Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)

What the FCRA is

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq.) is the federal law that governs how consumer reporting agencies collect, share, and correct information about you. It is enforced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Your core rights

Among the most important protections the FCRA gives you:

• The right to know what is in your file, and to free reports in many situations
• The right to be told if information in your file has been used against you, such as in a denial of credit, insurance, or employment
• The right to dispute incomplete or inaccurate information
• The right to have inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable information corrected or deleted, usually within 30 days
• The right to limit who can access your file, which generally requires a permissible purpose
• Limits on how long most negative information can be reported
• The right to place fraud alerts and security freezes
• The right to seek damages in court if a reporting agency or furnisher violates the law

The reinvestigation process

When you dispute an item, Section 611 of the FCRA (15 U.S.C. § 1681i) requires the bureau to conduct a reasonable reinvestigation, forward relevant information to the furnisher, and consider the information you provide.

The bureau must notify you of the results within five business days after completing the reinvestigation. If information is changed or deleted, you can ask the bureau to send the corrected report to anyone who received your report recently.

Duties of furnishers

Companies that report information about you, such as lenders and collectors, must report accurately. When a bureau notifies them of a dispute, Section 623 (15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2) requires them to investigate, review the information you provided, and report the results back.

Adding a statement to your file

If a reinvestigation does not resolve your dispute, you have the right to add a brief statement to your file explaining your side. The bureau must include it, or a summary of it, in future reports.

Common questions

Where can I read the official summary of my rights?

The CFPB publishes "A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act," which bureaus are required to provide. It is available on consumerfinance.gov.

Do state laws give me additional rights?

Some states have their own credit reporting laws that add protections. A licensed attorney in your state can explain how they apply to your situation.