How Long Do Tradelines Stay On Your Credit?

Tradelines can stay on your credit reports for up to 10 years after you close the account. 

However, suppose you have any negative remarks on the account, like late payments. In that case, the negative information falls off of your credit report seven years from the initial delinquency date.

A tradeline consists of any account that appears on your credit profile. This can include student loans, car loans, credit card accounts, etc. 

Closing accounts as a method of credit repair often does not work because closed accounts are not removed from your credit reports. Some of the account information is removed, but the payment history on the account will still impact your credit scores. 

Suppose you are trying to achieve a good credit score. It might be better to efficiently manage your existing tradelines and perhaps open new ones. 

What Happens When You Add Tradelines to Your Credit?

Tradelines, and the information they contain, are key to calculating your credit score. 

Each of the five main aspects of credit scoring, payment history, amounts owed, length of credit history, credit mix, and new credit are all dependent on the tradelines that appear on your credit report. 

Adding a new tradeline will have an impact on your credit score. You can check out our articles on Tradelines to Build Credit, Rental Tradelines, and Primary Tradelines for more information on different tradelines. Tradelines could increase or decrease your score depending on the state of your credit. 

Let’s take a look at some of the positive impacts first. 

Say that you open a new revolving tradeline (credit card). If you keep your reporting balance low, this will positively affect the amounts owed portion of your score. This is because a big part of your amounts owed is credit utilization. 

Credit utilization is calculated by comparing your available credit to your current balance. The lower the credit utilization ratio, the higher your credit score. 

Payment history can also be positively impacted by a new tradeline so long as you make on-time payments each month.

Credit mix may also benefit. For example, if you only have revolving tradelines on your credit and you add an installment tradeline, then this will improve your credit mix and increase your score. 

Unfortunately, a new tradeline will negatively impact the length of credit history and new credit. For example, hard inquiries will decrease your score a few points (new credit) and will affect the average age of account (credit history). 

The one exception would be adding a rental or utility tradeline. These don’t require a credit check and can report up to two years worth of history. 

How Long Do Bought Authorized User Tradelines Stay On Your Credit? 

When you purchase or rent an authorized user tradeline, it will come with a limited window for having the account reported to your credit. 

Often, a rented authorized user tradeline will report as active on your credit reports for a maximum of two months. After that two-month window, the account will be reported as closed. 

If you purchase a seasoned tradeline, your score could initially go up a decent amount, perhaps even 100 points or more. But once the account shows as closed on your report, only the payment history will continue to be calculated in your credit scores. 

The purchased tradeline could continue to appear on your credit reports for up to 10 years if it is not closed. 

However, if the tradeline incurs a late payment, then it is required to be removed from your credit report within seven years from the delinquency date, per the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

Can Tradelines Mess Up Your Credit?

All tradelines have the ability to mess with your credit score. 

First, there is the issue of credit score decreases from new tradelines. Luckily, these issues are usually short-lived, and the new tradeline eventually improves your credit score. 

Buying tradelines is another potential credit score disaster. While they may initially boost your credit by a significant amount, once they are reported as closed, a lot of their credit benefits go away, meaning your credit score could take a nose-dive. 

And, if the primary account holder begins managing the account poorly, this will definitely harm your credit. 

But the most significant way a tradeline can hurt your credit is if you choose to manage the account poorly. For example, incurring late payments or keeping your balance too high on revolving tradelines will decrease your credit score. 

Downsides of Renting an Authorized User Tradeline

Credit piggybacking by renting authorized user tradelines allows you to take advantage of someone else’s good credit. For this reason, it is often a suggested action to take for credit repair. 

But there are a lot of downsides to buying tradelines. Let’s take a look at the top three reasons why you should avoid renting authorized user tradelines.

Dependency on Someone Else

Would you hand a stranger $500 and ask them to keep it safe for you? Probably not. There is too much of a risk that they might lose or spend it. 

The bad news with renting authorized user tradelines is that you are essentially doing this with your credit. You are putting the well-being of your credit in the hands of a complete stranger.

If the primary account holder begins racking up debt or misses a payment, this higher utilization and late payment will appear on your credit reports. And getting the information off your credit reports will be difficult. 

Legal Issues

Currently, buying tradelines is legal. Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that it is not illegal. 

Selling tradelines is more of a gray area. While not technically illegal, it is against most credit card companies’ terms of service. When you sell an authorized user spot, you are committing fraud. 

Both the FICO and the credit bureaus dislike this fraudulent practice. FICO has even started cracking down by revising its scoring models to exclude these authorized user accounts from score calculations.

It is also worth noting that while there are currently no laws forbidd