How to Remove Late Payments from Your Credit Report

Anyone can miss a due date or simply forget a payment, no matter how good their credit score. But a few late payments can lower your credit score and negatively affect your chances of getting credit in the future. 

The way for you to avoid late payments on your credit report is to keep all your accounts current – in other words, make every payment on time and in full. But what if you already missed one or more, or discovered a late payment on your credit report that you don’t recognize? What can you do about them? And how much do they lower your credit score – really?

According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, lenders and credit bureaus can only delete inaccurate or unverifiable information from a credit report.¹ This means legitimate late payments cannot be removed – regardless of how many internet articles suggest you may be able to convince a lender to delete a single slipup out of goodwill. Instead, the only option is to wait it out. 

Negative information, like late payments, usually stays on your credit report for seven years.² That might seem like a long time but a few bumps in the road can smooth out over that time. If you get your payments back on track, your score can go back up despite one or two late payments. And don’t forget, creditors typically take your entire history into account when looking at your credit report – not just the potholes.

Even if you know the late payment on your credit report is legitimate, it’s a good idea to request a new copy of your credit report a few months later to make sure the road ahead remains smooth. And remember, actively staying on top of payments is key to moving forward.

Let’s say you notice a dip in your credit score that doesn’t make sense to you. What can you do? How can you fix it? 

Getting a copy of your credit reports is the best way to figure out what’s going on. You can get your credit reports by going to AnnualCreditReport.com, which is the only government-authorized site from which to obtain a free report from all three major bureaus.³ Next, look the reports over for errors regarding your personal information, payment dates, and account statuses, for example.

Mistakes happen. If the ding in your credit score seems to be from an erroneously reported late payment, the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires it to be fixed or removed. To get an incorrect late payment removed from your credit report, you can:

• File a Dispute with the Bureau: Each agency provides tools for you to challenge something on your credit report. The process involves describing each issue and providing any proof that you have.
• Send a Dispute Letter to the Lender: Send a letter explaining what is wrong to the creditor. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) website has guides and examples to help you.⁴
• Re-Dispute: If the bureau doesn’t resolve the dispute in your favor, you can send another dispute if you have additional relevant documentation.
• Provide a Statement of Dispute: In the end, if you can’t get the bureau to remove the item, you have the right to add a statement to your credit report that explains why you disagree with something in it. This statement will be visible whenever anyone checks your credit report.
• File a complaint with the CFPB: You can submit your issue to the CFPB, which will try to work out the issue. They try to get you a response within 15 days.⁵

Other Credit Intel articles provide more information on how to remove items that aren’t yours from your credit report and how to dispute your credit report with all three bureaus.

A few late payments might not seem like much, but it can be an issue to lenders. Missed payments on a credit report can increase concern about the borrower’s financial responsibility, and the borrower might therefore be seen as a higher risk. But that’s not all. Late payments can also lead to: 

Late fees: Depending on the credit card issuer, late payments can usually cost up to $40. But the good news is if you make your credit card minimum payment or pay off your statement balance before the next billing cycle, your credit score typically won’t drop and the negative information won’t show up on your credit report.

Credit score drops: FICO credit scores consider past payment history as the most significant factor when determining your score – it counts for 35% of the total credit score.⁶ A payment missed for an entire 30-day billing cycle will likely be reported to the three credit bureaus and appear on their reports. Unfortunately, the better a score is, the more damage a missed payment might do. A very good score can be hurt by around 60 to 100 points, while lower scores can fall by around 25 to 50 points.⁷ 

Penalty APRs: After 60 days without payment credit card issuers can charge penalty APRs as high as 29.99%, which can stay in effect for up to six months after on-time payments resume. Be on the lookout for any notices: the Credit CARD Act of 2009 requires cardholders to be notified in writing before a rate increase.

Credit reports can show negative information for up to seven years and positive data for 10. But the sooner you settle a debt, the better. Delinquencies are categorized by how many days late they’ve become: 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, and eventually “charged off” – which means the lender has given up hope of being paid.⁸ The longer the time, the worse a credit report looks to a potential lender. 

Avoiding additional late payments is a good way to reduce the impact of one or two late payments. Send payments in advance, or better yet, sign up for automatic payments. As long as there are funds in the linked payment account, it’s one less thing to worry about.