How Long Does an Account Delinquency Affect Your Credit Score?

Whenever you fail to make a payment on one of your credit accounts, this is considered to be a delinquency, even if the payment was as little as 30 days late. The creditor will report the delinquency to the credit bureaus and it will appear on your credit report and damage your credit score.

Time Frame

Most account delinquencies can appear on your credit report for no more than seven years from the date of the delinquency. In the case of an account sent to a collection agency, this date is when it was charged off and sent to the agency, usually after 180 days without a payment to the creditor. The negative account affects your score even if you have since paid it off.

Exceptions

A few types of major delinquencies stay on your credit report for longer than seven years. If you file Chapter 7, 11 or 12 bankruptcy, this will remain on the public record section of your credit report for 10 years after you file. Chapter 13 bankruptcy only stays on your report for seven years. If you had a tax lien that you still have not paid, this could affect your credit score for up to 15 years.

Rebuilding Credit

You can rebuild your credit score even while the delinquency is still on your credit report. This is because the effect of delinquencies lessens over time. In addition, as you add more positive information to your credit report, it makes your credit file larger and lessens the proportion of your credit history that is negative, which helps your score. For example, if you have a late payment listed on your credit report, follow up by making on-time payments on that account and other accounts to lessen its impact.

Removing Delinquencies

There is nothing you can do to remove an accurate delinquency from your credit report until at least seven years have elapsed. If seven years have passed since a delinquency, or 10 in the case of bankruptcy or 15 for a tax lien, it should automatically drop off your credit report. Get a free copy of your credit report from each credit bureau through the Annual Credit Report website to confirm that the delinquency was removed. If it was not, initiate a dispute with each bureau by following the instructions listed on each report.