Credit glossary
Date of first delinquency (DOFD)
The month you first fell behind on an account and never caught up before it was charged off or sent to collections.
This date controls when a collection or charge-off must leave your report. Under 15 U.S.C. 1681c(c), the 7-year reporting period begins 180 days after the delinquency started, so the outer limit is about seven and a half years. Furnishers must report the date within 90 days of reporting the collection or charge-off, and a debt buyer complies by using the same date the original creditor reported.
Paying, settling or selling the debt doesn't move it. A later date than your records show is a reportable error, and the CFPB has found furnishers reporting the charge-off date or a service disconnection date as the DOFD, which keeps items on reports longer. The 7-year limits don't apply to reports used for credit transactions of $150,000 or more.
Example
Say the missed payment you never caught up on was due in February 2021. Add 180 days to reach about August 2021, then seven years: the item must be gone by about August 2028, for the original creditor and any collector alike.
Guides that go deeper
- The date of first delinquency and the 7-year reporting clockThe date of first delinquency decides when a collection or charge-off must leave your report. Here is the 180-day rule and how to compute your own date.
- Zombie debt and illegal re-aging: how old debts come backZombie debts are old, paid, or wrong debts that resurface after a sale. Re-aging is reporting a newer delinquency date. How to spot and fight both.
Sources
- 15 U.S.C. 1681c: Requirements relating to information contained in consumer reports, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School
- 15 U.S.C. 1681s-2: Responsibilities of furnishers of information to consumer reporting agencies, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School
- Supervisory Highlights, Issue 22 (Summer 2020), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
This is education, not legal or financial advice. Spot an error? Tell us and we'll fix it.