The seven-year clock starts on one date. Here is which one.

Most people assume the reporting clock starts when the account was opened, when it went to collections, or when a collection agency bought it. None of those three is the date the statute uses. The date that governs is the date of first delinquency — the month you first fell behind and never caught up.

And it is not the bureau's number to invent. Whoever reports the account is supposed to supply it. That single fact explains why an item can sit on a report years past the point where it looks like it should have dropped off, and why arguing about it with the bureau alone so often goes nowhere.

Four dates on the same tradeline

A single negative account carries several dates, and they do not mean the same thing. Reading them correctly is most of the work:

Date opened — the day the account was established. For a collection, it is usually the day the agency opened its own file, which can be years after you stopped paying. It has nothing to do with the reporting window.
Date reported (or last updated) — the day the furnisher last sent an update. It changes every month. Nothing about it resets or extends anything.
Date of last activity — the last time the account saw activity, typically a payment. It is a data field, not the statutory clock, and it is the one people most often mistake for the real date. Paying a collection does not restart the seven years; moving the date forward to keep an item listed is what people call re-aging, and it is not something a furnisher is allowed to do.
Date of first delinquency — the month and year of the first missed payment that led to the charge-off, with no later cure. This is the one the statute runs on.

The rule of thumb: the other three dates move. That one should not.

The 180-day rule — Section 605(c)(1)

Section 605(c)(1) (running of the reporting period) settles when the clock starts. For a delinquent account that is placed for collection — internally or by referral — charged to profit and loss, or subjected to a similar action, the seven-year period begins 180 days after the date of delinquency. It does not begin on the charge-off date, and it does not begin when the debt was sold.

So the arithmetic that matters is: date of first delinquency, plus 180 days, plus seven years. That is the point at which the item is outside the window Section 605(a) allows.

Illustrative example, not a real file. A first missed payment in March 2019 puts the 180-day mark around September 2019, and the end of the seven-year period around September 2026. Two things follow from that: a collection can be closer to dropping off than its "date opened" makes it look, and it can also be far older than the date the new owner put on it.

Who is supposed to report that date — Section 623(a)(5)

Section 623(a)(5) (duty to provide the date of delinquency) puts the obligation on the furnisher: whoever reports a delinquent account has to give the bureau the date of the first delinquency, and has to do it within 90 days of reporting the delinquency. The date is a claim made by the creditor or the collector. The bureau stores it and repeats it.

That is why a wrong date is usually wrong at the source. It is also why a dispute that only says "the date is wrong" gives the bureau very little to work with: the bureau did not originate the fact. Section 623(a)(1)(A) separately requires furnishers not to report information they know, or have reasonable cause to believe, is inaccurate — which is the hook when a date has been moved forward to keep an account listed.

What actually moves a wrong date is documentation of the truth: statements showing when the payments stopped, a creditor letter stating the delinquency date, or the transfer paperwork that proves a collector's "date opened" is not the date you fell behind.

Bankruptcy is ten years, not seven — Section 605(a)(1)

A bankruptcy does not run on the same clock. Section 605(a)(1) allows a bankruptcy to be reported for ten years, measured from the date of the order for relief — the day the case began, not the day it closed. In a voluntary case that is the petition date.

The practical consequence startles people: a Chapter 13 finished in three years is not off the report in three years. It runs to the ten-year mark like any other. The individual debts included in the case are usually reported with a zero balance and a notation that they were included in bankruptcy; their own delinquency dates still matter for their own windows.

If the date in your file is wrong — Section 611

The dispute you file over a date is a dispute of a specific field, not of the balance. Section 611 (reinvestigation) is the channel: the bureau has to conduct a reinvestigation, generally within 30 days, and forward what you send to the furnisher.

What makes that dispute usable:

Name the field and give the right date — "the date of first delinquency is reported as 01/2024; the first missed payment was 06/2019", with the statement that shows it.
Show where the wrong date came from when you can. A collection's "date opened" often matches its own file-opening date, not your delinquency — that gap is the argument.
Ask for the method of verification under Section 611(a)(7) if the response is a bare "verified" with no detail about how the date was checked.
Keep the paper trail. Date received, certified mail receipt, the response, the date you asked for the method. That record is what an escalation or a regulator complaint is built on.

And the limit, stated plainly: "verified" is a legally available answer, and the bureau — not you and not us — decides the outcome. If the date is right and the item is inside its window, nothing removes it, and anyone who promises otherwise is selling something.

What this page does not claim

It does not promise that any item will be deleted, or that any score will move.
It does not tell you that your item is past its window. That requires the four dates on your own report, not a rule of thumb.
It does not state what your date of first delinquency "should" be without seeing the file.
The example above is illustrative and synthetic. Nothing on this site shows a customer's report.

Where the audit fits

CreditAuditAI reads the report you upload, flags the accounts whose dates look internally inconsistent — a collection whose "date opened" sits years after the charge-off, a tradeline whose reported date of first delinquency cannot produce the timeline it shows — and cites the section that governs each finding. It then drafts the dispute in your own words, one issue per letter, for you to review, sign and mail yourself. The audit is free and asks for no card.

Two related reads: what happens to your letter once it becomes a code, and how the audit runs. If you do not have your three reports yet, the free report sources page lists where to get them.