FAIR Credit Act
Sponsored By: Representative Tlaib, Rashida [D-MI-12]
Introduced
Summary
This bill would create a federal framework for stronger _consumer credit restoration_ and expanded identity-fraud protections. It sets timelines and Bureau rulemaking to remove harmful mortgage, education, and abuse-related items from credit reports and to tighten fraud alerts and freezes.
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- Borrowers and survivors: Creates formal pathways to remove adverse mortgage entries tied to predatory lending, education-loan entries tied to fraud, and items that result from economic abuse. The mortgage restoration rule has an 18-month delay and education-loan removals must occur within 45 days after Bureau certification.
- Victims and protected groups: Reworks fraud-alerts and security-freezes into clearer short and long alerts, including 1-year and 7-year options. It also guarantees free credit-monitoring and identity-protection services for groups like unemployed job-seekers, public-welfare recipients, active-duty service members, and people 65 or older.
- Reporting and scoring changes: Bans reporting of medical debt, speeds removal of paid or settled delinquent debt, shortens retention periods, and forbids using participation in restoration programs or restoration-related markers in scoring, pricing, or employment decisions.
The bill would also require the Bureau to publish standardized private reporting codes, forms, and procedures and to run outreach to holders and consumer reporting agencies.
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
6 provisions identified: 4 benefits, 0 costs, 2 mixed.
Credit restoration for abuse and loans
If enacted, consumer reporting agencies would have to stop reporting adverse items that came from predatory or illegal mortgage practices or from verified economic abuse when the consumer provides required proof. The Director of the Bureau must issue rules within 180 days about how to submit economic‑abuse documentation; the economic‑abuse removal rule would apply 30 days after that rule is issued. Predatory‑mortgage removals would take effect 18 months after enactment. The bill would also make contract terms that try to avoid these new rules null and void, and it would bar credit scoring and users of reports from treating participation in these restorations negatively (that ban would start two years after enactment).
Faster deletions and shorter reporting
If enacted, many negative credit items would be removed sooner. Some items that once stayed 10 years would be limited to 7 years, and many 7‑year categories would be limited to 4 years. Credit bureaus would also have to remove adverse items tied to fully paid or settled delinquent debt once the payment was more than 45 calendar days before the report. Bureaus would also exclude credit-report inquiries they verify were caused by identity theft or fraud. These rules would start two years after enactment.
Stop medical debt on reports
If enacted, consumer reporting agencies would be banned from putting medical debt on your credit report. "Medical debt" would mean bills for health care services, products, or devices. Ordinary credit-card balances would still show unless the card was specifically offered for medical payments. This rule would start two years after enactment.
Student loan fraud relief process
If enacted, the Bureau would certify borrowers with valid defraudment claims about education loans. After the Bureau's notice, consumer reporting agencies would have to remove any adverse information related to the qualifying loan within 45 calendar days. The Bureau would set the submission and review procedures and use private reporting codes that are not shown to third parties. These rules would start two years after enactment.
New fraud alerts, freezes, and monitoring
If enacted, fraud alerts would be renamed and lengthened: initial alerts would be 1‑year alerts (renewable for one more year) and extended alerts would be 7‑year alerts (renewable with an updated identity theft report). While a 7‑year alert is active, bureaus would have to let you request a free copy of your file and credit score each 12‑month period. The Bureau would make a standard affidavit for fraud reports that would not require a police report. Consumer reporting agencies would also have to provide credit‑monitoring services quickly and offer free services to groups the Bureau lists (for example, job seekers, public‑welfare recipients, active duty military, and people 65+). At the same time, the bill would let a person or their agent with whom you had an authorized or prior account view that active account or collect on it despite a security freeze. Most of these changes would start two years after enactment, but the security‑freeze exception and the temporary‑removal/state‑law clarifications would take effect on the date of enactment.
Agency timelines and disclosure rules
If enacted, most of the Act's changes would take effect two years after enactment to give agencies time to prepare. The Bureau would have to finish final implementing rules within that two‑year period. The bill would also define "calendar day" and "business day" for deadlines and require some consumer disclosures to include a website and for outdated disclosures to be removed or flagged. These are timing and disclosure rules that affect how the rest of the bill is implemented.
Sponsors & CoSponsors
Sponsor
Tlaib, Rashida [D-MI-12]
MI • D
Cosponsors
Del. Norton, Eleanor Holmes [D-DC-At Large]
DC • D
Sponsored 7/9/2026
Rep. Stansbury, Melanie A. [D-NM-1]
NM • D
Sponsored 7/9/2026
Rep. Carson, André [D-IN-7]
IN • D
Sponsored 7/9/2026
Roll Call Votes
No roll call votes available for this bill.
View on Congress.gov