Delinquency
A delinquency is a missed or late payment on a debt. Lenders typically report delinquencies to credit bureaus once a payment is 30+ days past due, with subsequent reports at 60, 90, 120, and 150 days late. Delinquencies stay on your credit report for 7 years from the date of first delinquency, even if the debt is later paid off.
Delinquency is the technical term for “late payment” in credit reporting. Different stages of delinquency carry different consequences and different score impacts.
The reporting tiers
Most lenders report at these milestones:
- 30 days past due: first reportable delinquency. Score drop 60-100 points typically.
- 60 days past due: more severe report. Additional score drop.
- 90 days past due: serious delinquency. Largest single score impact.
- 120-150 days past due: typically precedes charge-off
- Charge-off (180 days): account written off as a loss; debt usually sold or assigned to collection
The 7-year rule
Negative items including delinquencies stay on your credit report for 7 years from the date of first delinquency. The clock starts when you first missed a payment that led to the eventual charge-off, not when the lender reported it or when the debt was sold.
This is why “paying off old debts” doesn’t automatically restore your credit: the negative item stays for 7 years either way. Paying the debt removes the threat of further collection but doesn’t reset the credit reporting timeline.
Cured delinquencies
If you bring a delinquent account back to current status (catch up the missed payments), the account returns to “current” but the historical delinquency marks stay on your report. Future lenders looking at your file will see “30 days late in March 2025, current since”: which is better than ongoing delinquency but still affects your score.