How Long Does Negative Info Stay on Your Credit Report

Short answer: most negative marks stay for seven years. Some go longer. And a few things stay far longer than they're allowed to, which is where a lot of people get quietly hurt without knowing it.

Here's the full breakdown, plus the part almost nobody tells you: if something is sitting on your report past its legal limit, that's not just annoying. It's a violation of federal law, and you can do something about it.

I'm a consumer protection attorney. Let me walk you through the timelines.

The quick reference

Here's how long the most common negative items can stay on your credit report:

• Late payments — 7 years from the date of the late payment

• Collections and charge-offs — 7 years from the date the account first went delinquent

• Chapter 7 bankruptcy — 10 years from the filing date

• Chapter 13 bankruptcy — 7 years from the filing date

• Foreclosures — 7 years

• Repossessions — 7 years

• Hard inquiries — 2 years (and they stop affecting your score after about one year)

• Unpaid tax liens — up to 7 years in most cases, though the rules here have shifted over time

• Paid medical collections — should already be gone; the bureaus remove these regardless of amount

Most of it comes down to one number: seven years. That's the general limit the Fair Credit Reporting Act sets for how long negative information can be reported.

Where the seven years actually starts

This trips people up constantly, so it's worth getting right.

For a collection or charge-off, the seven-year clock doesn't start when the account was opened, or when it went to a collector. It starts from the "date of first delinquency", the first time you missed a payment on the original account and never caught back up.

That date matters a lot. Collectors sometimes re-age old debt, resetting the clock so it looks newer than it is and stays on your report longer than the law allows. That's illegal, and it's one of the most common things we catch.

Bankruptcy is the main exception

Almost everything follows the seven-year rule except one thing: Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which can stay for ten years from the date you filed.

Chapter 13, because it involves paying back some of what you owe, comes off after seven. And here's something people miss: the individual debts wiped out in a bankruptcy should be reported as discharged and should fall off on their own schedule. If accounts included in your bankruptcy are still showing as owed or past due, that's an error worth disputing.

When "how long does it stay" becomes a legal problem

This is the part that actually matters.

If a negative item is still on your report after its legal time limit, the credit bureau isn't allowed to keep reporting it. When they do anyway, they're violating the FCRA.

The same goes for re-aged debt, a collector moving the delinquency date to keep an old debt alive, and for accounts that should have dropped off but didn't. These aren't rare. Bureaus and collectors get dates wrong all the time, and it costs real people loans, apartments, and jobs.

If you've got something on your report that should have aged off years ago, you don't have to wait and hope. You can dispute it, and if the bureau won't remove it, you may have a claim.

What to do if something's overstayed its welcome

• Pull all three of your credit reports and check the dates on every negative item.

• For collections, look at the date of first delinquency, not the date the collector added it.

• If anything is past its seven-year limit (or ten for Chapter 7), that item should be gone.

• Dispute it in writing with the bureau reporting it.

• If they refuse to remove an item that's clearly expired, talk to a consumer protection attorney.

Accurate negative information will fall off on its own eventually, that's how the system is supposed to work. The problem is when it doesn't, or when a collector games the dates to keep it there. That's not something you have to accept.

If there's something on your credit report that should have aged off, or a debt that keeps getting re-aged to stay alive, we can tell you whether you have a case. The review is free, and you pay nothing unless we win.

Get a Free Case Review

FAQ

When does the 7-year clock start on a collection?
It starts from the date of first delinquency — the first missed payment on the original account that you never brought current. It does not restart when the debt is sold to a collector. If a collector moves that date to make the debt look newer, that's called re-aging, and it's illegal.

How long does a bankruptcy stay on my credit report?
A Chapter 7 bankruptcy can stay for 10 years from the filing date. A Chapter 13 comes off after 7 years. The individual debts included in the bankruptcy should be reported as discharged — if they're still showing as owed or past due, that's an error you can dispute.

Can I remove negative information before 7 years?
If it's accurate, it generally stays for its full term. But if it's inaccurate, outdated, or past its legal reporting limit, you can dispute it and have it removed now. You never have to wait out the clock on something that's wrong.

What happens if a bureau reports something past the legal limit?
That's a violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The bureau isn't allowed to keep reporting expired negative information. If they do, and they won't fix it after you dispute it, you may be able to sue and recover damages.