How Long From When a Creditor Reports Does It Show Up in Bureaus?

A creditor's report about your account activity essentially shows up immediately because creditors report account activity directly to credit bureaus. However, it's difficult to determine exactly when changes to credit reports might take place because there's no set date for creditors to report a customer's account activity to bureaus.

Process

The Experian credit reporting company indicates that creditors report their customers' account activity every month, but the day of the month that creditors update their customers' information with bureaus varies. One of your creditors could report your account activity at the beginning of each month, while another might report on your account in the middle of the month. Therefore, your credit report at a bureau could change every week or every day, depending on how many accounts you have and how much you use those accounts.

Credit Reports

Creditors and lenders report activity for new accounts, late payments and other information about customers' accounts to credit bureaus. However, the TransUnion credit reporting company notes that credit reports generally include six main sections. Therefore, the information that creditors send to bureaus affects only certain portions of your credit report. For example, a consumer information section shows your employer and current address. People who don't change jobs or move frequently won't see much change in that section. The account history section will likely change the most in the report because that section shows creditors' data on consumers' open and closed accounts, including consumers' payment history.

Creditworthiness

The timing of your creditors' report to credit bureaus can affect your ability to get new credit cards and loans. For example, you may have checked your credit report 30 days prior to applying for a new credit card. However, a creditor may have reported a late payment shortly after you checked your report. Late payments in credit files usually cause people's credit scores to drop. A creditor who checks your credit history after the report of a late payment may find that your credit score has dropped below a level at which his company approves new credit cards.

Considerations

TransUnion recommends that consumers get a copy of their credit reports every six to 12 months to monitor changes, which includes spotting any account activity that you didn't authorize. TransUnion notes that people who don't check their credit reports that often should at least check them prior to applying for loans or credit cards. The report could change even after you check it, but monitoring a report beforehand could help you find errors or other problems in the report that you didn't know about. You may be able to resolve such problems and boost your credit score by doing so, to avoid a rejected credit or loan application.