Can I Have My Bankruptcy Removed From My Credit Report if It's Been Eight Years?

Bankruptcy can lower your credit rating by 240 points or more -- the FICO scoring scale only has a range of 550 points -- and stays on your credit report longer than most other items, according to Les Christie of CNN. You may be able to remove a bankruptcy from your credit history after eight years depending on the type of bankruptcy you file. However, the credit reporting time limit has almost ended at this point.

Identification

Your bankruptcy may automatically fall off your report after seven years. A Chapter 7 case stays on your credit report for 10 years, while a Chapter 13 stays seven years after you finish your repayment plan. Because repayment plans usually take three to five years, a Chapter 13 case usually stays the full 10 years, according to John Ulzheimer of Smart Credit.

Removing Bankruptcy

You can remove a bankruptcy from your credit report after eight years in a few other circumstances. For example, you can always remove a bankruptcy when it is an error and someone else declared bankruptcy. A courthouse must keep record of the bankruptcy to prove it to the credit bureaus, so losing a file means you can dispute the bankruptcy and likely win the claim on account of the court not be able to verify the bankruptcy case.

Considerations

Bankruptcy may not be all that bad for your credit rating, and you may see an increase in your credit score with a bankruptcy on record. By the time you file bankruptcy, you almost certainly already have an awful credit rating. You probably wiped out most of your debt in bankruptcy and the bureaus report all accounts included in the case as "BK" rather than reporting the late payments on the account. Also, the bureaus only compare you to other people with bankruptcies, so your credit history may look better now that you get to exclude consumers with excellent credit management skills, according to Aleksandra Todorova of Smart Money.

Tip

After eight years, a bankruptcy probably does not affect your credit score much as long as you have paid all of your debts on time and continue to use credit. Bankruptcies do the bulk of their damage within the first two years after you file, and then recede in importance with each passing month. Thus, it may cause you less time and resources to just wait out the remaining two years to remove the bankruptcy.