What Decreases Your Credit Score and How Long It Lasts

What decreases your credit score falls into a handful of predictable categories: missed payments, high balances relative to your limits, closing old accounts, applying for too much new credit, and major events like bankruptcy or foreclosure. The damage ranges from a few points for a single hard inquiry to more than 200 points for a bankruptcy. Five factors drive your FICO score, and they carry different weights: payment history (35%), amounts owed (30%), length of credit history (15%), new credit (10%), and credit mix (10%).¹ Knowing which actions hit hardest, and how long the marks stick around, is the difference between a temporary dip and years of recovery.

Late and Missed Payments

Payment history is the heaviest factor in your score, so a single missed payment does outsized damage. Creditors report a payment as delinquent once it is at least 30 days past due.² Some lenders wait until 60 days, but 30 is the standard trigger.³

The higher your score, the harder the fall. Someone around 780 can lose 90 to 110 points from one 30-day late payment. Someone around 680 might lose 60 to 80. A clean record has more to lose.

If the account keeps going unpaid, the damage escalates at 60, 90, and 120 days. Around the 120- to 180-day mark, the creditor typically writes the balance off as a charge-off and often sells the debt to a collection agency. Now two negative marks sit on your report instead of one, and both stay visible for seven years from the date you first fell behind.⁴

High Credit Utilization

Your credit utilization ratio is the share of your available revolving credit you’re actually using. Carry $3,000 across cards with $10,000 in total limits, and you’re at 30%. Scoring models start penalizing utilization more noticeably above roughly 30%, and the penalty grows as the ratio climbs. Maxing out one card can hurt your score even if your total utilization stays modest.⁵

One quirk trips people up. Card issuers usually report your balance to the bureaus on your statement closing date, not your payment due date, and the due date sits about a month later.⁶ Pay in full every month and you can still show a high reported balance if you happened to be carrying one when the statement cut. Before a mortgage or auto loan application, paying the card down before the statement closes can make a visible difference.

Utilization can also jump without any new spending. If a card issuer cuts your limit, your balance stays put while your available credit shrinks. A $3,000 balance against a $10,000 combined limit (30%) becomes 42% if a lender trims $3,000 off your total.⁷ Issuers sometimes reduce limits when they see signs of stress elsewhere on your file, which means the cut often lands at the worst moment.

Closing Accounts and Shortening Your History

Age of accounts is about 15% of your FICO score, and scoring models look at your oldest account, the average age of all your accounts, and how long since certain accounts were used.¹

A common belief is that closing a card immediately erases it. It doesn’t. A closed account in good standing stays on your report for up to 10 years, and both FICO and VantageScore keep counting it toward average account age during that period.⁸ The more immediate hit from closing a card is the utilization spike: you lose available credit while your balances stay the same. When the account eventually falls off years later, that’s when average age takes the second hit.

Authorized user accounts behave differently. If you’re an authorized user on someone else’s old, well-managed card, that account’s history helps your file. Remove yourself and the account disappears from your report entirely, along with its payment history and low utilization.⁹ Unless the account is actively hurting you, staying on is usually the better call.

Too Many New Credit Applications

Every application for a credit card, personal loan, or mortgage produces a hard inquiry on your report. Each one typically costs fewer than five points on its own.¹⁰ The problem is the pattern. Several applications across different types of credit in a short window signal that you may be short on cash, and scoring models read that as higher risk.

Checking your own score, looking at pre-approved offers, and employer background checks are soft inquiries and don’t affect your score.¹¹

Rate shopping gets special treatment. When you’re comparing offers on a mortgage, auto loan, or student loan, FICO bundles multiple inquiries of the same type into one, as long as they land within a 14- to 45-day window depending on the FICO version your lender uses. Newer versions use 45 days. FICO also ignores mortgage and auto inquiries from the 30 days before your score is calculated.¹⁰ The bundling only applies within the same loan type. A mortgage inquiry and a credit card inquiry in the same week still count separately.¹²

Credit mix, the last 10%, rarely produces dramatic swings, but a thin file with only one account type can quietly hold a score down.¹³ Opening a new loan just to add variety is almost never worth the inquiry and the drop in average age.

Bankruptcy and Foreclosure

Everything above nicks your score. Bankruptcy and foreclosure crater it.

A bankruptcy filing can erase up to 240 points from a high score, the single most destructive event a credit report can hold. Chapter 7, which liquidates assets to discharge debt, stays on your report for 10 years from the filing date.⁴ Chapter 13, a court-approved repayment plan of three to five years, may drop off after seven.¹⁴ The score damage softens as you rebuild positive history on top, but the record itself stays visible for the full period.

A foreclosure signals complete default on a secured loan and usually drops a score by 100 points or more. Starting from an excellent score, the loss can run around 160 points. Foreclosures stay on your report for seven years.⁴

Tax liens and civil judgments used to sit on credit reports and could gut a score. The bureaus removed civil judgments in 2017, and by April 2018 all tax liens were gone as well.¹⁵ They no longer affect your score, though mortgage underwriters sometimes still find them through direct public records checks.

How Long Negative Items Stay on Your Report

Federal law caps how long negative information can appear. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681c:⁴

Late payments, collections, and charge-offs: seven years from the date you first fell behind.
Chapter 13 bankruptcy: seven years from the filing date.
Chapter 7 bankruptcy: ten years from the filing date.
Foreclosures: seven years.
Hard inquiries: two years, though the scoring impact fades after about 12 months.

One detail worth watching: the seven-year clock on collections and charge-offs runs from your original delinquency date, not from the date a debt buyer picked up the account. Some collectors re-report old debts with newer dates, which illegally restarts the clock. If you see that happening, you can dispute it.

What to Do If a Negative Mark Is Wrong

Not every item hurting your score belongs there. Roughly one in five consumers has found an error on at least one report, and some of those errors are serious enough to affect loan approval.

Send a written dispute to the credit bureau reporting the error. Include your contact information, the account number, an explanation of what’s wrong, and copies of any documents that back you up. Certified mail gives you proof of delivery.¹⁶ The bureau generally has 30 days to investigate, extended to 45 if you send more information during the window.¹⁷

Dispute the same information directly with the company that furnished it, using the dispute address on your credit report. Furnishers also have 30 days to investigate.¹⁶ If the furnisher stands by its version and you still disagree, you can ask the bureau to add a statement of your side, and you can file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

1
myFICO. How Are FICO Scores Calculated?
2
Experian. Can One 30-Day Late Payment Hurt Your Credit?
3
Equifax. When Does a Late Credit Card Payment Show Up on Credit Reports?
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
5
Experian. What Is a Credit Utilization Rate?
6
Equifax. How to Read a Credit Card Statement
7
Equifax. How Will a Lowered Credit Limit Affect My Credit Score
8
Experian. How Long Do Closed Accounts Stay on Your Credit Report?
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Experian. Removing Yourself as an Authorized User Could Help Your Credit
10
myFICO. Do Credit Inquiries Lower Your FICO Score?
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Experian. How Many Points Does an Inquiry Drop Your Credit Score?
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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Will Shopping for an Auto Loan Affect My Credit
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myFICO. Types of Credit and How They Affect Your FICO Score
14
U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of Georgia. How Many Years Will a Bankruptcy Show on My Credit Report?
15
Experian. Tax Liens Are No Longer a Part of Credit Reports
16
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Do I Dispute an Error on My Credit Report?
17
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Long Does It Take to Repair an Error on a Credit Report?