How Long Do Charge-Offs Stay on Your Credit Report?

Charge-offs stay on your credit report for seven years, and the answer to how long charge-offs stay on your credit report doesn’t change if you pay the balance, settle it, or ignore it. The clock is set by federal law and runs from the date you first fell behind, not the date the lender wrote the account off its books. Once seven years pass from that original delinquency, the entry has to come off all three credit reports.

When the Seven-Year Clock Starts

The Fair Credit Reporting Act fixes the start date to the moment you first became delinquent on the account and never caught up. The statute ties the seven-year period to “the expiration of the 180-day period beginning on the date of the commencement of the delinquency which immediately preceded the collection activity, charge to profit and loss, or similar action.”¹ In plain terms, the charge-off falls off about seven years and six months after that first missed payment.

This matters because lenders don’t usually charge off an account until 120 to 180 days after you miss a payment. The earlier date still controls. If you missed a January payment and the lender charged the account off in July, January anchors the timeline.

You can find this date on your credit report, usually labeled “original delinquency date” or shown in the payment history grid. If the report instead treats the later charge-off date as the start of the seven-year window, that’s an error worth disputing.

The Same Limit Applies to All Three Bureaus

The seven-year cap is federal, so Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax should all drop the entry around the same time.² Seven years is the ceiling, not a floor. Some creditors stop reporting earlier, though that’s uncommon for larger balances. No state law, private agreement, or collection agency can push the reporting window past the federal limit.

Does Paying the Charge-Off Reset the Clock?

No. Paying or settling updates the status shown on the entry, so a manual reviewer sees “paid in full” or “settled” instead of an open balance, but the removal date stays anchored to the original delinquency.

Moving that anchor forward is called re-aging, and federal law forbids it. Creditors cannot alter the date of first delinquency after a partial payment, a new repayment plan, or a settlement.¹ If the delinquency date on your report shifts forward after you make a payment, dispute it right away.

When the Debt Is Sold to a Collection Agency

Creditors often sell charged-off debts, sometimes for pennies on the dollar. When that happens, a separate collection account can appear alongside the original charge-off. Two entries for the same underlying debt is alarming to see but not necessarily wrong: the original creditor reports the charge-off, and the debt buyer reports the collection.

What the new owner cannot do is change the date of first delinquency. The seven-year period stays tied to the original missed payment no matter how many times the debt changes hands.¹ A debt buyer that reports a more recent delinquency date is re-aging the account. Dispute it with the credit bureau, and consider reporting the collector to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Exceptions Where Older Charge-Offs Can Still Surface

The seven-year limit has narrow exceptions built into the same statute. The time restriction on negative information does not apply when your report is pulled in connection with:

A credit transaction involving a principal amount of $150,000 or more
The underwriting of a life insurance policy with a face amount of $150,000 or more
Employment at an annual salary of $75,000 or more

In those situations, the lender, insurer, or employer pulling your report could see charge-offs older than seven years.¹ Anyone applying for a mortgage or a high-limit credit card can run into this, so an old charge-off may still come up in those contexts even after the standard window closes.

Medical Charge-Offs Follow the Same Rule

Medical debt is subject to the same seven-year federal rule. On top of that, the three bureaus voluntarily stopped including medical collection accounts under $500 on credit reports in 2023, so smaller medical charge-offs may not appear at all. A CFPB rule finalized in early 2025 would have removed all medical debt from credit reports, but a federal court vacated it in July 2025, finding it exceeded the agency’s authority under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.³ Medical collections of $500 or more are reported under the standard rules.

If a Charge-Off Doesn’t Fall Off on Schedule

Credit bureaus use automated systems to purge expired entries, and most charge-offs disappear on time without any action from you. The systems miss things, though, and stale entries sometimes linger.

If a charge-off is still on your report after the seven-year window has closed, file a dispute with each bureau still showing it. Disputes can be submitted online, by mail, or by phone. The bureau generally has 30 days to investigate and respond, and if it can’t verify that the information is still eligible for reporting, it must delete the entry.⁴ The window can stretch to 45 days in some situations, such as when you submit additional evidence during the investigation or file after receiving your free annual report.⁵

If the dispute produces a correction, the bureau must send you a free copy of the updated report and, at your request, notify anyone who received your report in the past six months.⁴ The three major bureaus now provide free weekly access to your credit report through AnnualCreditReport.com on a permanent basis, so checking as the seven-year mark approaches is straightforward.⁶

Two Separate Clocks People Confuse With This One

The Statute of Limitations for a Lawsuit

The credit reporting period is not the same as the statute of limitations for suing on a debt. They run independently. Most states set the lawsuit deadline for credit card and similar consumer debts between three and six years, though some states are longer. Once it expires, a collector who files suit is violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.⁷

Here the difference matters. A payment cannot restart the credit reporting clock, but in many states it can restart the statute of limitations for a lawsuit. A partial payment, or even a written acknowledgment of the debt, may give the creditor a fresh window to sue. Before paying anything on an old charge-off, check your state’s rule so you don’t reopen a legal window that had already closed. Collectors can still contact you by phone or mail after the statute of limitations expires, as long as they don’t threaten or file suit.⁷

Possible Tax Consequences

If a creditor cancels $600 or more of debt, it is required to send you Form 1099-C reporting the canceled amount, and you generally have to report that amount as income for the year of cancellation.⁸ An exception applies if you were insolvent when the debt was canceled, meaning your total debts exceeded the fair market value of everything you owned. You can exclude the canceled amount up to the amount by which you were insolvent.⁹ To claim it, file IRS Form 982, check the box on line 1b, and enter the excluded amount on line 2.¹⁰ Debt discharged in bankruptcy is excluded automatically and without the insolvency cap.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S.C. 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
2
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act
3
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB Finalizes Rule to Remove Medical Bills From Credit Reports
4
Federal Trade Commission. Disputing Errors on Your Credit Reports
5
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Long Does It Take to Repair an Error on a Credit Report
6
Federal Trade Commission. You Now Have Permanent Access to Free Weekly Credit Reports
7
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Can Debt Collectors Collect a Debt Thats Several Years Old
8
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 1099-A and 1099-C
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S.C. 108 – Income From Discharge of Indebtedness
10
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 982