Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, credit bureaus can report most negative credit information for no more than seven years. There are some exceptions to the seven-year rule. For example, bankruptcies may be reported for ten years.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires that most negative credit items be deleted from your credit bureau file in no more than seven years, except for a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which can be reported for up to ten years. These are the time limits for reporting negative credit. The creditor or the credit bureau can choose to have the negative credit information deleted whenever they please. Inquiries may remain on the credit report for up to two years. That's sheer and utter balderdash.

Most negative information may remain on a credit report for seven years. Bankruptcy may remain on a credit report for 10 years. We say ‘may’ because there is no law that requires creditors to report you to the credit bureau to begin with. Both federal and state courts do not report you to the credit bureaus. Instead, the credit bureaus hire companies to go to the courts on a regular basis to retrieve information so that they might sell it to their subscribers.

Most credit history stays on your file for a maximum of 7 years, except for bankruptcies which stay on for 10 years, unpaid tax liens which remain for 15 years, and positive information which remains indefinitely. Still, if you have defaulted on a loan, your creditors may continue to submit negative. Top page Previous Page

Most people are unaware of exactly how long credit items will remain on a credit report. It is actually very "One Sided". The "Fair Credit Reporting Act" (FCRA) mandates the duration of time negative credit items can remain on your credit report. The sad part is that the Credit Reporting Agencies (CRA's) benefit from collecting and leaving these negative items on your file. A common myth it that CRA's are run by The Government.

Derogatory items such as late payments and most public record items remain on your credit report for 7 years, with the exception of Chapter 7, 11 and 12 bankruptcies, which remain for 10 years, and tax liens, which remain for 7 years from the paid date. Active positive information may remain on the report indefinitely. Inquiries, or requests for your credit history, remain on the credit report for two years.

A bankruptcy generally affects a persons credit rating for 7 to 10 years. However, this depends entirely on the individual credit reporting agency. The Bankruptcy Court has no influence on the type of information the credit bureaus report, nor on how long they keep it in their records. If you wish to review your credit report, visit www.annualcreditreport.com.

Federal law specifies how long negative information may remain on a credit report. Most negative information must be erased after seven years. This includes late payments, accounts that the credit grantor turned over to a collection agency and judgments filed against you in court. Credit reporting agencies use the date of original delinquency or, in the case of public records, the date of filing to determine when negative information is deleted.

Public records and collection items may remain on your personal credit report for up to seven years, with the exception of bankruptcies, which may remain for up to ten years. Unpaid tax liens may remain for up to 15 years. Positive information remains indefinitely, although agencies can remove it after seven years. Inquiries remain for two years.

In accordance with Title 26 IRS Code, Section 6502(a)(1), IRS’ ability to collect any federal tax expires 10 years after it assesses the tax, unless it commences a lawsuit to collect the tax, obtains a favorable court judgment and periodically renews the judgment. The 10 year time period begins to run on the date IRS assesses the tax, not on the date it files a tax lien.

Our contractors are instructed to leave you as an authorized user, or cardmember, for 120 days. If it takes about 30 days to show up on your credit, then you will have the tradeline on your report for at least 90 days. When you are removed, it may fall off your report, report as "terminated", or stay on your report indefinitely. Some of our competitors allow their contractors to remove you immediately after it shows up on your credit - a recipe for disaster.

initial 90-day alert will be placed on your account, free of charge. It is possible to extend this fraud alert to a 7-year alert by writing a letter to the credit reporting agencies. You may issue consecutive 90-day alerts if you do not want to issue a 7-year alert.