On a credit report, “On Record Until” is the projected date the credit bureau will automatically delete a negative item from your file. It reflects the maximum time federal law allows that information to be reported, counted forward from a fixed starting point tied to your original delinquency. Once that date passes, the entry should drop off on its own, without a dispute, phone call, or payment on your part.
The starting point isn’t when you last made a payment, when the debt was sold, or when a creditor last updated your file. The Fair Credit Reporting Act locks the clock to a specific moment so no one can extend how long negative information follows you.
How Long Different Items Stay on Your Report
The date you see depends on what type of entry it is. The FCRA sets different ceilings:
- Late payments, collections, and charge-offs: seven years from the date of the original delinquency, whether the debt is still with the original creditor or has been sold.
- Foreclosures and repossessions: seven years from the date of the original delinquency that led to the action.
- Chapter 7 bankruptcy: ten years from the date the court entered the order for relief.
- Chapter 13 bankruptcy: the statute allows ten years, but the three major bureaus voluntarily remove Chapter 13 filings after seven years.
- Hard inquiries: two years from the date of the inquiry.
The seven-year ceiling comes from Section 605(a) of the FCRA, which prohibits bureaus from including adverse information that predates the report by more than seven years.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports The ten-year window for bankruptcy is set by Section 605(a)(1).2Federal Register. Fair Credit Reporting Background Screening
A boundary worth naming: the “On Record Until” date applies to negative entries. Accounts in good standing follow a more generous timeline and can stay on your report as long as the account remains open. The CFPB confirms that positive payment history may continue to appear even after a loan is paid off or an account is closed.3Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Long Does Information Stay on My Credit Report
Tax liens and civil judgments no longer belong on this list. Starting in 2017, the three major bureaus began phasing out public record data that didn’t meet stricter identification standards, and by April 2018 all tax liens and civil judgments had been removed from consumer credit reports.4Experian. Tax Liens Are No Longer a Part of Credit Reports A tax lien still creates real legal consequences. It just no longer drags down your credit score.
How the Clock Starts
The “On Record Until” date hinges on when your account first went delinquent. The FCRA calls this the “date of the commencement of the delinquency,” and the statute is precise: for any account that ends up in collections or gets charged off, the seven-year clock starts 180 days after that first missed payment.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
In practice: if you missed a credit card payment in March and the account eventually went to collections in September, the seven-year reporting period starts in September, 180 days after March. Your “On Record Until” date would fall roughly in September of the seventh year that follows. The original creditor is required to report this delinquency date to the bureau within 90 days of referring the account to collections.5Federal Trade Commission. Consumer Reports – What Information Furnishers Need to Know
This rule exists to prevent gaming. Without it, a creditor could sell a five-year-old debt to a new collection agency, and that agency could report it as a fresh delinquency and effectively restart the clock. The 180-day anchor makes that impossible. The start date is permanently tied to the original missed payment, no matter what happens to the debt later.
Paying Old Debt Does Not Reset the Date
Making a payment on an old delinquent account does not restart the seven-year FCRA reporting period. The law ties the clock to the original delinquency date, full stop. A collector who tells you paying will “reset” your credit reporting timeline is either confused or hoping you are. The “On Record Until” date stays anchored to the same starting point regardless of what activity happens on the account.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
If a collector or creditor changes the delinquency date on your report to make a debt look newer, a practice called re-aging, that violates the FCRA. Furnishers must report the accurate original delinquency date, and the bureau must use that date to calculate the reporting window.5Federal Trade Commission. Consumer Reports – What Information Furnishers Need to Know If you spot this on your report, dispute it immediately.
Credit Reporting Expiration Is Not the Same as the Statute of Limitations
This is where people make expensive mistakes. The “On Record Until” date has nothing to do with whether you can still be sued for the debt. These are separate timelines governed by different laws.
The seven-year credit reporting limit is a federal rule under the FCRA. It controls what appears on your credit report. The statute of limitations on debt collection is a state law that controls how long a creditor can take you to court. Depending on where you live, that window runs roughly three to ten years for most consumer debts, and the clock usually starts from your last payment or last account activity, not the same date that starts the credit reporting clock.
A debt can fall off your credit report and still be legally enforceable. A creditor can sue you for an old balance even though it no longer appears when a lender pulls your file. The reverse also happens: a debt can be past the statute of limitations for a lawsuit while still sitting on your credit report because the seven-year FCRA window hasn’t closed yet. And in many states, making even a small payment on a time-barred debt can restart the statute of limitations for lawsuits. That payment won’t restart the credit reporting clock, but it can reopen a lawsuit you thought was closed.
Medical Debt Follows Different Rules
Medical collections operate under special bureau policies. Since 2023, the three major credit bureaus have voluntarily adopted rules that give medical debt more room: unpaid medical bills don’t appear on credit reports until they’ve been delinquent for at least one year, and medical collections under $500 are excluded entirely. Paid medical collections are also removed.
In early 2025, the CFPB finalized a rule that would have banned all medical debt from credit reports. A federal court vacated that rule in July 2025, finding it exceeded the CFPB’s authority under the FCRA.6Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB Finalizes Rule to Remove Medical Bills from Credit Reports The voluntary bureau policies remain in place; the broader ban does not. Medical collections above $500 that remain unpaid for more than a year can still appear on your report, with an “On Record Until” date under the standard seven-year framework.
What to Do if the Date Looks Wrong
If the “On Record Until” date looks off, the underlying delinquency date was probably reported incorrectly. Under the FCRA, you can dispute any information you believe is inaccurate, including the start date. File a dispute directly with the credit bureau or with the company that furnished the information.5Federal Trade Commission. Consumer Reports – What Information Furnishers Need to Know
Once a bureau receives your dispute, it generally has 30 days to investigate. If you submit additional supporting information during that window, the bureau gets an extra 15 days.5Federal Trade Commission. Consumer Reports – What Information Furnishers Need to Know If the furnisher can’t verify the disputed date, the bureau must delete or correct the entry. Old bank statements or account records showing when you actually stopped paying can decide whether the dispute succeeds. Correcting an inaccurate delinquency date shifts the “On Record Until” date to match. If the original was reported six months later than it should have been, fixing it means the item drops off six months sooner.
Early Removal and What Happens When the Date Arrives
Credit bureaus sometimes remove negative items slightly before the “On Record Until” date. This isn’t required by law, and it varies by bureau. Consumer reports suggest TransUnion may drop items up to six months early, Experian up to three months early, and Equifax a month or two before the official date. These are rough estimates from individual experiences, not published policies. To request early removal, contact the bureau and ask for deletion of items nearing their limit. Some consumers have success disputing the item online and selecting “obsolete” as the reason. The closer you are to the expiration date, the more likely the bureau is to accommodate the request.
When the “On Record Until” date arrives, the bureau’s automated systems are supposed to purge the entry from your file. No phone call, no letter, no dispute. Lenders pulling your report afterward shouldn’t see the item, and credit scoring models will no longer factor it in.3Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Long Does Information Stay on My Credit Report
The removal may not show up on every monitoring platform the same day. Because creditors update the bureaus on their own schedules, it can take a full billing cycle for the change to propagate.7Experian. How Often Is a Credit Report Updated If the item is still showing a month after the “On Record Until” date, file a dispute. At that point the bureau has no legal basis to keep it, and resolution should be straightforward.