Length of payment history and FICO score

[Anonymous]

How far back does your payment history affect your FICO score?  I understand that the older the late payment, the less it affects your score, but is there a "cutoff" at which a late payment no longer affects your score (i.e. late payments that are more than say 24 months old have little or no impact)?

[llecs]

There's no cutoff date per se, but 30 and 60 days gradually fade away by 2 yrs from that date. I'm about to have a 90 day age off next month and am curious. I also had a 120 day drop off a 6-7 yr old account and that raised the score 20 pts.

[Anonymous]

Thanks.  That helps.  Would you happen to know how big of a bump you would get from the deletion of a CA/CO account?

[llecs]

CAs can and do impact you up through the end. Seems like I received a 30 or so point bump when my second to last CA fell off at the 7 yr mark, though some have reported 50-70+ pts plus for their last CA to fall off at 7 yrs. Points gained depend on how it is reporting, the age of the CA, and whether or not you have others reporting. For example, you wouldn't get a 30 pt gain if you had 20 others remaining. Law of diminishing returns comes into play.

OCs can be tricky to predict for the fact that they still help or not help with your AAoA. My DW lost some points when a CO fell off; it was her second oldest TL. Point change all depends on the age, how it is reporting, etc. My last CO fell off in August and there was 8 points gained on TU I think and 0 points gained on EQ.

Keep also in mind that it isn't a fixed point per baddie. Any point change hinges on your overall history.

[RobertEG]

I agree with lecs in the observation that it is impossible to predict an actual point total gain over time, as it depends on your scoring bucket, of which there are 12.  As your scores improves over time, you may be placed into a new bucket, and then compared with a new group of consumers who have better payment histories, which may even hurt temporarily.

But one thing is certain.  Major derogs (90+ late, COs and CAs) age very slowly. I would only expect a point gain of 1 pt or less per month as they age until they get very old.

Delinquencies remain for 7 years if it is OC debt only, and an additional 6 months if placed into collection or charged off.