When Do Things Fall Off Your Credit Report: 7-Year Rule and Exceptions

Most negative entries fall off your credit report seven years after you first fell behind on the account, but the exact answer to when things fall off your credit report depends on what the entry is. Bankruptcies can stay for up to ten years. Hard inquiries clear in two. Federal law under 15 U.S.C. § 1681c sets these deadlines, and once the clock runs out, credit bureaus have to drop the item.¹

The Seven-Year Bucket

Most of what people worry about on a credit report lives here. Seven years from the triggering date, the entry has to come off:

Late payments of any severity — 30, 60, 90, or 120 days past due — each aging out seven years from when they occurred.
Collection accounts, whether the original creditor’s in-house collections or a third-party agency.
Charge-offs, meaning accounts a creditor has written off as a loss.
Paid tax liens, seven years from the date paid. The three major bureaus voluntarily stopped reporting most tax liens in 2018.
Civil judgments, reportable for seven years or until the state statute of limitations expires, whichever is longer. The major bureaus also stopped reporting most civil judgments in 2018.²

Paying a collection does not shorten this. The status changes to “paid,” but the entry itself remains for the full seven years. Newer FICO and VantageScore models weigh paid collections less heavily than unpaid ones, so settling still helps your score even while the record is visible.

When the Seven-Year Clock Actually Starts

The countdown does not begin when a debt goes to collections, when it gets sold, or when a creditor charges it off. It starts 180 days after the date you first became delinquent on the original account and never caught up. That “date of first delinquency” is what the law uses.³

An example: you missed a payment in January 2020 and never brought the account current. The seven-year period began around July 2020, 180 days later. The entry should be gone by mid-2027.

Once fixed, that date does not move. Selling the debt to a new collector does not reset it. A partial payment does not reset it. A debt can pass through several hands and still has to disappear on the original schedule.

Re-Aging

Re-aging is when a collector reports a delinquency date newer than the real one, stretching how long the entry survives. Federal law prohibits this. The FCRA bars furnishing information to a credit bureau that the furnisher knows is false, and manipulating the delinquency date qualifies.³

Watch for a delinquency date more recent than when you actually fell behind, a debt reappearing after already dropping off, or duplicate entries for the same debt under different collector names carrying different dates. Any of those is grounds to dispute.

Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy runs on its own schedule. A Chapter 7 filing stays on your credit report for ten years from the filing date.¹ A Chapter 13, which involves a court-supervised repayment plan of three to five years, is generally removed seven years from the filing date.⁴

The individual accounts discharged through a bankruptcy follow the ordinary seven-year rule based on their own dates of first delinquency. Because delinquency usually started well before the filing, the underlying accounts often disappear years before the bankruptcy record itself. The two are tracked separately.

If a bankruptcy case is dismissed rather than discharged, the filing can still be reported for up to ten years from the filing date under the statute. Some bureaus remove dismissed cases at seven years as internal policy, but they are not required to.

Credit Inquiries

A hard inquiry — triggered when you apply for credit and a lender pulls your report — stays for up to two years. The score impact is usually small, often under five points, and fades within a few months.

Soft inquiries, including your own credit checks, pre-approval screenings, and background checks, are visible only to you and never affect your score.

Rate Shopping

Comparing rates on a mortgage, auto loan, or student loan will not stack up separate hits. FICO scoring models treat multiple inquiries of these types as a single inquiry when they fall within a 45-day window. Older FICO versions and VantageScore use a shorter 14-day window. Keeping all your applications within 14 days gives you the broadest protection.

Medical Debt

Medical collections currently follow the standard seven-year rule. The CFPB finalized a rule in January 2025 that would have banned medical debt from credit reports entirely, but a federal court in Texas vacated that rule in July 2025 at the joint request of the CFPB and the plaintiffs, finding it exceeded the agency’s FCRA authority.⁵ The three major bureaus have made some voluntary changes in recent years, including removing certain paid medical debts and small-balance medical collections, but those are bureau policies rather than legal protections. Check with each bureau for its current practice.

Exceptions for High-Value Transactions

The seven- and ten-year limits do not apply in every context. Federal law lets a lender, insurer, or employer see negative information regardless of age for three types of high-value transactions:⁶

Credit transactions with a principal that may reach $150,000 or more.
Life insurance policies with a face value of $150,000 or more.
Employment at an annual salary of $75,000 or more.

These thresholds are fixed in the statute and are not adjusted for inflation, so they capture far more transactions today than when they were set in 1996. Most conventional mortgages, for instance, clear the $150,000 line.

Reporting Period vs. Statute of Limitations

The credit reporting clock and the debt collection clock are separate. The reporting period controls how long a debt shows on your credit report. The state statute of limitations controls how long a creditor has to sue you to collect. One can expire while the other still runs.

State statutes of limitations for debt range from roughly two to fifteen years, with most falling between three and six. So a debt can vanish from your credit report at seven years yet remain legally collectible, or the reverse.

Be careful with old debts. In many states, making a payment, even a small one, or acknowledging the debt in writing can restart the statute of limitations and give the creditor a fresh window to sue. That does not restart the credit reporting period, but it can create legal exposure on a debt you thought was finished. If a collector contacts you about a very old account, consider talking to an attorney before paying or acknowledging anything in writing.

Finding the Removal Date on Your Report

Each negative entry usually carries a field labeled “estimated date of removal,” “on file until,” or similar language in the account details or comments section. If there is no removal date, look for the date of first delinquency and add seven years, plus the 180-day offset if the account went to collections.

When a debt has been sold, the original creditor’s tradeline generally has the most accurate delinquency date. Check the original account, not just the collection entry.

You can pull your reports from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion for free at AnnualCreditReport.com. Federal law guarantees at least one free report per bureau every twelve months, and the bureaus currently offer free weekly access through the same site.⁷ Compare all three, because each bureau may carry slightly different data or removal dates for the same account.

Disputing an Item That Should Be Gone

If a negative item is still on your report past its legal expiration, dispute it directly with the bureau. Under the FCRA, the bureau must investigate within 30 days, or up to 45 days if you filed the dispute after receiving your free annual report or you submit additional information during the investigation.⁸ If the bureau cannot verify the information, it must promptly delete it.⁹

After the investigation, the bureau has five business days to notify you of the results. You can also ask for a description of how the bureau verified the disputed item; the bureau has 15 days to send that once you request it.

If the response is not satisfactory, you can file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. To be accepted, your dispute with the bureau must have been filed at least 45 days earlier or must no longer be pending — the CFPB will not take a complaint while your dispute is still active.¹⁰

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
2
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Long Does Information Stay on My Credit Report?
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports – Section: Running of Reporting Period
4
United States Bankruptcy Court. Credit Report, How Do I Get A Bankruptcy Removed From My Report?
5
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB Finalizes Rule to Remove Medical Bills from Credit Reports
6
GovInfo. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
7
AnnualCreditReport.com. AnnualCreditReport.com Home Page
8
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Long Does It Take to Repair an Error on a Credit Report?
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681i – Procedure in Case of Disputed Accuracy
10
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Credit and Consumer Reporting Complaint Notice