The Age of Late Payments on Your Credit report

Posted on January 31, 2009

The FICO score calculation puts a 35% weight on your payment history and this carries the largest weight compared to all other factors.  Late payments can haunt your payment history and drag down your FICO score.  So how long can these late payments stay on your credit report?

They can be on there up to seven years.  Only judgments like bankruptcies stay longer.  So a late payment is going to follow you around for the next seven years.  What the FICO formula does, it to takes into consideration how recent these late payments were.  The most recent carry a larger negative effect.  As time goes by a late payment’s effect on your FICO score diminishes.

Also, not all late payments are created equal.  The later the payment the worse it is for FICO score.  So a 30 day late payment will not be as bad as a 90 or 120 day late payment.  The effects of 90 days and later payments will also diminish over time, but their severity will always be considered when calculating your FICO score.

Here is a quick way to improve your FICO score: Check your credit report for late payments older than seven years.  These can be removed.  This sometimes does not automaticly happen and smart consumers need to watch out for themselves not just count on the credit bureaus.  BankRate.com reports that 70% of credit reports have an error on them.  Get a copy of your credit report and check it out for yourself.

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