When does an IVA leave your credit file?

The six-year rule, plainly

There is a lot of confusion around this question, so here is the answer with no hedging. Every IVA is recorded on your credit file from the date it starts, and it stays there for six years from that start date.

Not six years from when you finish, and not six years from your final payment: six years from the day it began. If your IVA started on 10 March 2021, it leaves your file on 10 March 2027, whatever happens in between.

The only exception is an IVA that takes longer than six years to complete, covered below.

Why a five-year IVA outlives its completion, and a six-year IVA does not

If your IVA was set up to run five years and you complete it on schedule, the marker stays on your file for roughly one more year, because the six-year clock keeps running from the start date. Finishing does not clear your file: it changes the entry from active to completed while the six-year term plays out.

An IVA extended to six years, often the result of a payment break or remortgage clause, completes at or very near the same moment the marker expires, so for those IVAs completion and the removal date arrive close together.

If your IVA ran longer than six years

Some IVAs run past six years, for example after missed payments were added to the end of the term. In that case the marker stays until your completion date, because the rule is whichever is later: six years from the start, or the date you completed.

An IVA that started in January 2019 and completed in June 2026 leaves your file in June 2026, not January 2025.

The debts inside your IVA have their own clocks

The IVA marker is not the only entry involved. Each debt that went into your IVA usually carries a default on your file, and every default is removed six years from the date it was recorded, independently of the IVA itself.

Where defaults were recorded around the time the IVA started or shortly before, they fall off at or before the same time as the IVA marker. Two things to check on each one once you complete: the balance should show as zero or settled, and no default should be dated after your IVA started.

A default dated later than your IVA start date is an error worth disputing, because it extends a clock that should already be running.

What actually happens on the day it drops off

Nothing you will notice, which is rather the point. Nothing arrives from the credit agencies to mark the day, which is why knowing it in advance matters.

From that day, at each of the three credit reference agencies, the insolvency entry stops being reported. Other entries run on their own dates, and some application forms still ask about past insolvency.

The day the IVA leaves your file is the date we call your Clear Date.

How to check it has gone, and what to do if it has not

Shortly after your date, check your report with all three credit reference agencies, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, using their free statutory reports. The entry should be gone from all three.

If it is still showing, raise a dispute with the agency directly, referencing the start date and your completion certificate. Agencies must investigate, and an expired IVA entry is a clear-cut correction.

This is also why your completion certificate matters years after you stop thinking about your IVA: it is the proof that settles any argument.

You do not have to wait for the date to start rebuilding

The removal date is when the mark disappears, not when your options begin. Once your IVA completes you can start rebuilding: registering on the electoral roll, keeping every bill on time, keeping any credit you do have well inside its limit, and using products designed for people rebuilding a file.

That way, when the marker drops, your file already shows clean history behind it, and the improvement lands on a foundation rather than a blank page.