What’s on Your Credit Report: Sections, Inquiries, and Timelines

Your credit report contains four main categories of information: personal identifying details used to match the file to you, a history of your credit accounts, a log of who has recently checked your file, and public records (which today means bankruptcy filings only). Three separate companies — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion — each build their own version of your report, and the contents can differ from one bureau to the next because not every lender reports to all three. The Fair Credit Reporting Act at 15 U.S.C. § 1681 governs what can appear, how long it stays, and your right to challenge anything wrong.¹

Personal Identifying Information

The top of every credit report lists data used to confirm you are who you say you are. This typically includes your full legal name, any former names or aliases tied to past applications, your Social Security number (usually partially masked), and your date of birth.² You’ll also see current and previous home addresses going back several years, along with any employer names lenders submitted when you applied for credit.

None of this identification data affects your credit score. Its purpose is matching: making sure the account history in the file actually belongs to you and not someone with a similar name. If you spot an address you don’t recognize or an employer you never worked for, it’s worth investigating. It could be a clerical error. It can also be an early sign that someone else’s file has been mixed into yours, or that someone has used your identity to apply for credit.

Credit Accounts and Tradelines

The tradeline section is the largest and most consequential part of your report. Every credit account you’ve held shows up here, and each entry carries several layers of detail that lenders scrutinize when deciding whether to approve you.

What Each Account Entry Shows

Each entry lists the creditor’s name, the type of account (credit card, auto loan, mortgage, student loan, and so on), the date the account was opened, and its current status: open, closed, or delinquent. You’ll see the credit limit or original loan amount alongside your most recent balance, which together show how much of your available credit you’re using. For installment loans, the report includes the monthly payment amount and remaining term. For credit cards, it tracks the highest balance the card has ever carried.

Payment history is the most scrutinized element. Each month is recorded as either on time or late, and late payments are graded by severity: 30, 60, 90, or 120-plus days past due. A single 30-day late mark from years ago is a very different signal than a string of 90-day delinquencies. If an account goes long enough without payment, the creditor may write it off as a loss, which the report labels a charge-off. When an account has been closed, the report also notes whether you or the creditor initiated the closure, a distinction future lenders pay attention to.

Rent and Utility Payments

Rent and utility payments are not automatically included. If you want this history reflected, your landlord needs to participate in a rent-reporting service, or you have to sign up for one yourself. Coverage varies by service — some report to all three bureaus, some to only one, and some report on-time payments only while others also report lates.

Credit Inquiries

Every time a company pulls your credit report, that access is logged. The distinction between the two types matters more than most people realize.

Hard Inquiries

A hard inquiry appears when you apply for new credit and a lender checks your file to make a decision. Each entry shows the lender’s name and the date of the pull. Hard inquiries remain on your report for two years and can have a small, temporary effect on your credit score. A single one rarely moves the needle much, but a burst of applications across different types of credit in a short period can signal financial distress.

Soft Inquiries

Soft inquiries show up when a company checks your report for a reason other than a credit application you initiated. This includes pre-approved offers, background checks by current creditors reviewing your account, and your own requests to see your file. Soft inquiries are visible only to you and have no effect on your score.

Rate Shopping

If you’re shopping for a mortgage, the credit scoring models treat all mortgage-related hard inquiries made within a 45-day window as a single inquiry.³ Auto loans receive similar treatment, though the window varies by scoring model and can be as short as 14 days.⁴ Compress your rate shopping into two weeks and you’re protected under every major model.

Public Records and Collections

Tax liens and civil judgments used to appear here, but they were removed from credit reports in 2017 and 2018 after the three bureaus adopted stricter data standards under the National Consumer Assistance Plan.⁵ Bankruptcies are now the only type of public record on a standard credit report.

Bankruptcy

A bankruptcy filing shows the court where the case was heard, the filing date, and the case number. Federal law sets a maximum reporting window of 10 years from the date of the order for relief.⁶ In practice, the three bureaus voluntarily remove Chapter 13 reorganizations after seven years, while Chapter 7 liquidations remain for the full ten. Either way, a bankruptcy is the single most damaging item your report can carry.

Collection Accounts

When a creditor gives up trying to collect a debt and hands it to a third-party agency, that transfer creates a new entry on your report. The entry lists the original creditor, the current collection agency, and the outstanding balance. Federal law caps the reporting window at seven years, and the clock starts 180 days after the date you first fell behind on the original account, not the date the debt was sold to a collector.⁶ A debt that gets resold to multiple collectors doesn’t get a fresh seven-year window each time.

Medical Debt

Medical collections follow different rules than other debts. The three bureaus voluntarily agreed in 2023 to stop reporting medical debts under $500, even if unpaid or in collections. A broader federal rule that would have removed all medical debt from credit reports was finalized by the CFPB but was vacated by a federal court in July 2025.⁷ For now, medical collections above $500 can still appear on your report, but the voluntary exclusion of smaller balances remains in place.

Time-Barred Debt

A debt can outlive the statute of limitations for lawsuits and still show up on your credit report. The statute of limitations determines whether a collector can sue you; the seven-year credit reporting window determines whether the debt appears on your file. Two separate clocks. A debt may be legally uncollectable through the courts but still visible to lenders for months longer. Making a payment on an old time-barred debt can restart the statute of limitations for lawsuits in many states, but it does not restart the seven-year reporting period.

What Is Not on Your Credit Report

People often expect to find more on their credit report than is actually there. Your income, bank account balances, and investment holdings are not part of the file. Lenders may ask about your income when you apply, but that information stays with the lender and is never forwarded to the bureaus. Your credit score isn’t on the report either; it’s calculated separately from the data in the report. Criminal records, medical histories, and demographic details like race or religion are also excluded.

Consumer Statements

If you’ve disputed an item and the bureau’s investigation didn’t resolve the issue, you have the right to add a brief written explanation to your file. The bureau can limit this statement to 100 words, and it will appear on every copy of your report sent to future reviewers.⁸ These statements don’t change your score, but they can provide context to a human reviewer, like a mortgage underwriter reading your file.

How Long Each Item Stays

Different information carries different shelf lives. Knowing the windows helps you spot items that should have already dropped off.

Late payments: seven years from the date of the missed payment.
Collection accounts: seven years from the date the original account first became delinquent, not the date it went to collections.⁶
Charge-offs: seven years from the date the account was written off.
Chapter 7 bankruptcy: ten years from the filing date.⁶
Chapter 13 bankruptcy: seven years from the filing date (voluntary bureau practice; the statute allows up to ten).
Hard inquiries: two years from the inquiry date.
Accounts in good standing: indefinitely while open, and typically about ten years after you close them.⁹

If a negative item is still showing after its reporting window has expired, you have the right to dispute it and the bureau must remove it.

Report Versus Score

A credit report is the raw data. A credit score is a number calculated from that data.¹⁰ You don’t have just one credit score. FICO and VantageScore are the two main scoring companies, and each produces multiple versions of its model. The same report can generate different scores depending on which model a lender uses, which is why the number you see on a free monitoring app may not match the number your mortgage lender pulls. Fixing errors on your report is what changes your score; you can’t dispute a score directly.

How to See Your Own Report

You can pull your credit report from each of the three bureaus once a week at no cost through AnnualCreditReport.com, a program the bureaus have made permanent. This is the only federally authorized source for free reports. If a different website asks you to pay or enter a credit card number for your “free” report, you’re in the wrong place. You can also call 1-877-322-8228 or mail a request form to Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281.¹¹

Federal law also limits who else can access your file. A lender evaluating a credit application, an insurer writing a policy, an employer conducting a background check with your written consent, a landlord screening rental applicants, and government agencies assessing eligibility for certain licenses or benefits all qualify as having a “permissible purpose.”¹² Anyone who pulls your report without a qualifying reason is violating federal law, and you’re entitled to damages if it happens.¹³

Because each bureau builds its file independently, pulling all three at the same time will give you the fullest picture of what lenders can see about you.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681 – Congressional Findings and Statement of Purpose
2
Federal Trade Commission. Consumer Reports: What Information Furnishers Need to Know
3
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. What Happens When a Mortgage Lender Checks My Credit?
4
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Will Shopping for an Auto Loan Affect My Credit?
5
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. A New Retrospective on the Removal of Public Records
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
7
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB Finalizes Rule to Remove Medical Bills From Credit Reports
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681i – Procedure in Case of Disputed Accuracy
9
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Long Does Information Stay on My Credit Report?
10
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. What Is the Difference Between a Credit Report and a Credit Score?
11
Federal Trade Commission. Free Credit Reports
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681b – Permissible Purposes of Consumer Reports
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681n – Civil Liability for Willful Noncompliance