Which bills affect your credit score? Credit reporting by biller

A missed bill doesn't automatically show up on your credit report. Reporting to the credit bureaus is voluntary, so each company decides whether to report, and what its terms say about it varies a lot.^{[1]: p. 15}

This is general research, not credit counseling. See our disclaimer.

What each biller says

Each row below quotes the biller's own terms, agreement or help pages, with a citation to the document and the date we read it. Not verified means we could not read that company's terms, or haven't checked them yet, so we make no claim either way. The same text appears in the Credit reporting section of each biller's page. Both are generated from one data file, so they can't disagree.

Only one row below gives a number of days before reporting: the federal student loan servicers' 90 days. Where other companies report, the 30-day steps you may have heard of come from the credit bureaus' data format, not from the company or from a law. See How credit reporting works below.

Phone carriers

Internet & cable

Satellite TV

Streaming & subscriptions

Utilities

Credit cards

Buy now, pay later

Student loans

Auto insurance

Medical bills

Rent

How credit reporting works

What federal law actually sets

Reporting to the credit bureaus is optional. The CFPB puts it plainly: "Reporting to credit bureaus and other consumer reporting agencies by creditors is voluntary and historically has been. Not all creditors report information about their borrowers."^{[1]: p. 15} The Fair Credit Reporting Act's rules for the companies that do report cover accuracy, disputes and dates. They don't set a minimum number of days late before an account can be reported.^[48]: (a)

The "30 days late" figure you see everywhere comes from the data format, not from a law. Most furnishers send data to the bureaus in Metro 2, which reports "the level of delinquency such as 30-59 days past due, 60-89 days past due, and up to 180 days or more past due."^{[1]: pp. 3, 16} Experian's list of payment-status codes has no code for anything less than 30 days late: the late codes start at "Account 30 days past due date" and go up in 30-day steps to 180.^[49] So a payment 10 or 20 days late has no late code to be reported under, though a late fee can still apply.

A third-party debt collector can't report a debt until it has either spoken to you about it in person or by phone, or mailed or electronically sent you a message about it and waited "a reasonable period of time to receive a notice of undeliverability."^{[50]: (a)(1)}

Charge-off

A charge-off is the lender writing the balance off its books as a loss. It isn't the lender giving up: the federal bank policy that sets charge-off timing says the write-off "does not mean that the asset has absolutely no recovery or salvage value."^[51] That policy also sets the timing, for banks and thrifts only: "Closed-end retail loans that become past due 120 cumulative days and open-end retail loans that become past due 180 cumulative days from the contractual due date should be classified loss and charged off." Closed-end means a loan with a fixed schedule, such as an installment loan; open-end means a revolving line, such as a credit card. Credit unions are outside it. Their regulator, the NCUA, "does not plan to adopt the Uniform Policy at this time."^[52] It doesn't apply to phone, cable, streaming, insurance or utility companies either, because none of them is a bank. When one of those companies writes off a balance, the timing is its own.

How long it can stay on a report

For an account placed for collection or charged off, the Fair Credit Reporting Act's seven-year limit doesn't start on the day you fell behind. It starts 180 days later: the seven years begin "upon the expiration of the 180-day period beginning on the date of the commencement of the delinquency which immediately preceded the collection activity, charge to profit and loss, or similar action."^{[53]: (c)(1)} That makes it about seven and a half years from the first missed payment. Paying the balance later doesn't restart or shorten that clock. Whoever reports a collection or charge-off must also tell the bureau "the month and year of the commencement of the delinquency", within 90 days of reporting it, and a collector who later reports the same account complies by reporting "the same date of delinquency as that provided by the creditor".^{[48]: (a)(5)} A late payment that never goes to collection or charge-off falls under a separate catch-all, "any other adverse item of information", which also runs seven years but names no start date.^{[53]: (a)(5)}

Direct reporting vs. collections

A company can report an account it still owns, or it can hand or sell the account to a collection agency, which then reports under its own name. The two can show up as separate items on your report for the same bill, and "consumers generally are not required to be notified when debt is sold or assigned to a collection agency."^{[1]: p. 30} Which of the two you're dealing with decides which rights apply. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act covers people collecting debts owed to someone else, and it excludes a creditor's own staff "while, in the name of the creditor, collecting debts for such creditor." A creditor that collects under a different name is covered, though: the law "includes any creditor who, in the process of collecting his own debts, uses any name other than his own which would indicate that a third person is collecting or attempting to collect such debts."^[54]: (6)

If the account reaches collections

A debt collector must send you validation information (what you owe, to whom, and how to dispute it) in its first communication or "within five days of that initial communication".^{[55]: (a)(1)} If you dispute the debt in writing within 30 days, the collector "shall cease collection of the debt, or any disputed portion thereof, until the debt collector obtains verification of the debt" and mails it to you.^[56]: (b) Disputing the credit report itself is a separate process. A bureau that gets your dispute must, "free of charge, conduct a reasonable reinvestigation" within 30 days (up to 45 if you send more information during that time),^{[57]: (a)(1)} and the company that reported the item must investigate and then modify, delete or block anything it finds inaccurate, incomplete or unverifiable.^[48]: (b)

Phone, cable and utility accounts

Phone, pay-TV and utility companies can also share your account history with a separate reporting company, the National Consumer Telecom & Utilities Exchange (NCTUE). According to the CFPB, it "collects and shares information on new telecom and utility connect requests, paid-as-agreed and past-due account and payment histories including delinquencies and charge-offs." Equifax runs the database for its members, but "Equifax is not a member of the NCTUE," and you can ask the NCTUE for a free copy of your report every 12 months.^[29] Whether a particular provider reports to the NCTUE, to the three big bureaus, to both or to neither is up to that provider.

This section describes federal law and industry practice in general terms. It doesn't cover state law, which can add protections, and it isn't legal advice. It describes a company's own policy only where that company is quoted above. See the disclaimer.