How an IVA affects your credit record

Two different records

An IVA leaves a trace in two places. They follow different rules.

How long each one lasts

• Credit file: 6 years from the date your IVA starts. The clock starts when the IVA starts, not when it ends. So the entry can stay on your file for a while after your IVA has finished.
• Public register: for as long as the IVA runs, then 3 months. Your IVA is removed from the register that long after it ends.

These are the standard rules in the Insolvency Service’s guidance for protocol IVAs. If your IVA is not a protocol IVA, check your own papers.

What this can mean

• The Insolvency Service says an IVA may make it difficult for you to get credit in the future.
• While you are in a protocol IVA, you must not take credit of more than £500 without your practitioner’s written approval. Utilities, insurance and similar regular payments set out in your budget are the exception.
• Lenders look at the whole picture, not only one entry. We cannot tell you how a particular lender would decide.

After your IVA ends

When you have kept to the agreement, your practitioner gives you a completion certificate. They give it to you within 28 days of your last payment, or of finishing everything the IVA needed. After that you no longer owe the debts that were in the IVA.

You can ask a credit reference agency for a copy of your credit report and check that it is correct. If something is wrong, contact the agency to have it corrected.

How this compares with other options

• A bankruptcy can stay on your credit file for 6 years from the date of the bankruptcy.
• A Debt Relief Order usually shows for 6 years from the date it was approved.
• GOV.UK says this is the standard time that debt relief options show on credit files.

So the credit file alone does not separate these options. Cost, length and your home are bigger differences. See them side by side.