That missed payment from 2019 is still sitting on your credit file. So is the

Everything Rots – On a Schedule

In the UK, negative information on your credit file has a precise lifespan of six years. That applies to almost everything: missed payments, defaults, County Court Judgements, debt management plans. The moment the six-year clock runs out, the credit reference agencies – Experian, Equifax, TransUnion – quietly dispose of it. It doesn't move to a dusty archive. It isn't flagged as "resolved." It just disappears entirely, as if it never happened.

The clock starts from the date the account defaulted or the event occurred, not from when you paid it off. So settling an old debt doesn't reset the timer – the entry still rots away on its original schedule. That distinction matters more than most people realise.

What Doesn't Compost (Quite as Cleanly)

Some things take longer to break down, or leave residue. A bankruptcy in the UK stays on your file for six years from the date of the order, but the effects can linger in indirect ways – certain lenders keep their own internal records and may decline applicants even after the public credit file has cleared. Electoral roll information, on the other hand, is useful material: being registered to vote at a stable address adds a kind of steady, slow-release nitrogen to the heap, quietly improving your profile.

Accounts with no activity can thin out your file over time too. An old credit card you never use might age off gradually, leaving your file looking bare – which isn't the same as clean.

Managing the Top of the Heap

Here's the practical bit: what lenders actually see when they check your file is whatever is sitting on top right now. Old bad material will compost away on its own timetable, but your job is to make sure fresh, healthy material is being added regularly. A credit card used lightly and paid off in full each month. A mobile phone contract. A utility bill in your name. These generate recent, positive data that sits prominently at the top of the heap.

Checking your own file (which doesn't affect your score) via any of the three agencies is worth doing once a year. Partly to see what's decomposing. Partly to catch anything that shouldn't be there at all: wrong addresses, accounts you don't recognise, defaults that are past their six years and should already be gone.

The heap doesn't stay the same. It's always turning over. Knowing that is half the job.