 TITLE: Do Parking Tickets Affect Your Credit Score? CONTENT: How Collections Impact Your Credit\n----------------------------------\nCollection accounts remain on your credit report for seven years from the original delinquency date (the date your account became 30 days past due). They are considered part of your payment history, which has the single biggest influence on your FICO® Score☉ . However, the effect collections have on your credit can vary based on the credit scoring model being used and the amount of the unpaid collection.\nPaying off a collection account may or may not improve your credit score depending on the credit scoring model that is used. The newest versions of the FICO® and VantageScore® credit scores—FICO® 9, VantageScore 3.0 and VantageScore 4.0—ignore collection accounts with a zero balance, so paying off such accounts could improve these scores. But older credit scoring models, including some used by mortgage and other lenders, do not ignore paid collection accounts. Paying off collection accounts won't affect scores calculated with these models.\nThe FICO® Score 8—a scoring model that's widely used by lenders—does not ignore paid-off collection accounts. However, it does ignore small-dollar \"nuisance\" collection accounts in which the original balance was less than $100. Of course, parking tickets in some cities routinely exceed this amount. For example, in New York City, you can get a $115 ticket for parking too close to a fire hydrant, double parking or parking in a bike lane, among other offenses. Park in a disabled parking space in Los Angeles County without a permit, and you can expect to shell out a whopping $330.\nNo matter how much your original parking ticket cost, it's always wise to pay off a collection account, but doing so won't remove the account from your credit report any faster. The good news: As collection accounts age, their impact on your credit score will diminish until they are ultimately removed from your credit reports entirely.\nTo see whether a collection account has affected your credit score, you can check your FICO® Score from Experian for free. The score you'll see is the FICO® 8 version, in which even paid collections can negatively affect your score. If your FICO® 8 score is good, your FICO® 9, VantageScore 3.0 and VantageScore 4.0 credit scores, which ignore paid collections, are likely to be as good or better. END