets is a rounding error against a banking system with more than $24 trillion in assets, and the aggregate DIF cost of about $243 million is small relative to the fund's size. No big bank failed, no bank run spread from one institution to the next, and the closings were concentrated in community and regional institutions serving narrow customer bases.

Contrast that with 2023, when three large regional banks failed within weeks of one another: Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank. Those three alone accounted for roughly $548 billion in failed assets, more than 380 times the total for all of 2026, and their collapses forced the FDIC to invoke a systemic-risk exception to protect uninsured depositors. That was a stress event. This year, no systemic-risk exception has been necessary, because no failure came close to the threshold.

The comparison to 2008-2012 is starker still. In that wave, the FDIC closed more than 460 banks, including 157 in 2010 alone, as the aftermath of the housing and mortgage crisis rolled through lenders of every size. The problem-bank list peaked at 888 institutions in early 2010. By contrast, 2026 has produced six failures in nine months, and each has been resolved through an ordinary purchase and assumption rather than through special federal intervention.

One of the six deserves separate attention because it was the only case in which uninsured depositors were not fully covered. When Community Bank and Trust West Georgia of LaGrange failed on May 1, Anchor Bank agreed to assume substantially all insured deposits and to acquire certain assets, but it did not take the uninsured deposits. According to the FDIC's release, roughly $27 million of the bank's deposits exceeded the insurance limit, and those funds went to the receivership rather than to the assuming bank. The FDIC expects to make dividend payments to those uninsured depositors as it liquidates the receivership's assets, but it does not guarantee them full recovery on day one.

That structure matters because it is the clearest 2026 example of what insurance actually limits. The $250,000 standard maximum deposit insurance amount protects depositors dollar for dollar up to the cap. Above the cap, recovery depends on the value realized from the failed bank's assets, which is uncertain and can take months or years to pay out. Community Bank and Trust West Georgia was also the costliest of the smaller failures for the fund, with an estimated DIF cost of about $97 million, more than half of the year's total outside of Nano Banc.

The mechanics of a bank failure, once

A bank failure is a regulatory event, not a market event. The chartering authority, which is a state regulator or a federal agency such as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), declares the bank insolvent or otherwise unable to meet obligations. On a Friday, that regulator typically closes the bank and appoints the FDIC as receiver. Over the weekend, the FDIC markets the failed bank's deposits to other institutions, usually at a premium based on the franchise and the deposit base. By Monday, the assuming bank has taken over the insured deposits, and the branches reopen under new ownership.

Deposits fall into two buckets. Insured deposits, up to $250,000 per depositor per insured bank, are guaranteed by the FDIC and are transferred to the assuming bank in full. Deposits above the cap are uninsured. In a standard purchase and assumption, the acquirer may take the uninsured deposits too, which is what happened in five of this year's six failures. When the acquirer declines them, as with Community Bank and Trust West Georgia, uninsured depositors receive receivership certificates and wait for the FDIC to sell the assets and pay dividends.

The Deposit Insurance Fund is the pool of money that backstops these guarantees. It is funded by assessments on insured banks, not by taxpayer money, and it is rebuilt through those assessments and through the proceeds of failed-bank asset sales. The fund's health is measured by the reserve ratio, which is the fund balance divided by estimated insured deposits. As of the second quarter of 2026, the most recent reporting period, the fund balance was about $161.1 billion and the reserve ratio stood at 1.48 percent, above the statutory minimum of 1.35 percent that the FDIC is required to reach.

Holding-company shareholders effectively get nothing in a bank failure. The FDIC, as receiver, takes control of the failed bank's assets and uses them to pay the claims of depositors and other priority creditors before anything is left for equity. Shareholders of the bank's parent holding company sit at the end of the line, and in practice the stock of a failed bank's holding company is worth little or nothing. The FDIC press releases for 2026 did not address holding companies directly, because the failures were resolved as bank-level receiverships. But the hierarchy is standard: depositors first, general unsecured creditors next, and shareholders last, and shareholders are rarely paid at all.

What the regulators' own numbers say

The FDIC's Quarterly Banking Profile for the second quarter of 2026, the latest available, offers a broader read on industry stress. The report identifies 47 problem banks, or 1.11 percent of all insured institutions, holding roughly $25 billion in assets. That is down from 54 problem banks at the end of the first quarter. For context, during the 2008-2012 crisis there were quarters with more than 700 problem banks. A problem bank is one rated poorly on capital, asset quality, management, earnings, or liquidity; it is on the FDIC's watch list, but it is not failing, and most problem banks eventually recover rather than close.

The industry's overall health supports the picture of a low-stress year. The Quarterly Banking Profile reported positive net income for insured institutions in the second quarter, with the industry's return on assets steady. Loan growth and deposit levels remained firm. The FDIC's own summary language characterized banking conditions as stable. None of this guarantees the rest of 2026, and problem-bank numbers can rise quickly if credit conditions deteriorate, but the data as reported show an industry that is profitable and well-capitalized, with a shrinking watch list.

What to watch

The most direct leading indicator is the problem-bank list in the Quarterly Banking Profile, which the FDIC publishes about six weeks after each quarter ends. A rising count of problem banks, or a rise in the assets they hold, is a signal that more failures may follow. The third-quarter 2026 report, due later this year, will be the first to show whether the second-quarter decline in problem banks held.

The DIF reserve ratio is the second number to watch. The FDIC is required to keep the ratio at or above 1.35 percent, and it was comfortably above that at 1.48 percent in the second quarter. If failures accelerated to the point that the ratio began to fall toward the statutory floor, insured institutions would face higher assessment rates and the market would treat banking risk as rising. A stable or rising ratio is a sign of a quiet year.

Finally, watch the supervisory inputs that precede failures: enforcement actions issued by the FDIC, the OCC, and the Federal Reserve, and actions by state banking regulators. Banks that receive cease-and-desist orders or capital directives are the population from which future failures usually come. Community Bank and Trust West Georgia, Kentland Federal, and the others each had regulatory flags before closure, though the specific documents are not all public. Institutional observers track these actions because they lead failure by months, not days.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is my money safe in a bank?

Your deposits are insured by the FDIC up to $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, per ownership category. That covers checking, savings, and money market accounts, and certificates of deposit, and it is backed by the Deposit Insurance Fund. For the vast majority of depositors, a bank failure does not interrupt access to their insured funds; in the standard transaction, the assuming bank takes over the deposits and the branches reopen within days. If you hold more than $250,000 at one bank, the excess is at risk unless the acquirer agrees to assume it, which happened in five of the six 2026 failures.

What happens to my uninsured deposits if my bank fails?

Deposits above the $250,000 insurance cap are uninsured. If the acquiring bank assumes all deposits, as Sunwest Bank did for Nano Banc, the uninsured amounts are covered in full. If the acquirer declines them, as Anchor Bank did for Community Bank and Trust West Georgia's excess deposits, the uninsured funds go to the FDIC receivership, and you receive a percentage as the receivership sells assets, potentially over months or years. The FDIC does not guarantee full recovery of uninsured deposits.

How many banks failed in 2025?

Two FDIC-insured banks failed in 2025. Pulaski Savings Bank of Chicago was closed on January 17 and its deposits assumed by Millennium Bank. The Santa Anna National Bank of Santa Anna, Texas, closed on June 27 with deposits assumed by Coleman County State Bank. Both were small community banks, and the total of two was itself a low number by historical standards. 2026, with six failures through early October, is running modestly above that, but still within the ordinary range for a non-crisis year.

What is the Deposit Insurance Fund?

The Deposit Insurance Fund is the pool the FDIC uses to pay insured depositors when a bank fails. It is funded by assessments on insured banks, not by taxpayer dollars, and is rebuilt through those assessments plus the proceeds from selling failed banks' assets. As of the second quarter of 2026 the fund stood at about $161.1 billion, a reserve ratio of 1.48 percent. The FDIC is required by law to maintain a reserve ratio of at least 1.35 percent.