Removing Late Payments From Credit Reports | Capital One (2024)

Consistently making on-time payments is an important part of using credit responsibly. But nobody’s perfect. And making an accidental late payment can happen to anyone.

But what happens next? How do late payments affect your credit? And is it ever possible to get a late payment removed from your credit report?

Key takeaways

• You can’t remove accurately reported late payments from your credit report.
• You can only get a late payment removed from your credit report if it was reported in error.
• To get an incorrect late payment removed from your credit report, you need to file a dispute with the credit bureau that issued the report containing the error.
• Setting up automatic payments and regularly monitoring your credit can help you avoid late payments and spot any that were inaccurately reported.

You can’t remove a correctly reported late payment from a credit report. And according to the CFPB, you can’t pay a company to do it for you either. So if you see companies offering to remove accurately reported late payments and other negative information from your credit reports, don’t buy it. And make sure you know how to identify and avoid scams.

The only way a late payment can be removed from your credit report is if it was reported in error. That means that you made the payment on time, but it was inaccurately reported to a credit bureau as late. If that’s the case, you’ll need to know how to dispute inaccurate late payments.

If you find an incorrect late payment on your credit report, you can file a dispute with the credit bureau that issued the report containing the error. And if you find the same error on your reports from all three major credit bureaus, you may have to file separate disputes with each of them.

Once you file the dispute, it’ll be investigated. If the late payment is found to have been reported in error, it’ll be removed from the credit report. You can look to the CFPB for more guidance on how to dispute an error on your credit report.

Still want to know more? Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions about late payments:

When are late payments reported?

Typically, late payments aren’t reported to the three major credit bureaus until they’re 30 days past your payment due date.

But it’s still best to pay on time and make at least the minimum payment as soon as possible. A late payment made before it’s 30 days past due can still have consequences, like late fees, interest rate increases and losing a promotional APR.

Plus, late payments are typically also reported to the credit bureaus when they reach 60, 90, 120 and 150 days past due. As those days add up, the impact of the late payment might grow.

How do late payments impact a credit score?

It’s hard to pin down exactly how late payments impact your credit score. That’s partly because you have multiple credit reports and scores.

Credit reports are compiled by three major credit bureaus: Equifax®, Experian® and TransUnion®. They contain information about your credit history, including payment history, the status of your credit accounts, your credit utilization ratio and more.

Then, credit-scoring companies—like VantageScore® and FICO®—use that information to calculate your credit scores. But each credit score might be calculated differently and weigh things like late payments in different ways.

So while it’s hard to know the exact impact of a late payment, payment history can be an important factor in calculating credit scores. And making on-time payments is a good way to keep late payments from impacting your scores at all.

Do late payments have any other negative consequences?

Impacting your credit scores isn’t the only consequence of making late payments. Late payments can also lead to late fees and interest rate increases.

Plus, if a credit card account is 180 days past due, the issuer might have to close and charge off the account. That means that the credit card account is permanently closed, but the account holder still has to pay the debt. Some issuers might charge off accounts sooner than 180 days past due.

Can late payments on a credit report be removed before 7 years?

Late payments can’t be removed from a credit report unless they were reported in error. If a late payment is correctly reported, no one can prematurely remove it from a credit report.

Remember: Accurately reported late payments can’t be removed from your credit reports. And you can’t pay someone else to remove accurate information from your reports either.

But late payments will fall off your credit reports after seven years. And there are things you can do to help make sure you don’t make late payments in the first place, like setting up automatic payments.

Whether you’re worried about a late payment or not, it’s a good idea to regularly monitor your credit. You can request free copies of your credit reports once a year from each of the three major credit bureaus at AnnualCreditReport.com.

With CreditWise from Capital One, you can access your free TransUnion credit report and VantageScore 3.0 credit score anytime, without negatively impacting your score. And CreditWise is free and available to everyone—not just Capital One customers.