2026 US bank failures reach six, but contrast sharply with 2023

So far in 2026, six U.S. banks have failed—one more than in 2023—which is practically enough for another banking-crisis headline to write itself.

However, before we start flashing back to Silicon Valley Bank, it is worth examining what those six institutions actually held: roughly $1.43 billion in combined assets, compared to about $552.54 billion at the banks that collapsed in 2023, according to historical data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Treating every bank closure equally yields a perfectly accurate headcount while offering a terrible sense of scale. This year’s tally includes a lender holding $3.73 million in assets, which counts just as much in the final tally as an institution the size of SVB.

Meanwhile, the latest FDIC industry assessment points to stronger profitability and a smaller problem bank list. That does not mean the six failures were inconsequential, nor that every surviving lender is thriving, but anyone pushing a 2023 rerun has some justifying to do.

The Sept. 25 closure of Nano Banc brought the total to six and marked the largest failure of the year to date. The Irvine, California-based lender reported $736 million in assets, with the FDIC estimating a $114 million hit to its Deposit Insurance Fund.

Someone will absorb that loss, but a price tag attached to a single failed institution does not mean the rest of the banking sector is bound to follow.

Six is bigger than five (until you look inside)

Annual FDIC records show four failures in 2020, zero in 2021 and 2022, five in 2023, and two each in 2024 and 2025. Through Sept. 25, this year has outpaced every annual total of the 2020s, which sounds far worse than it actually is.

Consider Kentland Federal Savings and Loan Association, identified by the FDIC as the nation’s smallest standalone bank at the time of its closure. Its $3.73 million in assets carries the exact same weight as Silicon Valley Bank on a chart of bank failures, simply because that chart counts institutions rather than dollars.

Relying on it to gauge financial distress assigns an outsized role to a tiny bank.

Because the $552.54 billion figure for 2023 and this year’s $1.43 billion stem from balance sheets reported on different dates, they cannot be turned into a precise ratio. Fortunately, no exact ratio is required to recognize that the amounts belong in entirely different discussions, even if six is technically greater than five.

The FDIC’s problem-bank list introduces another variable because it tracks operating institutions based on their condition at a specific point in time. Banks land on this roster when examiners assign one of the two lowest overall ratings for financial, operational, or managerial deficiencies—a far more rigorous diagnosis than simply having a rough week on the stock market.

The second-quarter assessment placed 47 banks on that list as of June 30, down from 54 in March and 60 at the close of 2025. These institutions accounted for roughly 1.1% of insured lenders, staying comfortably within the FDIC’s typical non-crisis baseline of 1% to 2%.

This does not grant the industry a clean bill of health, as a bank can exit the list via failure just as easily as through recovery or a merger. Because the failure count accumulates closures over the course of the year while the problem list provides a snapshot of currently open institutions, it is entirely normal for one metric to grow while the other shrinks.

The timeline also complicates any casual mental math. Four of this year’s six failures occurred between July and September, falling outside the June snapshot, but subtracting four from 47 will not reveal the exact number of troubled banks remaining.

The exact roster of banks entering or leaving the list in the interim is not fully known, and published totals do not name the specific institutions.

Some banks were broken long before the headline

The documentation behind these closures points to institutions that had been struggling for quite some time. Illinois regulators reported that Metropolitan Capital suffered from impaired capital and unsafe conditions, while Kansas authorities noted years of ongoing financial distress at Small Business Bank.

At the Kansas institution, persistent operational losses eroded its capital until it became critically undercapitalized. Capital serves as the buffer absorbing losses before creditors take a hit, and a bank caught in a continuous cycle of losses can exhaust that cushion even while the broader industry enjoys a stellar quarter.

Other institutions’ profits do nothing to replenish a struggling bank’s capital, and Kentland reached a comparable breaking point. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency determined that unsafe practices had depleted its assets and earnings, leaving no realistic path to restoring adequate capital.

Tioga-Franklin faced a prior FDIC consent order addressing deficiencies in management, capital planning, liquidity, and credit administration. It agreed to the order without admitting or denying the findings, indicating that supervisors had spotted warning signs well before its August failure, though the exact catalyst remains unconfirmed.

Less is known about the comprehensive financial picture at Community Bank and Trust – West Georgia. The state’s closure notice invoked the authority to take possession without providing an exhaustive financial breakdown, and an FDIC inspector general review of material losses is currently underway.

Assuming it shared the exact same root cause as the other failures would stretch the evidence further than it supports.

Nano likewise carried an extensive regulatory history. California Business and Consumer Services Secretary Rohit Chopra highlighted repeated violations and prior enforcement actions targeting poor management, alongside a heavy concentration of uninsured deposits.

Account holders with balances exceeding the insurance threshold face much higher exposure if a bank fails, giving them an incentive to pull their funds at the first sign of doubt.

One can acknowledge all of this without viewing the six banks as a row of falling dominoes. The records point to unresolved vulnerabilities at individual institutions rather than proving a shared funding shock or a domino effect where one collapse triggers the next.

Grouping them together in a table does not forge a financial link between them.

Broader metrics likewise contradict the narrative of widespread small-bank doom. According to second-quarter FDIC data, community banks posted an 8.2% increase in earnings compared to the prior quarter, while industry-wide profits reached $90.1 billion.

The regulator characterized capital and liquidity as robust, leaving ample room for a handful of distressed institutions within a highly profitable industry.

The losses are real even when the apocalypse isn’t

None of this implies that a bank failure is inconsequential for the individuals directly affected.

Nano’s estimated $114 million insurance-fund expense is a tangible financial consequence, even though Sunwest Bank agreed to assume virtually all of its deposits and acquire approximately $476 million of its assets.

The FDIC retained the remaining assets for liquidation, assuring customers they could continue using checks and debit cards throughout the closure weekend.

Those clients were able to pay their bills even as the receivership absorbed a loss, illustrating that uninterrupted deposit access and the final resolution cost are distinct matters.

The FDIC’s projections can shift as retained assets are sold, and the $1.43 billion in combined assets across the six banks should not be viewed as money that vanished into thin air. Loans can still be serviced, and securities can still be sold following an institution’s collapse.

Tioga-Franklin’s buyer assumed all deposits, whereas the West Georgia transaction transferred essentially all *insured* deposits, omitting specific brokered accounts.

Georgia authorities stated that depositors with balances above the insurance limit would receive notices detailing their rights as uninsured creditors—a vastly different experience from discovering another bank’s logo has replaced your old one.

CryptoSlate’s coverage of the year’s initial bank failure touched on wider banking vulnerabilities, but drawing a straight line from a failing lender to the crypto sector requires concrete proof. Whose funds were parked at the institution, and what activities were disrupted when it shut down?

In 2023, Circle held $3.3 billion in USDC reserves at Silicon Valley Bank, giving stablecoin holders a direct cause for concern regarding access to a portion of their token backing. The Federal Reserve’s post-mortem on that collapse mapped out that exact transmission channel from banking stress to stablecoins.

This year’s tally does not inherently establish an equivalent connection. Clear evidence of disclosed crypto deposits at a failed lender, or the disruption of payment-processing services, would be necessary to evaluate tangible impacts.

Merely adding another tick to the failure column does not reveal whose reserves are locked up or which businesses have been cut off from cash.

There remain valid reasons to monitor the banking sector closely, such as tracking whether deposit outflows spread across institutions or if lenders face escalating funding hurdles. The assets sitting on the problem-bank list also warrant scrutiny, as a shrinking list can still harbor higher volumes of risk.

Comparing six failures to five answers none of those underlying questions.

Anyone arguing for a repeat of 2023 must demonstrate how instability is actively transmitting through currently operating banks. Until the evidence shows otherwise, six failed institutions simply indicate that six lenders could not survive; using a simple headcount to pass judgment on the entire financial system asks a tally to do the work of a balance sheet.