How Long Does Negative Information Stay on My Credit Report?

Every piece of our credit history is contained in a credit file, often called a credit report. In Canada, there are two main companies who maintain our credit files: TransUnion and Equifax. Equifax is the larger of the two, processing over forty million requests for file information every year.

Negative information remains on our credit reports for varying amounts of time. Below is a list of negative marks that can appear on our credit reports, and a description of how long it takes for each of them to fall off.

Payment History

Each of the credit accounts on your report is assigned a rating each month by the credit grantor. These ratings reveal whether you paid your bill on time, if you are overdue, if special arrangements have been made to settle a debt, or if the account has been placed for collection. Equifax removes these marks from your report six years from the date of last activity on the account. TransUnion removes them six years from the date you were first delinquent. Note that once an item falls off of your credit report, it will have absolutely no impact on your credit score. Also, the farther in the past a delinquency, the less it will hurt your score.

Banking Information

You might be surprised to know that banking information can appear on your credit report. But don't worry, your banking information may only be reported to the credit bureaus after you bounce a cheque or overdraw your account. Negative banking information such as non-sufficient funds and bad cheques appear on your credit report for a maximum of six years.

Collection Accounts

If a collection account is listed under public records, it will be automatically removed from the system six years after the last date of activity.

Registered Consumer Proposals

It takes three years from the date when a consumer proposal is paid to be removed from a credit report.

Bankruptcy

It takes six years from the discharge date for a bankruptcy to be removed. If an individual declares several bankruptcies, then each bankruptcy (after the first) takes fourteen years to be removed from the date of discharge. TransUnion won’t remove bankruptcies from its credit reports for seven years in some provinces (ON, QC, NB, PEI, and NL).

Judgments, Wage Garnishments

Equifax will remove this information in six years (seven to ten in the province of Prince Edward Island). TransUnion will remove judgments after six, seven, or ten years, depending in which province you live. 

Secured Loans

Secured loans will be removed from Equifax reports in six years from the original date they were opened, and from TransUnion reports in five.

Credit Counseling

Records of credit counseling fall off of your Equifax credit report in three years from the date satisfied, and off of your TransUnion report in two.

Credit Inquiries

The record of a creditor making an inquiry into your file will be automatically removed three years from the date of the inquiry.

There are cases in which a person may feel they have been wrongfully rated. There is a dispute resolution process. If the credit reporting agency has found an error, your report will be changed. If any company had requested the report sixty days prior to the change, then the credit reporting agency will forward the correct report. In some cases, it may be a period longer than sixty days.