How Long Does Derogatory Information Stay on Your Credit Report?

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, most negative entries on your credit report come off after seven years, measured from the date you first fell behind on the account.¹ Bankruptcy can stay up to ten years, hard inquiries drop after two, and a handful of categories follow their own rules. Once the window closes, the credit bureaus have to remove the item, and if they don’t, you can force the issue.

The Seven-Year Rule

The FCRA bars credit bureaus from reporting most derogatory account information that is more than seven years old.² The same seven-year limit applies to:

Late payments at 30, 60, 90, or 120+ days past due
Charge-offs, where the creditor writes the debt off as a loss
Collection accounts, whether handled internally or sold to a third party
Foreclosures and repossessions, running from the first missed payment that led to the default
Defaulted federal student loans, which enter default after 270 days of missed payments³

Paying a collection does not erase it. The account will update to a zero balance or “paid” status, but the historical record of the delinquency stays visible for the full seven years.² Paying may change how a lender reads the report; it does not shorten the reporting window.

When the Seven-Year Clock Starts

The countdown does not begin the day you missed a payment. It runs from what the FCRA calls the date of first delinquency, which is 180 days after the first missed payment that led to the charge-off or collection.² In practice, a derogatory item usually disappears about seven years and six months after you first fell behind.

That starting date is locked in. Making a partial payment, settling for less than you owe, or acknowledging the debt to a collector does not restart the FCRA clock.² Those same actions can, however, restart your state’s statute of limitations for a debt-collection lawsuit. The two timelines are independent: the statute of limitations controls how long a creditor can sue you; the FCRA period controls how long the item can appear on your report.

Creditors must report the accurate date of first delinquency. Reporting a later date to make old debt look newer is called re-aging, and it violates the FCRA.

Bankruptcy: Up to Ten Years

The FCRA allows credit bureaus to report a bankruptcy filing for up to ten years from the date the court enters the order for relief, which in a voluntary case is typically the petition date.² The ten-year ceiling applies to every chapter under federal law. As a matter of voluntary policy, the three major bureaus remove completed Chapter 13 cases after seven years from the filing date, while Chapter 7 filings stay the full ten.

A dismissed bankruptcy still appears on your report. The filing is a matter of public record, and the ten-year clock runs from the original filing date regardless of outcome. The dismissal notation shows up alongside the filing.

Individual debts included in a bankruptcy keep their own separate clocks. A credit card that went delinquent before you filed uses its own date of first delinquency for the seven-year calculation.² Because most of those accounts fell behind well before the filing, they often drop off years before the bankruptcy record itself.

Medical Debt

Medical debt sits under a stricter set of rules than the standard seven-year timeline, adopted voluntarily by Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion:

Unpaid medical debt cannot appear on your credit report until at least one year after the date of service, giving time to resolve insurance and billing issues.⁴
Since July 2022, paid medical collections are removed from credit reports entirely.⁴
Medical debts under $500 that go to collections are not reported at all, even if they remain unpaid.

These are bureau policies, not federal regulations. The CFPB finalized a rule in 2024 that would have kept medical debt off credit reports altogether, but a federal court vacated the rule in July 2025.⁵ The voluntary protections remain in place, but they are not backed by a binding regulation.

Hard Inquiries: Two Years

When a lender pulls your credit to consider an application, that hard inquiry stays on your report for two years. The score impact is small, usually fewer than five points, and it fades within a few months. FICO scoring models stop counting inquiries entirely after 12 months.

Soft inquiries, such as checking your own credit, employer background checks, and pre-approval offers, are visible only to you and never affect your score.

Tax Liens and Civil Judgments

Tax liens and civil court judgments used to appear as public record items and could remain for seven years, with unpaid tax liens sometimes staying longer. That changed in 2017, when the three major bureaus adopted data standards requiring minimum identifying information and regular updates for public records. Civil judgments and most tax liens failed those standards and were removed. By April 2018, all tax liens had been dropped from credit reports maintained by Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion.

This is a bureau policy, not a change in federal law. The IRS can still enforce a federal tax lien against your property; the lien simply will not surface when a lender pulls your credit report.

Where the Time Limits Don’t Apply

Federal law carves out categories where derogatory information older than seven years can still appear:

Criminal convictions are also exempt. Arrests that did not lead to a conviction must be removed after seven years, but a conviction can be reported on a consumer report indefinitely.⁶

Disputing an Item That Should Have Dropped Off

If a derogatory item is still on your report past its legal expiration date, you can dispute it directly with the credit bureau. You can also dispute information that is inaccurate or incomplete at any time, regardless of age.⁷ Each of the three major bureaus accepts disputes online, by mail, or by phone.

Once you file, the bureau has 30 days to investigate. If you provide additional information during that period, the deadline can extend by up to 15 more days. Within five business days of receiving your dispute, the bureau must notify the creditor or collector who furnished the item.⁸ If the investigation finds the information inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable, the bureau must correct or delete it promptly.

When you’re disputing on age, include the date of first delinquency in your letter. If the creditor reported a later date than the real one, point out the discrepancy. The bureau cannot just confirm that the debt is real; it has to confirm the item is still within its allowable reporting period.

What You Can Recover if the Rules Are Broken

Re-aging, failing to investigate a dispute, and continuing to report obsolete information are all FCRA violations. For willful violations, you can recover statutory damages between $100 and $1,000 per violation, or your actual financial losses if higher, along with punitive damages and attorney’s fees as determined by the court.⁹ Federal regulators can also bring enforcement actions, with maximum penalties of $4,983 per knowing violation.¹⁰

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681 – Congressional Findings and Statement of Purpose
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
3
Federal Student Aid. Credit Reporting
4
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Medical Debt Reporting Rules Changes
5
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB Finalizes Rule to Remove Medical Bills from Credit Reports
6
Federal Register. Fair Credit Reporting – Background Screening
7
Federal Trade Commission. A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681i – Procedure in Case of Disputed Accuracy
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681n – Civil Liability for Willful Noncompliance
10
Federal Register. Adjustments to Civil Penalty Amounts