How Long Does Negative Information Stay on Your Credit Report?

Most negative information stays on your credit report for seven years, measured from the date of the original missed payment. Bankruptcies can last up to ten years, hard inquiries drop off after two, criminal convictions have no federal time limit, and medical debt follows its own rules. Knowing how long negative information stays on your credit report matters because federal law gives you the right to have expired items removed, and old marks sometimes linger past their deadlines.

What the Seven-Year Rule Covers

Federal law bars the three credit bureaus from including most adverse accounts on your report once they are more than seven years old.¹ The rule sweeps in the items that damage credit scores the most:

Late payments reported at 30, 60, 90, or 120-plus days past due.
Collection accounts, measured from the original missed payment that led to the collection, not from the date a collector received the account.
Charge-offs, which lenders typically record after roughly 120 to 180 days of nonpayment.
Foreclosures, running from the first missed mortgage payment.
Repossessions of cars or other collateral.

The same statute includes a catch-all applying the seven-year cap to any other adverse item not specifically listed, with criminal convictions being the notable exception.

When the Seven-Year Clock Starts

The clock does not start on the date a debt was sent to collections or charged off. Federal law ties the starting point to the original delinquency: specifically, 180 days after the date you first fell behind on the account that led to the collection, charge-off, or similar action.¹ Roughly six months after you first miss a payment, the seven-year window opens.

The clock cannot be restarted. If your debt is sold to another collector, or if you make a partial payment on an account already in collections, the original delinquency date stays fixed. Settling a debt for less than the full balance also does not reset the timeline. Stop paying a credit card in March, settle the account the following November, and the seven-year clock still runs from March.

Bankruptcy: Seven or Ten Years

Bankruptcy has its own timeline, and it depends on the chapter.

A Chapter 7 bankruptcy, in which a court discharges most debts after liquidating eligible assets, can remain on your report for up to ten years from the date of the order for relief.¹ For a voluntary filing, that is effectively the date you filed your petition.

A Chapter 13 bankruptcy, involving a court-approved repayment plan of three to five years, typically stays for seven years from the filing date. The statute permits reporting for the full ten, but the major bureaus have adopted a policy of removing completed Chapter 13 cases after seven.² A dismissed Chapter 13 case may stay for the full ten years at some bureaus.

Medical Debt Rules

Medical debt gets special treatment under voluntary policies the three major bureaus adopted in 2023:

Medical debt in collections does not appear on your report until at least one year after the date of service, giving you time to resolve billing disputes or wait on insurance.³
Medical debts under $500 are not reported at all, even when unpaid.
Paid medical collections are removed from your report entirely rather than kept for seven years.

The CFPB finalized a broader rule in January 2025 that would have banned all medical debt from credit reports, but a federal court in Texas vacated the rule in July 2025, so it never took effect.⁴ The bureau policies above still apply, and unpaid medical debts of $500 or more can appear after the one-year waiting period and stay for up to seven years.

Hard Inquiries: Two Years

When a lender pulls your credit report for a loan or card application, the resulting hard inquiry stays visible for two years. Hard inquiries do lower your score somewhat, but the effect is small and fades well before the two-year mark.

Tax Liens and Civil Judgments

By statute, paid tax liens can be reported for seven years from the date of payment, and civil judgments can be reported for seven years from the date entered or until the statute of limitations on the judgment runs out, whichever is longer.¹

In practice, these rarely appear on modern credit reports. Beginning in 2018, the major bureaus stopped including most tax liens and civil judgments because public records often lacked the identifying information (like full Social Security numbers or dates of birth) needed to reliably match them to the right consumer.⁵ Tax liens remain public records regardless, so a lender doing its own research could still find one.

Criminal Convictions Have No Federal Limit

Criminal convictions are the one category federal law does not cap. A 1998 amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act removed all time restrictions on reporting conviction records.⁶ A conviction from decades ago can legally appear on a consumer report indefinitely. Some states impose their own limits in specific contexts, particularly employment background checks, but federal law imposes none.

Federal Student Loan Defaults

A defaulted federal student loan follows the standard seven-year rule, running from the original delinquency. Even though these loans generally survive bankruptcy, the credit-reporting timeline is the same as for other collection accounts.

Rehabilitation is one of the few ways to remove a negative mark before seven years is up. Making nine on-time monthly payments within ten consecutive months under a rehabilitation agreement removes the default status from your report. The Department of Education’s Fresh Start program, which offered a streamlined default exit and removed default records from credit reports, closed enrollment in October 2024.⁷ Rehabilitation and consolidation remain available for anyone who missed that deadline.

Positive Accounts Follow a Different Rule

Not everything is subject to a removal deadline. Accounts you paid on time and kept in good standing can stay much longer. Bureaus generally keep positive closed accounts for up to ten years, and open accounts in good standing remain as long as they are active.⁸ The longer window for positive history helps your score by preserving a record of responsible borrowing.

Exceptions for Large Transactions

The time limits above do not apply when a report is being used for certain high-value decisions. Bureaus can include older negative information when the report supports:

A loan or credit line with a principal amount of $150,000 or more.
Underwriting a life insurance policy with a face value of $150,000 or more.
Employment for a position with an expected annual salary of $75,000 or more.

In these situations the lender, insurer, or employer sees your full history, including items that would normally be too old to report.¹ The dollar thresholds are set by statute and have not been adjusted for inflation, so they cover a broader range of transactions today than when Congress enacted them.

What to Do When an Expired Item Lingers

If a negative item stays on your report past its legal expiration date, you have the right to dispute it with the bureau reporting it. You can file online, by phone, or by mail with Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion. The bureau generally has 30 days to investigate and correct or remove the item, or up to 45 days if you filed after receiving your free annual report.⁹

In your dispute, identify the item, the date of the original delinquency, and why the item should be removed. Keep copies of everything. If a bureau refuses to remove information that has legally expired, you can sue in state or federal court under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
2
United States Bankruptcy Court. Credit Report – How Do I Get a Bankruptcy Removed From My Report
3
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Have Medical Debt? Anything Already Paid or Under $500 Should No Longer Be on Your Credit Report
4
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB Finalizes Rule to Remove Medical Bills from Credit Reports
5
Internal Revenue Service. Withdrawal of Notice of Federal Tax Lien
6
Federal Trade Commission. Advisory Opinion to Nadell 12-10-98
7
Federal Student Aid. A Fresh Start for Federal Student Loan Borrowers in Default
8
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Long Does Information Stay on My Credit Report
9
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Long Does It Take to Repair an Error on a Credit Report