Medical Debt

Medical debt gets treated differently on your credit report than pretty much anything else you owe — and the rules changed enough recently that it’s worth double-checking what actually applies to you. Starting in 2022 and 2023, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion voluntarily agreed to stop reporting paid medical collections, wait a full year before reporting new ones, and drop anything under $500 entirely. Those changes came from the bureaus themselves, not a law, and they’re still in effect.

There was supposed to be more. In 2024, the CFPB finalized a federal rule that would have banned medical debt from credit reports outright and stopped lenders from factoring it into loan decisions at all. A court struck that rule down in July 2025, so it never actually took effect. Where that leaves things in 2026: the bureaus’ own 2022-2023 policies — paid debt off the report, nothing under $500, a one-year wait — are still what’s real. The bigger federal ban you may have heard about isn’t.

What that means for you in practice: medical debt under $500 shouldn’t show up on your report at all, and if you paid off a medical collection, it should’ve come off too. Unpaid medical debt over $500 that’s been sitting in collections a year or more can still show up, same as before. If you’re seeing a paid medical collection, or one under $500, still sitting on your report — that’s not a waiting game, that’s an inaccuracy you’re entitled to dispute right now.