Does Debt Come Off My Credit in 7 Years?

Credit reports are easy to damage and hard to fix. You can spend years steadfastly making payments on time only to have financial catastrophe wipe out years of credit building. Negative items on your credit report stay on your report for varying lengths of time, but the range is from seven to 10 years.

Items

Your credit report is a file that lenders and public institutions use to report information about your financial obligations. It's maintained by three credit reporting organizations: Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian. Your credit report has sections for your payment history, personal information, public records and a list inquiries third parties have made about your credit report. Your payment history is a record of payments you have made in the last seven years. Your personal section contains information about your name, address, Social Security number and other personal information. Your public record is a list of court liens, bankruptcies or other public information that is filed in your name.

Seven Years

Most negative items in your credit report remain there for seven years. These items include late payments, court liens, closed accounts and any comments put on your credit report by you or third parties. Credit reporting agencies are legally obligated to keep this information on your report for no more than seven years. Negative information that is incorrectly put on your credit report can be disputed with no damage to your credit report.

Exception

There are two exceptions to the seven-year rule. Bankruptcies can stay on your credit report for up to 10 years, and information about criminal convictions can stay there indefinitely. In the case of bankruptcies, credit reporting agencies are legally required to report the details of the proceedings if it is a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. If the status of the bankruptcy changes, credit reporting agencies must immediately adjust the information in your credit report to reflect this change.

Disputes

Consumers have the right to dispute inaccurate information in their credit reports. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is a law that outlines how inaccurate information in a credit report must be handled. You're entitled to a free copy of your credit report from each bureau every year through AnnualCreditReport.com, and you are allowed to see a list of every party that has requested your information in the last year. If you detect mistakes in your credit report, you can file a dispute with the credit reporting agency. The agency is required to investigate any dispute, unless it is deemed frivolous, and if the agency fails to verify the validity of the item, it must be removed from your credit report.