How To Remove Collections From Your Credit Report

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When you have debt that goes to collections, that debt can be reported to credit bureaus as soon as the collection agency has tried to contact you by phone, mail (with around a 14-day waiting period for a response), electronic communication or in person. Once a collection action is on your credit report, it can stay there for up to seven years.

The steps to remove the debt from your credit report will depend on whether the debt is legitimate and whether it’s been paid.

Key takeaways

You can request that a collections agency remove collections debt with a goodwill request after the debt is paid.
If you haven’t paid yet, you may be able to reach a debt settlement agreement or pay-for-delete agreement to improve your credit score.
Some types of debts, like debt under $100 or debt that’s been paid off, isn’t reflected in certain credit scoring models, including newer FICO Scores and VantageScores.

How to remove collections from your credit report after paying a debt

If you’ve paid the debt owed to the collections agency, you can request that they remove it from your credit report. If you don’t, it will likely stay on your credit report for seven years, as it doesn’t automatically fall off.

You can request a goodwill deletion from the debt collections agency. This involves sending a letter or email to the collections agency that requests the debt is removed since it’s been paid. It may involve:

Taking accountability for the debt
Acknowledging situations that contributed to the debt and late payment
Explaining what you plan to do to avoid future debt and late payments
Requesting a goodwill deletion

Collections agencies aren’t required to grant goodwill deletions, so there’s no guarantee this strategy will work. However, it’s worth a try.

It may be more effective to negotiate a pay-for-delete agreement before you pay the debt. This is exactly what it sounds like — an agreement that once the debt is paid, the debt collector will remove the negative action from your credit report. The agency may be more motivated to agree to this if you still owe the debt, so negotiate this up front.

Are pay-for-delete agreements legal?

Pay-for-delete agreements aren’t illegal, but they are typically discouraged by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Because the agreements are seen as a gray area by some credit bureaus, not all debt collectors will agree to them.

That also means that there’s no way to legally enforce them — there’s little you can do if a debt collector doesn’t hold up their end of the deal or if a credit bureau refuses to delete the debt. While an agreement may be able to help get a collection off your credit report, in many cases you’ll need to wait until it falls off after seven years.

How to remove collections from your report for a debt you haven’t paid

If you haven’t yet paid off the debt, there are steps you can take to try to have the collections removed from your report. But again, it’s not guaranteed to work — it’ll likely depend on the policies of the collection agency.

1. Confirm that you owe the debt

First, make sure the debt is legitimate. The agency must tell you:

Your name and mailing information
The name of the creditor(s) you owe the debt to
Account numbers associated with your debt, if applicable
The current debt balance
A breakdown of debt that details the initial balance, interests, fees, payments and credits
An end date for a 30-day period during which you can dispute the debt
How to contact the debt collector

If the debt is legitimate, you can proceed to the next steps. If not, you can dispute the debt with credit bureaus and the collections agency within 30 days.

2. Either pay the debt or work on creating a payment plan

If you can pay the debt outright, that’s often the most effective option. It may prevent the collection from showing up on your credit report at all.

If you can’t, have a transparent discussion with creditors. You can create a repayment plan, which allows you to make fixed payments over a set period of time to repay the debt.

In some cases, creditors may also be willing to negotiate with a debt settlement agreement. They might allow you to pay less than the debt’s full balance to settle the debt and ensure payment.

Whichever method you choose, you can request a pay-for-delete agreement — though keep in mind that a collections agency doesn’t have to accept your request. And even if it’s granted, a pay-for-delete agreement will only remove the collections account, but not the missed payments with the initial creditor.

3. Confirm that your credit report has been updated

After you’ve reached an agreement with the collections agency and paid your debt, monitor your credit report to ensure that the collections debt is removed.

You can use tools like LendingTree Spring and AnnualCreditReport.com to monitor your credit score and credit reports on a regular basis.

Can I remove collections from my credit report without paying?

Typically, no. If a debt is legitimate and can’t be disputed, there may not be any way to remove the collections from your credit report if you don’t pay it. If this is the case, you’ll need to wait seven years for it to fall off your credit report.

You may be able to talk to the collections agency. In some cases, they may be willing to negotiate for partial payment. This could help you pay off a portion of the debt and, if you’re using a pay-to-delete agreement, it could help you remove the collections faster without having to pay for the full original balance.

So, you probably can’t get rid of debt collectors without paying or to get unpaid collections removed from your credit report, but there are opportunities to negotiate.

What if I paid the debt before it went to collections?

Sometimes, wires get crossed and a debt that you’ve already paid is accidentally sent to collections. If this happens, let the collections agency know. Submit the documentation and proof of payment to the agency, including receipts, bank statements or credit card statements.

If the debt collection shows up on your report, you can dispute it as a credit report error.

How collections actions affect your credit score

Collections agencies can report the debt after they’ve made good-faith efforts to try to contact you and waited a reasonable amount of time for a response based on their contact methods. Once they do report the debt to credit bureaus, it can drop your score by up to 100 points if it’s over $100.

In addition to immediately lowering your credit score, this debt will be registered against your debt-to-income ratio and keep your credit utilization higher. This can impact your score further and may make it even more difficult to obtain new loans or credit.

There are a few exceptions, however, with some credit bureaus and certain types of debt. For example:

Paid medical collection debt and medical collection debt under $500 are typically not included on consumer credit reports from any of the three major bureaus.
Collections reported as paid in full are disregarded by FICO Score 9 and 10 suites, as well as VantageScore 3.0 and 4.0.
Collections with an original amount under $100 are disregarded by multiple FICO scoring models.

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