What is the time that a closed account can stay on your credit report?

It says that it will be on there until 2016, I thought that it could only stay on there for seven years. This is an account that I closed is paid in full and was never late. Why will it be on there for so long?
What is the time that a closed account can stay on your credit report?
In reality, a credit issue can stay on your report as long as the credit bureau wants to keep it on there.





When the "seven year" policy was put into place it was just because the cost of storing the information was high (disk drives used to be pretty expensive.) The credit bureaus devised a limit (seven years) that balanced the needs of their constituents (the guys lending money) and their hard drive space. The result was the seven years you are familiar with. There is no law that requires that--it is just an industry standard practice.


With the advent of really inexpensive data storage (cheap hard drives) the cost for keeping the data is going down. If a seven-year history was good, a ten-year history would be better.


Some lenders are asking the credit bureaus to "dig deeper" into their potential customer's (the borrowers) past. They will.


Why should your bad credit not follow you? It goes to the matter of integrity. People that are honest, pay their bills. People that are dishonest don't.


But, people can change, and with time, you can improve your credit score by learning to have more integrity. We wise up as we get older (usually.) That is taken into account on your credit score.





So, right now, the standard is seven years. It is creeping towards ten years (as you are seeing--they are flat-out telling you that!) In five more years, this may move off to be a twenty-year credit history that they keep.





The credit bureaus will keep the information just as long as it is useful to their clients, and justifies the cost.
Reply:It's only 7 years for negative credits





10 years for bancruptcy





You can contest anything on your account - they have to reiterate- and only have 10 days to do so. Some companies are too busy to respond, and this can help clear credit easily.
Reply:Some stay for 10 years; if it's closed and not negative, it shouldn't be an issue.
Reply:only negative information stays for up to 10 years. This is a penalty. If it is positive, it can only help you in the long run. Therefore it provides more opportunity to the creditors to offer even more credit you probably don't need which is why it stays.
Reply:I guess I just don't understand what the problem is here. If the accounts were paid as agreed and you were never late, why would you want them no to show?





The more good credit lines that show on your credit the better.
Reply:They can stay on 7-10 years. Just because it says that's when it will come off doesn't mean it will, it may just drop off at some point.
Reply:everyone here is right about 7 to 10 years. If it is a negative you can have it removed by contacting your creditors and having them send a letter stating the matter is resolved and it is no longer an issue. I had to do it once myself.