What a lender sees is the shape of your accounts. Experian says creditors should add a flag showing that payments come through a plan, and that a creditor may record a default even where it has agreed the plan.

There is no black mark labelled with the name of the plan, and no Scottish register records one. That is the whole of the good news, and the rest of this page is the detail.

Not as a plan. Experian says a plan will not be recorded as a separate entry on your report.

Why the accounts show anyway

The debts inside a plan are consumer credit accounts held by lenders who supply data to the credit reference agencies. A plan changes what you pay them, and paying less than the contractual amount is exactly what account reporting records.

So the plan is not the thing on the file. The arrears behind it are, and they would be there with or without it.

No register entry in Scotland

A plan is not a statutory scheme, so it appears on no register. Sequestration and a protected trust deed go on the Register of Insolvencies, and a Debt Payment Programme goes on the DAS Register.

The difference between those routes and a plan sets the registers out side by side.

Reduced payments are recorded against each account. Experian says creditors should add a flag showing that payments come through a plan, and that a creditor may record a default even where it has agreed the plan.

Which of those you get depends on the individual creditor, and nothing published says how many do which.

What is recorded, and by whom

Experian is direct about the default point: even where a creditor has agreed to your plan, it may record a default because you are making reduced payments, and whether defaults will be added deals with that question on its own.

Ask what each creditor intends to record

Your provider is negotiating with each creditor separately, so ask what each of them has said about defaulting the account. The answers will not be the same.

Get it in writing where you can. A default date decides when the entry drops off, so it is worth knowing from the start.

Nothing about it is uniform

Two people with identical plans can end up with different files, because their creditors report differently. No provider can promise you what your file will look like.

That is also why the request to freeze interest and the request to hold off a default are separate conversations. Whether a plan freezes interest covers the first of them.

The sources disagree about when the clock starts, which matters more than the number. Six years is the period the agencies use for lending decisions, and nothing in law sets it.

The two framings, which do not reconcile

One runs the clock from the marker and the other from settlement or default. How long debt information stays on your credit file sets out what each agency publishes.

What actually sets the six years

Not the law. No statute, no statutory instrument and no Financial Conduct Authority rule sets a six-year period for credit file data.

What sets it is industry agreement through the Principles of Reciprocity, run since 31 May 2026 by the Credit Information Governance Body in place of the Steering Committee on Reciprocity, each agency’s own published schedule, and the storage limitation principle in Article 5(1)(e) of the UK GDPR as a ceiling rather than a period.

The Information Commissioner’s Office reports it rather than sets it

The Information Commissioner’s Office leaflet Credit explained, in its September 2019 version, tells the public that a default stays for six years from the date of the default, and it cites no legal source for the period.

That is the point worth holding on to. Six years is how long the industry has agreed the data may be used to decide whether to lend to you.

The agencies do not even agree with each other

Those are each agency’s own published schedules: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. They are published industry documents rather than regulation.

Because scoring records whether you kept to the terms you agreed. Experian says a plan will usually lower your score, because you are paying less than the originally agreed amount.

Trying is not what gets recorded

The file records what was paid against what was contracted. A creditor accepting the smaller payment does not change the arithmetic of the account.

There is no single credit score

Experian, Equifax and TransUnion hold their own data and produce their own numbers. A plan can look worse on one report than on another.

Checking all three is the only way to see what a lender will see. Each of them has to give you access to your own data.

One warning about a page you may have read

StepChange’s marketing page for its plans says there is no impact on your credit score, while its own credit file guidance describes the recording of reduced payments and defaults.

The two do not sit together. Plan around the recording position rather than the reassurance.

That is a decision for each lender, and no rule turns a plan into an automatic refusal. What is established is what the file shows, not what any lender does with it.

What is actually known

The reduced payments and any default are on the file, and a score built on them will be lower. Nothing published sets out how an individual lender weighs that.

Whether you can get a mortgage on a plan and whether a plan affects renting in Scotland both deal with what is and is not known about those decisions.

New borrowing during a plan is a practical problem too

The plan payment is built on a budget, and a new commitment changes that budget. Tell your provider before taking on anything.

Ask what your own agreement says before you apply for anything.

Your employer is not told

Nothing in a plan involves your employer, because it is an arrangement between you and your creditors. An earnings arrestment is different, because the schedule is served on your employer, and whether a wage arrestment affects your credit score covers that side.

It clears entry by entry rather than all at once. Each marker runs its own clock from its own start date.

Settled and partially settled

An account paid in full is marked settled. Ask your provider and your creditor how an account cleared for less than the balance will be marked, because nothing published settles it.

Before paying a lump sum, take advice. National Debtline’s Scottish guidance raises the possibility that payments of that kind may be open to challenge if you later grant a trust deed or are sequestrated.

Paying off a plan early with a lump sum and what happens when a plan ends go through the mechanics.

Rebuilding is ordinary work

Get on the electoral roll, keep every ongoing bill on time, and check all three reports. Recovery is gradual rather than instant.

Some entries will clear while the plan is still running, because each one is dated from its own event. Others will outlast the final payment for the same reason.

Get all three reports, and ask your provider for its statement. CONC 8.8.1 is a rule and it requires one at the start of the plan and at least annually.

What to look for

• Whether each account shows the payments you have actually made.
• Whether a default has been added, and the date it carries.
• Whether any account still shows charges being applied.
• Whether anything appears that you do not recognise at all.

Get the reports from all three

Creditors do not all supply the same data to the same agencies, so one report can look different from another. Reading only one of them gives you a partial picture.

If something is wrong

Raise it with the creditor that supplied the data and with the agency showing it. A wrong default date is worth challenging, because the date sets the clock.

And keep the Scottish routes in view

No credit reference agency publishes a retention rule for a Debt Arrangement Scheme. Experian, Equifax and TransUnion all publish what they hold and for how long, and none of them lists a Debt Arrangement Scheme at all.

A decree is a separate record again, which whether a summary warrant shows on your credit file explains, and our debt solutions page compares the routes available in Scotland.