How Long Do Collection Accounts Stay on a Credit Report?

Credit reports are records of your credit history, created and maintained by credit bureaus called TransUnion, Equifax and Experian. All of your credit activity shows up on these reports, including your payment performance on your loans, credit cards and other accounts.

Charge-Offs and Collection Accounts

Creditors expect you to pay loans, credit card bills and other debts by the due date. Payments received after that date are typically delinquent, although some lenders may give you a grace period. Late payments appear on your credit reports, along with the length of the delinquency. Unsecured accounts like credit cards eventually get charged off, according to MSN Money writer Liz Pulliam Weston, which means that the creditor no longer considers them as assets. Creditors often sell charged-off accounts to collection agencies, which buy them at less than face value and try to collect as much as possible to turn a profit. Charge-offs and collection accounts both appear on credit reports.

Time Frame

Creditors usually charge off accounts if the debtor does not make any payments for six months. They can sell them to debt collectors at any time after that point. Most negative items remain on credit reports for seven years, starting when the account first went into delinquent status, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Collection accounts show up as a separate entry, but they appear for the same length of time as the original accounts.

Fair Credit Reporting Act

You can confirm that a collection account is on your credit report by getting copies of your report from the credit bureaus' official no-cost site (see Resources). The credit bureaus jointly run the site to comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), which entitles you to a free copy every year. Get copies from all of the bureaus, because they are independent companies and sometimes report different information.

Removing Errors

It is sometimes possible to remove collection accounts from credit reports before the seven-year period expires. For instance, you can legally dispute any entries that contain mistakes. Look for any information the collection agency may be reporting incorrectly, like the account's opening date or balance. If you find any errors, fill out the online dispute forms on the credit bureau websites. The FCRA obliges the bureaus to erase the account if the collection agency is unable to verify its information.

Payment

You can sometimes remove a collection account from your credit reports by paying it off, provided you make this a condition of repayment, according to Bankrate columnist Steve Bucci. Normally, the original entry showing the delinquent account remains on the records after payment. Bucci advises asking the debt collector to have the original creditor change the account status to "paid as agreed," as well as removing the collection entry, as a condition of repayment.