How Long Does Affirm Stay on Your Credit Report?

A paid Affirm loan can stay on your credit report for up to ten years after the account closes. Negative marks like late payments, charge-offs, and collections drop off after seven years, with a 180-day buffer added for collection accounts. So the short answer to how long Affirm stays on your credit report depends on whether the account ended in good standing or in delinquency.

Positive Affirm Accounts: Up to Ten Years

An Affirm loan you paid on time and in full remains on your credit report for up to ten years from the date the account is closed. For an installment loan, that closure date is typically the day your final payment posts and the lender reports a zero balance.¹

Throughout those ten years the account keeps contributing to your credit history length and payment record, both of which factor into your scores.² If the account had a late payment at some point but you brought it current before payoff, the late mark itself falls off after seven years while the rest of the account information can stay the full ten.³

Negative Affirm Accounts: Seven Years

Late payments, charge-offs, and collections tied to an Affirm loan must be removed from your credit report after seven years. The Fair Credit Reporting Act prohibits credit bureaus from including collection accounts or other adverse items more than seven years old.⁴

For collections and charge-offs specifically, the reporting window runs seven years plus 180 days from the date you first fell behind. That buffer accounts for the gap between a missed payment and the point where the creditor formally reports the delinquency or sends it to collections.⁴ A collection from a missed Affirm payment can therefore appear for roughly seven and a half years from your first missed payment.

When the Clock Starts

The starting date is the first missed payment in the series that led to the delinquency, provided you never brought the account current again afterward. Miss a payment in March, make partial payments through the summer, and never fully catch up: the clock started in March. Partial payments along the way do not push the date forward.⁵

The Clock Does Not Reset

Making a partial payment on a delinquent Affirm account does not restart the seven-year clock, and neither does the debt being sold to a new collector. The reporting period is anchored to the original date you first fell behind. Lenders are required to have written policies preventing re-aging, which is artificially changing that original delinquency date to a later one. If a debt buyer purchases your old Affirm balance, the new collection entry still traces to the same original delinquency date.⁵

Hard Inquiries: Two Years

Checking eligibility for an Affirm loan typically triggers a soft credit check that does not appear on your report. If you take the loan, a hard inquiry may be recorded. Hard inquiries stay on your credit report for up to two years, though their effect on your score fades well before that. You cannot dispute a legitimate hard inquiry to have it removed early; it falls off automatically after two years.⁶

Whether Your Affirm Loan Appears at All

None of these timelines matter if the loan was never reported in the first place. Affirm now reports all pay-over-time products, including Pay in 4, to Experian as of April 1, 2025, and to TransUnion as of May 1, 2025.⁷⁸

Loans that started before those dates were reported only to Experian and only if they were longer-term monthly installment loans. Pay in 4 plans and some 0% APR promotional loans issued before the cutoffs were generally not reported. Affirm does not currently report to Equifax, so your Affirm history will not appear on an Equifax report regardless of when the loan was taken out.⁹

You can pull free weekly reports from all three bureaus through AnnualCreditReport.com, the only site authorized by federal law for this purpose.¹⁰ Checking your own reports does not affect your score.

If an Affirm Entry Stays Past Its Limit

If an Affirm account remains on your report after the seven-year or ten-year window has passed, file a dispute directly with the bureau reporting it. Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax all accept disputes online, by phone, or by mail. If you mail your dispute, use certified mail with a return receipt.¹¹

Include documents that establish the timeline: the original loan agreement, the final payment confirmation, or account statements showing when you first fell behind. The bureau has 30 days to investigate.¹² If the lender cannot verify the entry is still within its legal reporting window, the bureau must update or delete it.¹³ If the bureau does not correct the entry, you can file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which will forward it to the company and require a response.¹⁴

1
Experian. How Long Do Closed Accounts Stay on Your Credit Report
2
Experian. How Long Can Negative Items Stay on Your Credit Report – Section: How Long Positive Items Remain on Your Credit Report
3
Experian. How Long Do Closed Accounts Stay on Your Credit Report
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
5
Federal Trade Commission. Consumer Reports: What Information Furnishers Need to Know
6
Experian. How Long Do Hard Inquiries Stay on Your Credit Report
7
Affirm Holdings, Inc. Affirm Expands Credit Reporting With Experian to Include All Pay-Over-Time Products
8
Affirm Holdings, Inc. Affirm Expands Credit Reporting to TransUnion on All Pay-Over-Time Products
9
Affirm Help Center. Affirm Credit Reporting Policy
10
AnnualCreditReport.com. Annual Credit Report – Home Page
11
Federal Trade Commission. Disputing Errors on Your Credit Reports
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681i – Procedure in Case of Disputed Accuracy
13
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Do I Dispute an Error on My Credit Report
14
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Submit a Complaint About a Financial Product or Service