How long a debt stays on your credit report
How long debt and collections stay on a United States credit report: most negatives run seven years from the delinquency, even after you pay.
How long a debt stays on your credit report is a file rule, not a rule that the debt disappeared. In the United States, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. §1681c, tells a consumer reporting agency when it must stop including most negative information. For an account placed for collection or charged off, the period is seven years, and that seven years does not start on the day you pay. It starts at the end of the 180-day period that begins on the date of the delinquency which immediately preceded the collection, the charge-off, or a similar action.
Other countries asked this question differently. Suggest strings include Canada, the United Kingdom, Scotland, Ontario, and Alberta. This page does not state those reporting periods. They are set by those countries’ laws. Texas and California appear in the same suggestion list. The seven-year structure below is federal law in the United States. It is not a Texas schedule or a California schedule. The deadline to file a lawsuit is local law, and this page does not print those deadlines.
How long a debt stays on your credit report
Section 1681c(a) is a list of items a consumer report generally may not contain once they are too old. Bankruptcies under the bankruptcy code may not be reported for more than 10 years from the date of the order for relief or the date of adjudication. Civil suits, civil judgments, and records of arrest are generally limited to seven years, or until the governing statute of limitations has expired, whichever is longer. Paid tax liens are generally limited to seven years from the date of payment. Accounts placed for collection or charged to profit and loss are limited to seven years. Any other adverse item, other than criminal convictions, is also generally limited to seven years.
The seven-year collection rule has a start date in subsection (c). The period begins, for a delinquent account that is placed for collection or charged off, upon the expiration of the 180-day period beginning on the date of the commencement of the delinquency which immediately preceded that collection or charge-off. Counted from the delinquency, the statute’s outer measure is seven years plus 180 days. A chart that says “seven years from the day you missed the payment, and not a day more” is shorter than the text. A chart that starts the seven years on the day a collector bought the debt is measuring the wrong event.
There are exceptions. Paragraphs (a)(1) through (a)(5) do not apply to a report used for a credit transaction involving a principal amount of $150,000 or more, to life insurance underwriting of $150,000 or more, or to employment at an annual salary of $75,000 or more. Those are the statute’s numbers, not a suggestion that a large loan should still show an obsolete collection. They are a reason not to describe the time limit as absolute in every report.
After you pay it off
How long does a debt stay on your credit report after paying it off? For the rest of the same reporting period, if the item was already a collection or a charge-off. Payment can update the status to paid or settled. Payment is not a delete button, and it is not a new start date. A paid collection is still an adverse item for as long as the statute allows that item to appear. Whether paying moves a score, and what pay-for-delete actually is, is in I paid a collection.
How long do collections stay on a credit report after they are paid is the same answer. The charge-off and the collection are file events. The balance can go to zero and the tradeline can remain, with a paid status, until the reporting period ends. Someone who promises that paying will “remove it in 30 days” is describing a side deal this statute does not require. If the furnisher agrees to a change, the file changes because the furnisher updated it. The seven-year rule did not become a 30-day rule.
A debt you are still paying on time is not this section. An open installment loan in good standing can be reported as a positive tradeline well past seven years. The seven-year limit is about adverse information, not about the existence of a debt.
The lawsuit clock is not the reporting clock
A statute of limitations is the time local law allows for a lawsuit. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau describes it as a limit on using the courts, not as the day the debt evaporates. Many state periods fall between three and six years. Some are longer. The length depends on the state, the kind of debt, and sometimes on the law named in the contract. In some states the clock runs from the missed payment. In others a later payment can start it again. Federal student loans are treated differently. The CFPB says some debts, including federal student loans, do not have this kind of cutoff.
This site will not print a fifty-state table. It prints a period only when the statute was read and dated. Those notes are in the statute of limitations hub, currently Texas, California, Florida, New York, and Illinois. A Texas or California number is not the reporting rule. The phrase on the ledger is REPORTING:7Y for the federal file period. The lawsuit line is SOL:STATE-VARIES, which means the deadline depends on local law. Read the statute of limitations entry for the distinction. Read a lawyer in the relevant place before you pay an old balance in order to “reset” a lawsuit clock. A payment can restart that clock in some states. This page is not that advice.
Lawsuit deadline and credit-report period are different clocks. This is not a ruling.
The lawsuit clock may have run. The reporting clock is a different clock.
Texas lists 4 years for credit card under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.004(a)(3). Counting months from the date you entered, that period looks expired. That is not a ruling. Accrual, choice of law, and revival can move the date. For a debt buyer, Texas Finance Code § 392.307 says a payment or agreement that the debt is owed does not revive the limitations period. That section is about debt buyers. It is not a general rule for every original creditor. How long the item stays on a United States credit report is 15 U.S.C. §1681c, generally seven years plus up to 180 days from the delinquency, even after you pay.
Write a debt validation letter
State lawsuit-deadline notes · How long a debt stays on a credit report
Under Regulation F, 12 C.F.R. § 1006.26, a debt collector must not bring or threaten a lawsuit on a time-barred debt. Collectors may still ask to be paid, if they do not break that rule. A lawsuit filed after the period is a problem under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and a person who is sued still has to raise the deadline. Missing the court date can mean a judgment even when the debt was old. That is court procedure. It is not a sentence in a credit-report dispute.
What a letter can and cannot do
Disputing an item that is too old to report is a request that the bureau reinvestigate the file under 15 U.S.C. §1681i. The letter on this site, described in how to dispute a credit report error, asks for that check. It does not start or stop a lawsuit deadline, and it does not promise a deletion. If the date of delinquency on the file is wrong, say so and attach the record that shows the right date. If the date is right and the period has not run, the item can stay.
A freeze does not age an item off either. How to freeze your credit limits many new pulls. The collection remains in the file for the reporting period. The score, if a model is still allowed to see the item, can still use it. How many points that is, this page will not invent.
Separate the reporting clock from the lawsuit clock
- Find the delinquency that started the collection. For a collection or charge-off, the statute uses the date of the delinquency that immediately preceded the collection or charge-off. The date you paid is not that date.
- Add the statute’s 180 days, then seven years. The seven-year reporting period begins when that 180-day period ends. Measured from the delinquency, the outer limit is seven years plus 180 days. Do not treat a round “seven years from today” as the statute.
- Keep the lawsuit deadline in a different column. The time to sue is state law, or another country’s law. It can be shorter than the reporting period. Paying, or promising to pay, can restart it in some places. This page does not print a state table.
- Dispute only what the file got wrong. An item that is too old to report is a dispute about the file. A claim that a lawsuit is time-barred is a defense in that lawsuit. One letter does not do both jobs.
Questions
How long does a debt stay on your credit report after you pay it off?
Paying does not restart the reporting clock. For a collection or charge-off, the seven-year period in United States law is tied to the delinquency that led to the collection, not to the date you later paid.
How long do collections stay on a credit report?
Under 15 U.S.C. §1681c, an account placed for collection generally may not be reported once it is more than seven years old, and that seven years starts at the end of a 180-day period beginning on the delinquency. A paid collection can remain for the rest of that period.
Does seven years mean the debt is cancelled?
No. Seven years is a rule about consumer reports in the United States. Whether someone can still sue is a separate deadline under local law. In many states that deadline is a few years, and it is not the reporting period.
Sources
- 15 U.S.C. §1681c — Fair Credit Reporting Act §605, via the Legal Information Institute
- Can debt collectors collect a debt that’s several years old? — Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
- 12 C.F.R. § 1006.26 — Collection of time-barred debts — Regulation F, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Related
Educational reference only. Not financial or legal advice. Laws differ by country. A guide that cites a statute names that country.