A collection account stays on your credit report for seven years, and that answers how long a collection stays on your credit report in almost every case. The clock starts 180 days after the first missed payment with the original creditor, not when the debt was handed off to a collection agency.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports Paying the debt doesn’t shorten that window. Selling the debt doesn’t lengthen it. Once seven years pass, the credit bureaus have to drop the entry.
When the Seven-Year Clock Starts
The countdown is tied to a single fixed date: the date of first delinquency. That’s the first payment you missed with the original creditor in the chain of missed payments that led to the collection. The Fair Credit Reporting Act then adds a 180-day offset before the seven years begin to run.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
A simple example. If you missed your first payment in January 2020, the clock started in July 2020. The collection has to come off your credit report by July 2027. It doesn’t matter if the debt was sold three times in between or if a new collection agency added its own tradeline last year. The removal date is anchored to that original January 2020 miss.
You can see this date on your credit report. Experian labels it the “original delinquency date”; the other bureaus use similar language. Pull your reports for free each week at AnnualCreditReport.com, a program the three major bureaus made permanent.2Federal Trade Commission. Free Credit Reports If a collector’s reported delinquency date doesn’t match what the original creditor shows, that gap is worth disputing.
Paying or Settling Doesn’t Change the Removal Date
This is where people lose money without gaining time. Paying off a collection, settling it for less, or having it transferred to a new agency does not reset the seven-year clock, and it does not extend it either. The status on your report will update from “unpaid” to “paid” or “settled,” but the entry will still disappear on the same date it would have if you’d never paid.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
Pay a collection in year five, and it still falls off at the end of year seven. The removal date is locked to the original delinquency, not to anything you do with the balance.
Medical Collections Follow Different Rules
If you’re looking at a medical collection, the standard answer bends in your favor. Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion adopted voluntary policies in 2022 and 2023 that keep paid medical collections off credit reports entirely and remove unpaid medical collections under $500.
A broader federal rule finalized in early 2025 would have banned all medical debt from credit reports, but a federal court in Texas vacated that rule in July 2025 at the joint request of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the plaintiffs, finding it exceeded the agency’s authority under the FCRA.3Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB Finalizes Rule to Remove Medical Bills from Credit Reports So in 2026, only the bureau policies apply. Unpaid medical collections above $500 still land on your report and still follow the seven-year rule.
Credit Reporting Period vs. Statute of Limitations
The seven-year reporting period is not the same thing as the statute of limitations on the debt. The first is a federal rule about your credit file. The second is a state law about whether a creditor can sue you to collect.
State statutes of limitations on consumer debt generally range from three to ten years, and in many states the clock runs from the date of your last payment. That matters because a partial payment on a very old debt can restart the statute of limitations in those states and expose you to a lawsuit for the full remaining balance. The payment will not restart the seven-year reporting clock, which is anchored to the original delinquency and cannot be reset by payment activity.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
Before you send any money toward an old collection, especially one approaching the end of your state’s statute of limitations, think about whether that payment could put you back in reach of a lawsuit. It’s one of the few situations where paying a debt can make your legal position worse.
Re-Aging: When the Date Gets Moved
Re-aging is when a collection agency reports a delinquency date that’s more recent than the real one, making an old debt look newer so it stays on your file past the seven-year limit. It violates the FCRA. The original delinquency date is fixed. It doesn’t change because the debt was sold, transferred, or partially paid.
You can spot re-aging by comparing the delinquency date the collection agency reports against the date the original creditor reports on the same credit file. If the collector’s date is more recent, that’s the red flag. You can dispute the entry, and if the violation was intentional, you can take the collector to court.
Disputing a Collection That Should Be Gone
If a collection is sitting on your report past seven years, or the delinquency date is wrong, or the balance is off, file a dispute with the credit bureau showing the error. Submissions go through each bureau’s website, by phone, or by mail. Attach what you have: your own records, the original creditor’s statements, or a copy of the report showing the date conflict.
The bureau generally has 30 days to investigate and respond.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681i – Procedure in Case of Disputed Accuracy That window stretches to 45 days if the dispute followed your free annual report or if you send in additional documents during the investigation.5Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Long Does It Take to Repair an Error on a Credit Report If the bureau can’t verify the disputed information, it has to correct or remove it.
File separately with every bureau that shows the error. The same item may appear on one report and not another, or the dates may differ between them. Keep copies of what you send and what comes back.
Your Remedies If the Rule Is Broken
When a bureau or collector keeps a collection on your report past seven years, re-ages an account, or ignores a valid dispute, the FCRA lets you sue. For a willful violation, statutory damages run from $100 to $1,000 per violation even if you can’t prove a specific financial loss, and a court can add punitive damages and order the violator to pay your attorney’s fees.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681n – Civil Liability for Willful Noncompliance
For a negligent violation, you can still recover actual damages, meaning the real financial harm the error caused, like a denied loan or a higher interest rate. The fee-shifting rule means many consumer rights attorneys will handle these cases on contingency, so legal cost shouldn’t be what stops you.