How Long Negative Information Stays on Your Credit Report
Every negative item has an expiration date set by federal law, and it is measured from a date most people have never heard of. Here is the full table and the date that controls it.
Every negative item on a credit report has an expiration date written into federal law. FCRA § 605 (15 U.S.C. § 1681c) sets the limits, and when an item reaches its limit, it must come off. No letter is required, no fee, no service.
The complication is not the length of the clock. It is when the clock starts — and that is where both the errors and the industry’s opportunity live.
The table
| Item | How long it can be reported |
|---|---|
| Late payments (30/60/90/120 days) | 7 years from the date of the delinquency |
| Charge-offs | 7 years from the date of first delinquency, plus 180 days |
| Collection accounts | 7 years from the DOFD on the original debt, plus 180 days |
| Chapter 7 bankruptcy | 10 years from the filing date |
| Chapter 13 bankruptcy | Generally 7 years from the filing date |
| Foreclosure | 7 years from the date of first delinquency |
| Short sale / deed in lieu | 7 years, reported as a settled or partially paid account |
| Repossession | 7 years from the DOFD |
| Tax liens | No longer reported by the nationwide bureaus (since 2017) |
| Civil judgments | No longer reported by the nationwide bureaus (since 2017) |
| Hard inquiries | 2 years (scoring effect generally about 1 year) |
| Closed accounts in good standing | Up to 10 years, and they help you |
| Accounts in good standing, open | Indefinitely, as long as they are open |
Two entries deserve a note. Tax liens and civil judgments stopped appearing on nationwide bureau reports in 2017, when the bureaus adopted identity-matching standards those records could not meet. They remain public records and a lender may find them another way — but they are generally not on your credit report anymore.
And closed accounts in good standing are on this list because people ask to have them removed. Do not. A long, clean, closed account contributes to your length of credit history for years after it closes.
The date of first delinquency (DOFD) is the date an account first went late and was never brought current again. The seven-year reporting period runs from 180 days after that date. It does not run from the charge-off, from the date a collector bought the debt, from your last payment, or from the date a collector started calling you. Nothing you do afterward moves it.
Why the DOFD matters so much
Work an example. You stop paying a credit card in March 2020. The bank charges it off in September 2020, sells the debt to a collector in January 2021, and that collector sells it again in August 2023.
The DOFD is March 2020. Add 180 days and the clock starts around September 2020. Seven years from there, the entire chain — the original charge-off and every collection tradeline derived from it — must come off around September 2027.
Not seven years from the charge-off. Not seven years from the first sale. Not seven years from the second sale. The debt’s reporting life is fixed at the moment of the original delinquency and is not extendable by selling it.
That last point is worth sitting with, because it is the single most common — and most consequential — collection error there is. A collector reports a DOFD equal to the date it acquired the debt, and an item that should have expired in 2027 now shows an expiry of 2030. Three extra years of damage, generated by a data-entry practice.
Find it by comparing. Look at the original creditor’s tradeline for the real DOFD, then look at the collector’s entry. If they disagree, you have a documented, specific, high-value dispute — with the evidence sitting on the same credit report.
What does not restart the clock
A great deal of anxiety on this subject is misplaced. None of these move the FCRA reporting clock:
- Making a payment on the debt
- Making a partial payment or a settlement
- The debt being sold to a new collector
- Acknowledging the debt in writing or by phone
- A collector re-aging the account in its own system
- Disputing the item (a dispute cannot extend it)
Paying an old collection does not reset seven years. That myth stops people from resolving debts they would otherwise resolve.
Your state’s statute of limitations — the window in which a creditor can sue you — is a separate clock, and in many states a payment or a written acknowledgment restarts it. A debt can be too old to sue over while still appearing on your credit report, and a $25 good-faith payment can make it suable again. Before you pay or acknowledge an old debt, know your state’s limitations period. See pay for delete: what to know.
Aging is not the same as disappearing
The seven-year mark is when an item must be removed. Its influence fades long before that.
Scoring models weight recent behaviour far more heavily than old behaviour. A 30-day late from four years ago on an otherwise clean file affects your score far less than the same mark did in month three. A charge-off from 2021 matters less in 2026 than it did in 2022, even though it is still listed.
The practical consequence: a negative item you cannot remove is still getting weaker every month, and the fastest thing you can do about it is to accumulate clean recent history alongside it. That is the whole basis of building credit after cleanup.
Underwriters read the same way. Most mortgage programs care intensely about the last 12 to 24 months, with hard waiting periods measured from a bankruptcy or foreclosure rather than from everything on the file.
When an item passes its date and stays
Bureaus purge on a schedule, and expired items should drop automatically. Sometimes they do not, usually because a collector reported a wrong DOFD.
If something is reporting past its window:
- Calculate the correct DOFD and write it down. If the original tradeline is still visible, it is your evidence; if it has already aged off, an old saved credit report may be the only proof — which is why saving your reports matters.
- Dispute with all three bureaus, stating the DOFD, the date the item should have been removed, and the citation to § 605.
- Dispute with the furnisher too, under § 623.
- If it is verified anyway, request the method of verification and file a CFPB complaint. An item reporting beyond its statutory life is about as clear a violation as exists in this area, and it tends to get attention.
Obsolete reporting is one of the strongest disputes available, precisely because it does not require anyone to agree with you about whether you owed the money.
The honest bottom line
If the information is accurate and inside its window, it stays, and no one — free or paid — can change that. What you can do is verify that every negative item is measured from the correct DOFD, because a meaningful share of them are not.
Check the dates. It is free, it takes an afternoon, and it is the highest-yield hour in this whole subject.