When will my discharged bankruptcy fall off my credit report?
The only reference to bankruptcy in the Fair Credit Reporting Act is as follows:
Section 605. Requirements relating to information contained in consumer reports [15 U.S.C. §1681c]
(a) Information excluded from consumer reports. Except as authorized under subsection (b) of this section, no consumer reporting agency may make any consumer report containing any of the following items of information:
(1) Cases under title 11 [United States Code] or under the Bankruptcy Act that, from the date of entry of the order for relief or the date of adjudication, as the case maybe, antedate the report by more than 10 years.
Translation
In simple English, and relevant to your credit repair this means that the credit bureaus may not report a bankruptcy that is more than 10 years beyond the original filling date. This applies to both discharged and dismissed bankruptcies.
The credit bureaus, however, have taken it on themselves to remove Chapter 13 bankruptcies, both discharged and dismissed, after 7 years.
Clean it Up
On a related issue, credit repair is almost always essential after a bankruptcy has been discharged. After completion of a bankruptcy creditors are supposed to make adjustments to their reporting of the discharged accounts, but they often don’t. Discharged accounts are not supposed to report with past due balances or in a collection status. Without some credit repair effort these errors are likely to linger for years depressing your scores. Credit repair will often result in a significant improvement once your discharged accounts are reported properly.