Most negative information can stay on your credit report for seven years. Chapter 7 bankruptcy is the main exception at ten years, and hard inquiries are the main exception in the other direction at two. The detail that actually decides when an item disappears is not the length of the window but the date it starts running from, and for collections, charge-offs, repossessions, and foreclosures, that date is the first delinquency on the original account rather than the event itself.
The full table
This is the complete reporting window for each item type, with the date each window is measured from. These periods apply to accurate information. Inaccurate or unverifiable information should not be on your report at any point in the timeline.
Why the starting date matters more than the length
Consider a credit card you stopped paying in March 2021. It charged off in September 2021 and was sold to a collection agency in early 2022, which sold it again in 2023. There is only one date that matters for all of it: March 2021. The charge-off, the first collection, and the second collection all have to come off by March 2028.
In practice, each hand-off is an opportunity for a later date to appear on your report, and each later date buys the reporting an extension it is not entitled to. This is why comparing all three reports is worth the effort. The bureaus receive their data separately and frequently disagree, and a disagreement means at least one of them is wrong.
Medical collections have their own rules, and they changed
A lot of what is written about medical debt online is now out of date. In January 2025 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized a rule that would have removed medical debt from credit reports. In July 2025 a federal court vacated that rule nationwide, holding it exceeded the agency's authority. The rule is not in effect.
What still applies are the voluntary commitments the three nationwide bureaus made in 2022 and 2023, and they cover a great deal of real-world medical debt: paid medical collections are removed regardless of amount, unpaid medical collections under $500 are not reported, and no medical collection can appear until one year after it went to collections. When one of those commitments is not honored, that is a reporting inaccuracy you can challenge.
- Paid medical collections: removed at any amount
- Unpaid medical collections under $500: not reported
- One-year waiting period before any medical collection can appear
- The 2025 federal rule that would have gone further was struck down and is not in force
Things that no longer report at all
Two categories quietly disappeared from credit reports and are worth checking for, because occasionally they linger. Civil judgments and most tax liens stopped being reported when the bureaus adopted stricter identity-matching standards in 2017 and 2018. If either is on your report today, it likely should not be.
Waiting is a strategy, but only for accurate items
The weight of a negative mark fades well before it disappears. A four-year-old late payment does far less damage than a four-month-old one, particularly if everything since has been clean. For genuinely accurate items, patience plus good behavior is the whole plan, and nobody should charge you for it.
That logic does not extend to items that are wrong. About one in five consumer reports contains an error, and roughly one in twenty contains an error material enough to change the price a lender quotes you. Waiting seven years for something that should not have been there in the first place is not patience, it is a loss.
| Item | How long it can report | Measured from |
|---|---|---|
| Late payment (30, 60, 90+ days) | 7 years | The date of the missed payment |
| Collection account | 7 years | Date of first delinquency on the original debt |
| Charge-off | 7 years | Date of first delinquency, not the charge-off date |
| Repossession | 7 years | Date of first delinquency |
| Foreclosure | 7 years | Date of first delinquency |
| Chapter 13 bankruptcy | 7 years | The filing date |
| Chapter 7 bankruptcy | 10 years | The filing date |
| Hard inquiry | 2 years visible, about 12 months of score impact | The date of the inquiry |
| Closed account in good standing | Up to 10 years | The closing date |
| Paid medical collection | Not reported | Bureau policy, 2022 |
| Unpaid medical collection under $500 | Not reported | Bureau policy, 2023 |
| Tax liens and civil judgments | Generally not reported | Bureau policy, 2017 to 2018 |
Reporting windows for accurate negative information, and the date each window runs from.
Frequently asked
This guide is general information, current as of July 2026, and not personalized advice. You can dispute credit report errors yourself for free and get your reports weekly at AnnualCreditReport.com. No company can lawfully remove accurate information, and we charge no fee before work is performed.
Get my free credit review