 TITLE: What’s the Most Important Factor of Your Credit Score? CONTENT: How Long Do Late Payments Stay on Credit Reports?\n-------------------------------------------------\nLate payments can stay on your credit report for up to seven years. They can damage your credit score, but the effect on your score fades over time.\nNot all late payments show up on your payment history, however. If you didn't make a credit card payment by the due date and instead made the payment a day late or a week late, you could be hit with a late fee by the card issuer, but your credit won't be hurt.\nWhy is that? Because credit card issuers won't notify the major credit bureaus (Experian, TransUnion and Equifax) about a late payment until a full billing cycle, or 30 days, has gone by.\nThe situation changes if the payment is more than 30 days late. In this case, the effect on your credit scores depends on how long your account was delinquent before you made a payment. So, a payment that's 60 days late will do more harm than a payment that's more than 30 days late but less harm than a payment that's 90 days late. END