How Long Does Something Stay on Your Credit Report?

Most negative information stays on your credit report for seven years, bankruptcy can stay for up to ten, and hard inquiries drop off after two. How long something stays on your credit report depends on what kind of item it is, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act sets the federal ceilings. Positive accounts follow a different rule entirely: there is no federal time limit on good information.

Late Payments, Collections, and Charge-Offs

Late payments, collection accounts, and charge-offs all follow the seven-year rule under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The clock does not start on the date of a single missed payment. It starts 180 days after the first missed payment that eventually led to the account being sent to collections or charged off.¹ By the time an account is formally charged off, months of that seven-year window have often already burned down.

That original delinquency date is permanent. If your debt is sold to a new collection agency, the new collector cannot reset the clock by reporting a fresh start date. The statute anchors the reporting period to the date you first fell behind and never caught up, no matter what happens to the account afterward. Seven years from that date, the account has to come off, even if you never paid it.

Does Paying a Collection Restart the Clock?

No. Paying or settling a collection account does not restart the seven-year clock. The reporting period stays tied to the original delinquency date whether you pay in full, settle for less, or never pay at all.¹ Once you pay, the account status updates to paid or settled, which can look better to a future lender, but the account itself remains on your report until the seven-year window closes.²

The original creditor’s tradeline and the collection account drop off at the same time: seven years from that original delinquency.² After you pay or settle, expect one to two months for the status change to show up on your reports.

Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy can stay on your credit report for up to ten years. The Fair Credit Reporting Act sets this as the maximum for any bankruptcy case filed under federal law, and the clock starts from the date the court enters the order for relief, which in a voluntary filing is the same day you file the petition.¹

In practice, the three major bureaus typically remove a completed Chapter 13 bankruptcy after seven years rather than ten. Chapter 13 involves a court-approved repayment plan lasting three to five years, and the bureaus generally treat successful completion of that plan more favorably than a Chapter 7 liquidation. The shorter timeline is a voluntary bureau practice, not a federal requirement. The statute permits reporting for up to ten years for any bankruptcy case. A Chapter 7 bankruptcy, where most unsecured debts are discharged without a repayment plan, stays the full ten years.

After discharge, individual accounts included in the bankruptcy should show a zero balance or be marked as discharged. They cannot continue to appear as past due or as carrying an active balance. Once the reporting window closes, the bureaus must remove the bankruptcy record whether the underlying debts were fully repaid or only partially discharged.

Hard Inquiries

A hard inquiry appears on your report when you apply for credit and a lender pulls your file. Hard inquiries stay for two years, but their effect on your score fades much sooner. A single hard inquiry typically lowers a FICO score by fewer than five points and a VantageScore by five to ten points.³

FICO scores only factor in hard inquiries from the previous 12 months. VantageScore may consider inquiries across the full 24-month window.³ Either way, the score impact usually lasts only a few months even though the inquiry itself remains visible for two years.

When you shop for a mortgage, auto loan, or student loan, multiple inquiries from the same type of lender within a short window are generally counted as a single inquiry for scoring purposes. The exact deduplication window varies by scoring model, so completing rate comparisons within about two weeks gives you the best chance of having those inquiries treated as one.

Soft inquiries, such as checking your own credit or receiving a pre-approved offer, do not appear on the version of your report that lenders see and have no effect on your score.

Positive Accounts and Closed Accounts in Good Standing

Good information stays longer than most bad information. The Fair Credit Reporting Act’s time limits only restrict negative items; there is no federal cap on how long positive data can remain.⁴⁵⁶

Open accounts in good standing can stay on your report indefinitely, as long as the creditor keeps reporting them.⁴ Closed accounts with a positive history can remain for up to ten years after they are closed. If an account once had a late payment that you later brought current, the late payment itself falls off after seven years, but the positive history on the account can stay for the full ten years after closure.⁵

Tax Liens, Judgments, and Medical Debt

Tax liens and civil judgments are no longer included on consumer credit reports. The three major bureaus stopped reporting this information in 2017 and 2018 as part of changes to their data standards.⁷ Bankruptcy is now the only public record routinely collected by the national bureaus.⁸ An unpaid tax lien or judgment will not show up on your credit report, but the underlying obligation still exists and can affect property sales or lead to further collection action.

Medical debt reporting has shifted repeatedly. The three major bureaus voluntarily stopped reporting paid medical collections in 2022 and added a waiting period before unpaid medical debt could appear. The CFPB finalized a rule in early 2025 that would have banned medical debt from credit reports entirely, but a federal court vacated the rule in July 2025 at the joint request of the bureau and the plaintiffs.⁹ Medical collections may still appear on your report under the standard seven-year rule, though the bureaus’ voluntary policies may offer additional protection. Check each bureau’s current practices for the specifics.

Exceptions to the Standard Time Limits

A few items sit outside the usual seven- and ten-year rules.

Criminal convictions can be reported indefinitely. There is no federal time limit on how long a conviction can appear on a credit report.¹ Arrests that did not lead to a conviction follow the standard seven-year rule.

The time limits also do not apply in certain high-dollar situations. If you are being considered for a credit transaction of $150,000 or more, a life insurance policy of $150,000 or more, or a job with an annual salary of $75,000 or more, a credit reporting agency can include negative information that would otherwise be too old to report.¹ For everyday credit decisions, the seven-year and ten-year ceilings apply.

If an Item Stays Past Its Window

If a negative item is still on your report after its reporting window has closed, you can dispute it directly with the credit bureau. Under federal law, the bureau must investigate within 30 days of receiving the dispute, and if it cannot verify the information, it must delete or correct it.¹⁰¹¹ You can file disputes online, by phone, or by mail with each bureau, and supporting documents like payment records help. You are entitled to free copies of your reports from each of the three bureaus through AnnualCreditReport.com, which is the only site authorized by federal law for that purpose.¹²

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
2
Experian. How Long Before My Collection Account Is Updated
3
Experian. How Long Do Hard Inquiries Stay on Your Credit Report
4
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Long Does Information Stay on My Credit Report
5
Experian. How Long Do Closed Accounts Stay on Your Credit Report
6
Equifax. How Long Does Information Stay on My Equifax Credit Report
7
Experian. Tax Liens Are No Longer a Part of Credit Reports
8
Experian. Judgments No Longer Appear on a Credit Report
9
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB Finalizes Rule to Remove Medical Bills from Credit Reports
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681i – Procedure in Case of Disputed Accuracy
11
Federal Trade Commission. Disputing Errors on Your Credit Reports
12
AnnualCreditReport.com. Free Credit Reports