Credit Histories Not Stored for Past Dates

Dear STV,

For both practical and legal reasons, Experian cannot provide a report for a specific date or even year in the past.

Legally, the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act requires Experian to delete certain information within very specific time frames.

Practically speaking, to produce a historical report Experian would have to keep a credit report for every person with a credit history for every day of every year, frozen, just as it was on that day for more than 220 million consumers. It's simply too much information to store. More importantly, there would be use for that old information.

Your credit history is continuously updated with current information and purged of outdated information. Experian retains open, active, positive accounts indefinitely and continuously update the payment history and balance to keep it current and relevant. The accounts show the date opened and have a "first reported" indicator stating how many years ago the account became part of the report, so it is possible accounts you have could date back that far and would still appear in your credit report.

Inactive accounts and negative information are regularly deleted. Once the information has been deleted it is no longer in Experian's system and cannot be retrieved.

Thanks for asking.
- The "Ask Experian" team