Your credit report contains four main categories of information: personal identifying details that confirm the file is yours, a history of your credit accounts and how you’ve paid them, a log of everyone who has checked your file, and public records, which today means bankruptcy. Three private companies, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, each keep their own version, and the three reports can differ because not every creditor sends data to all of them.
Personal Identifying Information
The top of the report is identification. It lists your full legal name along with any name variations that have appeared on past credit applications, your current and previous addresses, your Social Security number, and your date of birth. Some reports also show employers you named on earlier applications.
None of this information feeds your credit score. Its only job is to tie the file to the right person and keep records from getting mixed between people with similar names. A name or address you don’t recognize can be an early sign of an error or identity theft.
Credit Accounts
Credit accounts, sometimes called trade lines, take up most of the report. Each entry shows the creditor’s name, the type of account, the date opened, the credit limit or original loan amount, the current balance, and the account’s status: open, closed, or in default. Two kinds show up most often.
- Revolving accounts are credit cards and lines of credit. You borrow, repay, and borrow again up to a set limit, and the balance moves month to month.
- Installment accounts are loans with a fixed repayment schedule, including mortgages, auto loans, student loans, and personal loans. You pay a set amount each month until the balance reaches zero.
The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires creditors to furnish accurate information and requires bureaus to follow reasonable procedures to keep it that way.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681 – Congressional Findings and Statement of Purpose When a creditor gives up on collecting, it marks the account as a charge-off, meaning the lender has written the balance off as a loss. For credit cards, that typically happens after roughly 180 days of missed payments; for auto loans, the window is closer to 120 days. A charge-off doesn’t erase the debt, and the account stays on your report for seven years from the date you first fell behind.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
Payment History
Payment history is the most influential factor in credit scoring, and the report tracks it in detail. Each account shows whether payments arrived on time or slipped to 30, 60, 90, or 120-plus days late. Lenders read these patterns to predict whether you’ll pay them back.
A single late payment can drag down an otherwise strong profile, and it stays visible for seven years from the date it was reported.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports If you miss several payments in a row, the seven-year clock runs from the first missed payment in that sequence. Positive payment history has no such limit. It can stay on your report indefinitely and keeps helping your score even after the account is closed.3Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Long Does Information Stay on My Credit Reportp>
Medical Debt
Medical debt follows different reporting rules than other collections. The three major bureaus voluntarily agreed in 2023 to stop reporting medical collections under $500, paid or unpaid. A 2024 federal rule tried to ban all medical debt from credit reports, but a federal court vacated that rule in July 2025, finding it exceeded the agency’s authority.4Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB Finalizes Rule to Remove Medical Bills From Credit Reports For now, unpaid medical collections of $500 or more can still appear.
Credit Inquiries
Every time someone checks your file, a record of that check appears on the report. Inquiries fall into two categories that behave very differently.
Hard Inquiries
A hard inquiry shows up when you apply for a new credit card, loan, mortgage, or similar product. It lists the company that pulled your report and the date. Hard inquiries stay on the file for two years, but their effect on your score fades much faster. FICO scores only consider hard inquiries from the past 12 months, and the typical score impact is small.
Rate shopping gets special treatment. When you apply for a mortgage, auto loan, or student loan, scoring models recognize that you’re probably comparing offers rather than opening a dozen accounts, and they group clustered applications for the same loan type into a single inquiry. If you’re shopping rates, keeping all your applications inside a two-week window is a safe approach across models.
Soft Inquiries
Soft inquiries happen when you check your own report, when a lender screens you for a pre-approved offer, or when an employer runs a background check with your permission. They’re visible only to you and never affect your score. You may notice quite a few of these, especially if card issuers are evaluating you for marketing offers.
Bankruptcy and Collections
The public records section has narrowed significantly. Bankruptcy is now the only public record that appears.
Federal law lets credit bureaus report bankruptcy for up to ten years from the date of the court order.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports In practice, the three bureaus apply that full ten-year window to Chapter 7 filings. Chapter 13 bankruptcies, where you complete a court-supervised repayment plan, are typically removed after seven years from the filing date as a matter of bureau policy.
Tax liens and civil judgments used to appear and no longer do. All three bureaus stopped reporting civil judgments in 2017 and removed tax liens by April 2018. Lenders in some industries still check court records on their own, but those items don’t flow through the standard credit reporting system anymore.
Collection accounts are separate from the original debt. When you stop paying a bill and the creditor sends it to a third-party collection agency, that agency can report the collection as its own entry. Before reporting, the collector must first try to contact you about the debt by phone, mail, or electronic message.5Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. When Can a Debt Collector Report My Debt to a Credit Reporting Company The entry shows the original creditor, the collection agency, and the amount owed. Collections fall off seven years after the original delinquency.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
What Your Credit Report Does Not Include
People often assume the credit report is a full financial profile. It isn’t. Several categories are left out entirely:
- Income and wages. Lenders ask for your income separately on applications; the report doesn’t track what you earn.
- Bank and investment balances. Checking, savings, and brokerage accounts don’t appear.
- Debit card and cash transactions. Only credit obligations are tracked, not everyday spending.
- Your credit score. The score is calculated from the data in the report, but the report itself doesn’t carry one. Scores are generated on demand when you or a lender request one.6Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I Got My Free Credit Reports but They Do Not Include My Credit Scores
- Protected demographic information. Federal law prohibits credit decisions based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, or age, and none of these appear in your file.
How to See Your Report and Fix Errors
You can pull a free copy from each of the three bureaus once a week through AnnualCreditReport.com, the only federally authorized website for free reports.7Federal Trade Commission. Free Credit Reports The weekly access, originally a temporary pandemic program, is now permanent.8Federal Trade Commission. You Now Have Permanent Access to Free Weekly Credit Reports Checking your own report counts as a soft inquiry and has no effect on your score. It’s worth looking at all three because creditors don’t always report to every bureau, so an error can show up on one version and not the others.
If you find something inaccurate, you can dispute it directly with the credit bureau. Your dispute should identify the specific item, explain why it’s wrong, and include copies of supporting documents such as payment receipts, statements, or correspondence from the creditor.9Federal Trade Commission. Sample Letter to Credit Bureaus Disputing Errors on Credit Reports Send it by certified mail and keep the originals. Once the bureau has your dispute, it generally has 30 days to investigate and respond.10Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Long Does It Take to Repair an Error on a Credit Report