Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have passed laws that limit how medical debt shows up on credit reports, according to the National Consumer Law Center. The nonprofit’s tally, updated Sept. 21, counts California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington, plus the District. Each law works a little differently, and not every one is fully in force.

The laws matter because a medical bill in collections can pull down a credit score and make a car loan, a mortgage or a credit card cost more. For people on a fixed income, that can add up for years.

What the National Consumer Law Center found

The center’s page, Keeping Medical Debt Out of Credit Reports, is headed “Fifteen States and the District of Columbia Limit Medical Debt Reporting.” Its description refers to sixteen state and local statutes. The page lists a bill number and an effective date for each.

The oldest on the list is Colorado’s HB 23-1126, effective Aug. 7, 2023, and New York’s law, effective Dec. 13, 2023. The newest are Oregon’s SB 605, effective Jan. 1, 2026, and the District’s B26-0438, effective Aug. 20, 2026. Most of the rest took effect in 2024 or 2025, including Illinois on Jan. 1, 2025, and Washington on July 27, 2025.

Most of the laws limit both what providers and collectors send to the credit bureaus and what the bureaus can report. A few, including Virginia’s and the District’s, address only what is sent to the bureaus. Several states also require medical providers to put a clause in their contracts that bars collectors from reporting.

For someone in one of these states with a medical bill in collections, the job is to pull the credit reports, find the date the collection was reported and compare it with the effective date for that state. The Federal Trade Commission says the only authorized source for the free reports is AnnualCreditReport.com, and that the three bureaus have permanently extended a program that lets people check each report weekly at no charge.

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Where the limits have gaps

The word “limit” is the center’s own, and it matters. New Jersey’s law, effective July 22, 2024, applies to medical debt under $500. Colorado’s law carries a sunset date of July 2, 2028, according to the center.

The District is the case to watch. The center lists its effective date as Aug. 20, 2026. Law firm Orrick reported that the law took effect without the mayor’s signature on that date, but that its “operative requirements do not take effect until six months after D.C. includes its fiscal effect in an approved budget.” That means the reporting ban in the District starts only after the budget step.

Consumer Finance Monitor, a legal publication, also reported that some of these state laws, including Colorado’s, are being challenged in court. It counts at least 17 states with bans, naming North Carolina and Ohio among them, which shows how much the tallies vary by who is counting and how.

The federal government tried to set one rule for the whole country. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a medical debt rule in January 2025, published at 90 Fed. Reg. 3276. The center says a federal court in the Eastern District of Texas, in Cornerstone Credit Union League v. CFPB, “granted the motion to vacate the rule in its entirety” on July 11, 2025.

That leaves the state laws and a voluntary policy from the three national credit bureaus. According to the center, the bureaus agreed in 2022 not to include medical debt less than a year delinquent, to remove paid medical debt, and to stop reporting medical debts under $500 even if unpaid and even if in collection. The last change took effect in spring 2023.

Consumer Finance Monitor adds that the CFPB has issued an interpretive rule stating that the Fair Credit Reporting Act preempts state laws on the content of credit reports, and that the post says this strengthens the challenges to the state laws. Whether those challenges succeed is not settled.

What to do when a medical collection shows up

If a medical collection appears in a state with a law on the list, the law’s effective date is the first thing to compare against the date of the bill. The FTC says anyone who finds a mistake can dispute it with both the credit bureau and the business that supplied the information.

Anyone in the District should not assume the ban is already working. Under Orrick’s account, the main requirements wait on the city budget. The same law, according to Orrick and Consumer Finance Monitor, also limits other collection steps: no collection until 180 days after the first posted bill, at least 90 days’ notice before collection starts, a 3% annual cap on interest and no liens on a primary home. Those pieces share the same delayed start.

Residents of the 15 states can check the collection against the center’s list of effective dates. The center’s page does not say whether each law reaches debts that were already on a report when the law began, and that question is left open for individual accounts.

The open question for most readers is narrower than the headline count. A state can be on the list and still have a threshold, a sunset date, a court fight or a delayed start. The center’s table is the place to check the effective date, bill number and any dollar limit for a given state.

The national bureaus’ voluntary policy sets a floor in every state: paid medical debt comes off, debts under a year old stay off and debts under $500 are not reported. Whether a particular unpaid bill clears the state’s rule or only the bureaus’ rule is what decides if it stays on the report.

Is a medical collection still on the credit report?

A medical collection that should have stayed off a report can sit there for months while a person waits for a call back, with no record of who said what. Missed dates and half-remembered conversations are how a disputable bill turns into one that is paid by default.

The Bank Account & Debt Protection Kit is a 75-page guide with the debt-validation steps for making a collector prove a debt, plus a debt inventory, call log and deadline tracker. Part 7 covers credit reports and medical debt, and Part 8 holds the letters, worksheets and contacts.

Get the medical-collection debt-validation steps and deadline tracker →

This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.