Metro 2 codes, in plain English

Account status codes

Account status is the two-character code a lender or collector sends each month to say where the account stands: current, a certain number of days behind, paid and closed, transferred, or ended badly through collection, charge-off, repossession or foreclosure. It's the single field that most shapes how a tradeline reads. Some statuses describe the past as well as the present, such as paid but once charged off. Two values, DA and DF, aren't statuses at all. They're instructions to delete the account.

Glossary: account status code

Payment rating codes

Payment rating is a one-character companion to account status. It matters most when the status describes an ending rather than a monthly condition, such as transferred, paid or closed, deed in lieu or foreclosure. The status says what happened, and the payment rating says how far behind the account was at that moment. That's how a report can say an account is paid and closed and still show it was 60 days late when it closed. The values run from 0 for current through 6 for 180 or more days, plus G for collection and L for charge-off.

Glossary: payment rating code

Payment history profile characters

The payment history profile is a 24-character string, one character per month, that becomes the month-by-month grid on your report. The most recent month comes first. Each character records the account's condition that month: current, a band of days late, no data, or a severe outcome like collection or charge-off. Bureaus translate these characters into their own symbols, such as OK, 30, 60 or CO, so the labels you see won't match the raw codes, and they differ from bureau to bureau.

ECOA codes

The ECOA code says how you're connected to an account and who is legally responsible for it. It's reported separately for each person on the account, which is why the same tradeline can show as individual on one person's report and authorized user on another's. The name comes from the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. A wrong code here can put someone else's debt on your file, or make a debt you co-signed look like it isn't yours. Two of the codes, T and Z, are instructions about a person's link to the account rather than descriptions of it.

Glossary: ECOA code

Compliance condition codes

Compliance condition codes are the dispute and consumer-closure flags. They tell the bureau that you dispute the account under the Fair Credit Reporting Act or the Fair Credit Billing Act, that an investigation finished and you still disagree, or that you were the one who closed the account. They produce remarks like account information disputed by consumer. A code stays in place until the furnisher replaces it or sends XR to remove it, so a dispute flag can outlive the dispute if nobody clears it.

Glossary: compliance condition code

Special comment codes

Special comment codes are short standardized remarks that explain something unusual about an account: a payment plan, a forbearance, a settlement, a loan modification, a transfer, or how the account was paid off. A furnisher can send only one per account each month, so it picks the most important. Some describe a temporary condition and should drop off when it ends; others describe how the account finished and stay. Bureaus print them as plain-language remarks, not codes. This list covers the most widely used codes that public furnisher documentation confirms.

Glossary: special comment code