Affirm Late Payments: What Happens, What’s Reported, and How to Dispute

Affirm doesn’t charge late fees, so a missed payment can seem harmless. It isn’t. Once a payment is 30 days past due, Affirm reports it to the credit bureaus, and that late payment can stay on your credit report for up to seven years.

This guide explains what happens when you miss an Affirm payment, which credit reports show it, whether it affects your score, and what to do if Affirm reported something wrong. It includes what we found in SmartDispute’s data on members’ credit reports.

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What Happens If You Miss an Affirm Payment?

Affirm doesn’t charge a late fee. What happens next depends on how far behind you fall (Affirm, Late payments; Affirm, Collections and charged-off payment plans):

• Right away, Affirm sends reminders, and a missed payment can limit whether you’re approved for future purchases with Affirm.
• At 30 days past due, the payment is reported to the credit bureaus as late.
• After more than 120 days past due, Affirm may charge off the loan. You still owe the balance, and the charge-off can stay on your credit report for up to seven years.
• If the loan goes to a collection agency, you have to pay the agency, not Affirm.

A payment that’s a few days late and then caught up shouldn’t appear on your credit report. It’s the 30-day mark that matters.

Does Affirm Report Late Payments to the Credit Bureaus?

Yes. Affirm says it “shares your entire payment history with Experian and TransUnion,” including on-time, late, and missed payments. How much was reported depends on when your plan started (Affirm, Credit reporting policy):

Affirm doesn’t currently report to Equifax. If you’re checking only your Equifax report, you won’t see an Affirm late payment at all.

Affirm sends updates once a month, and it can take up to 45 days from a payment until your credit report reflects it (Affirm, Credit reporting process). Experian and TransUnion process the updates on their own schedules, so it’s normal for one report to catch up before the other.

What SmartDispute’s Data Shows

In SmartDispute’s data on the first credit reports of 594 members, Affirm reported late payments on 138 accounts belonging to 57 members, about one in ten. By number of accounts, it was the third most common lender behind late payments in our data, after Capital One and the U.S. Department of Education. Our article on how common late payments are on credit reports has the full list.

• Where they appeared: 119 of the 138 accounts (86%) were on Experian only, and 19 were on Experian and TransUnion. None appeared on Equifax.
• When they started: every TransUnion history began in June 2025 or later, consistent with Affirm’s May 2025 start date there. Most Experian histories began well before April 2025, so they came from the older reporting rules.
• How late they got: 45% reached 30 days late at worst, 25% reached 60 days, and 29% reached 90 days. None showed 120 days. Affirm may charge off a loan after 120 days, and charge-offs aren’t counted here.
• One-time slips: a third of the accounts had a single 30-day late payment and nothing else.
• Several plans at once: most members had one Affirm account with a late payment, but some had five or more, because each purchase is its own account.

Affirm also kept its charged-off loans rather than selling them. In our data on which lenders sell charged-off debt, only 8% of Affirm’s charged-off debts were with a debt buyer.

Does a Late Affirm Payment Hurt Your Credit Score?

It depends on when the plan started. Affirm says plans that started on or after April 1, 2025, aren’t factored into traditional credit scores for now, though they may be in the future as scoring models change. Monthly installment plans that started before April 1, 2025, may affect your score (Affirm, Credit reporting disputes; Affirm, Credit reporting policy).

So a late payment on an older monthly Affirm loan counts like a late payment on any other loan. Payment history is the biggest factor in a FICO Score, about 35% (myFICO), and VantageScore ranks it among its most influential factors (VantageScore). A late payment on a newer plan is still on your report, still visible to you, and still counts against you with Affirm, even if today’s scores don’t use it.

Creating an Affirm account and checking your purchasing power don’t affect your credit, according to Affirm. Our guide to how a late payment affects your credit score covers how the effect fades over time.

Will Affirm Remove a Late Payment?

Only if it’s wrong. Affirm says that if it reported inaccurate information, it will work with the credit bureaus to correct it, but “if the information Affirm reported to the credit bureaus is accurate, we will not remove late payment information.” It also says reporting continues to show historical late payments and charge-offs even after you catch up or pay off the plan (Affirm, Understanding credit reporting).

That means a goodwill letter asking Affirm to remove an accurate late payment is unlikely to work. Your options are to dispute anything that’s actually wrong and to let accurate late payments age. Affirm says a late payment can stay for up to seven years.

What Happens If Affirm Charges Off Your Loan?

Affirm may charge off a loan once it’s more than 120 days past due. A charge-off doesn’t cancel what you owe. What happens next depends on who ends up with the debt (Affirm, Collections and charged-off payment plans; Affirm, Loans owned by third parties):

• Affirm keeps it. The charge-off stays on your report for up to seven years, whether or not you pay it.
• Affirm sends it to a collection agency. Once that happens, you pay the agency, not Affirm.
• Affirm sells it. Affirm says it may sell charged-off loans “from time to time.” After a sale, Affirm reports its account as sold and can’t take payments, and the new owner may report its own account. Affirm says it’s normal to see both, because they’re the same debt.

In SmartDispute’s data, Affirm usually kept its charged-off loans. Of 170 Affirm charge-offs on members’ first reports, 136 still showed a balance owed to Affirm, and nearly all appeared only on Experian. Just 12 Affirm debts showed up as collections with a debt buyer, all of them with Jefferson Capital Systems, and 10 of those appeared at all three bureaus, including Equifax, where Affirm itself doesn’t report.

When a debt is sold, only the new owner should show a balance. If Affirm’s account and a debt buyer’s account both show what you owe, the same debt is being counted twice; our article on a Credit One charge-off showing a balance explains that problem, and our guide to what a charge-off is covers the basics.

What to Check on Your Credit Reports

Before you dispute, compare your Experian and TransUnion reports with your loan terms and payment history in the Affirm app. Affirm’s own examples of real errors include a payment made on the due date that’s reported as late. Things worth checking:

• A late month when you paid on time. Your payment confirmations or bank statements are your evidence.
• A late payment on a plan for a purchase you returned or canceled, if the refund was processed before the payment came due.
• An Affirm account you don’t recognize. That’s a possible identity theft issue, and Affirm has a separate process for it.
• An Affirm account on Equifax. Affirm says it reports to Experian and TransUnion only.

Some differences aren’t errors. A paid-off loan that still shows a balance for a few weeks, or one bureau updating before the other, usually reflects Affirm’s monthly reporting and the 45-day lag. Affirm suggests waiting 45 days before treating a missing update as a problem.

How to Dispute an Affirm Late Payment

If the reporting is wrong, you can dispute it with the credit bureau that shows it, with Affirm directly, or both. Affirm must investigate a dispute within 30 days (Affirm, Credit reporting disputes).

• With the credit bureau: send your dispute to Experian, TransUnion, or both, depending on where the late payment appears. Our page on how to contact the credit bureaus lists the mailing addresses.
• With Affirm: Affirm accepts disputes by mail at Affirm, Inc., Attn: Credit Reporting Disputes, 14039 Puritas Avenue, PO Box 35909, Cleveland, OH 44135. It asks you to say exactly what’s wrong, include evidence such as bank statements or payment confirmations, and give your name, contact details, and the loan you’re disputing.

We recommend disputing by mail so you have a record of what you sent and when. Our guide to disputing a late payment walks through the process.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Affirm report late payments?

Yes. Affirm reports a payment as late once it’s 30 days or more past due, to Experian and, for plans started on or after May 1, 2025, TransUnion.

What happens if I miss an Affirm payment?

There’s no late fee, but Affirm sends reminders, may limit future purchases, reports the payment as late at 30 days, and may charge off the loan after 120 days.

Does Affirm hurt your credit?

It can. Late payments on monthly installment plans from before April 1, 2025, may lower your score. Affirm says plans started on or after that date aren’t counted in traditional scores for now, but they’re still on your report.

Why isn’t my Affirm loan on my Equifax report?

Affirm reports to Experian and TransUnion, not Equifax. In our data, no Affirm late payments appeared on Equifax.

Will paying off my Affirm loan remove the late payment?

No. Paying off the plan stops new late payments, but Affirm keeps reporting the late payments that already happened. An accurate late payment can stay for up to seven years.

Who collects a charged-off Affirm loan?

Usually Affirm. It may also place the loan with a collection agency or sell it, and then you pay the agency or the new owner instead. In our data, the Affirm debts that were sold went to Jefferson Capital Systems.

Does Affirm accept goodwill requests?

Affirm says it won’t remove late payment information that was reported accurately. It will correct reporting that’s inaccurate.

What’s the Next Step?

Pull your Experian and TransUnion reports and list every Affirm account: the months reported late and how late, and the status at each bureau. Compare them with your payment history in the Affirm app.

SmartDispute lays out your accounts from all three bureaus side by side, flags late payments that don’t add up, and drafts suggested disputes for you to review, change, and mail yourself. See how SmartDispute works.

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