Equifax and TransUnion Canada
Two national credit bureaus operate in Canada: Equifax Canada and TransUnion Canada. Lenders, landlords and some employers report account activity to one or both, so your two files are rarely identical. A discrepancy between the two is common and is not, on its own, a sign of error — but you should still request a free copy of each at least once a year and compare them side by side.
Both bureaus organize a report into the same broad sections: identifying information, trade lines (your credit accounts), credit inquiries, public records and collections, and a summary score. The formatting differs slightly between the two, but the underlying data fields are effectively the same.
2
National bureaus: Equifax & TransUnion
1 free
Report per bureau, per year, by mail or online
6 years
Typical retention period for most negative items
Anatomy of a trade line
Each credit account you hold — a credit card, line of credit, auto loan or mortgage — appears on your file as its own trade line. A trade line typically lists the creditor name, account type, date opened, credit limit or original loan amount, current balance, monthly payment, payment status for roughly the past 24 to 36 months, and an account rating code.
Reading a trade line correctly means checking three things every time: is the balance current and accurate, is the payment history free of marks you do not recognize, and is the account still open if you believe it should be. Accounts you closed years ago sometimes continue reporting as open due to a creditor data error, which can distort your utilization calculation.
R-codes and I-codes explained
Canadian bureaus grade each trade line with a rating code made up of a letter and a number. The letter identifies the type of credit — R for revolving accounts such as credit cards and lines of credit, and I for instalment accounts such as car loans and mortgages with fixed payments. The number, from 0 to 9, reflects how current the payments are.
| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| R0 / I0 | Too new to rate, or approved but not yet used. |
| R1 / I1 | Paid as agreed, on time — the target rating. |
| R2 / I2 | 30 to 59 days past due. |
| R3 / I3 | 60 to 89 days past due. |
| R4 / I4 | 90 to 119 days past due. |
| R5 / I5 | 120 days or more past due, but not yet in collection. |
| R7 | Being repaid through a consolidation order or credit counselling. |
| R8 / I8 | Repossession. |
| R9 / I9 | Bad debt, placed for collection, or bankruptcy. |
A single R1 rating carries meaningfully more weight than a stray R2 from years ago, but any code of R3 or worse in the past two years is treated seriously by underwriters. If you are working with an active R7 or R9 account, review our debt-free planning guide for the sequencing that clears these fastest.
Hard vs. soft inquiries
Every time you apply for credit, the lender records a hard inquiry on your file. Hard inquiries are visible to other lenders, remain on file for about three years, and a cluster of them in a short window signals higher risk and can modestly lower your score. Soft inquiries — including when you check your own report, or when an existing creditor reviews your file for a pre-approved offer — are visible only to you and never affect your score.
Rate-shopping window
Multiple hard inquiries for the same type of financing — a mortgage or auto loan, for instance — within a short comparison window are usually treated as a single inquiry by the scoring model. Spreading unrelated credit applications over several months avoids unnecessary score impact.
Public records and collections
This section lists items that did not originate with a single creditor's trade line: bank orders, judgments, and consumer proposals or bankruptcies filed under federal insolvency legislation. Third-party collection accounts also appear here once a creditor has charged off the debt and assigned or sold it to an agency.
These items carry the greatest weight of anything on your file and remain reportable for six to seven years from the date of settlement or discharge, depending on the province and the type of record. If an account here belongs to FDR Asset Group, our payment options page outlines the arrangements available to resolve it and begin the aging-off clock.
How to dispute an error
- Order your report directly from Equifax Canada and TransUnion Canada, not a third-party aggregator.
- Identify the specific field that is wrong — balance, status, dates, or an account that is not yours.
- Submit a written dispute to the bureau with supporting documentation (statements, payment confirmations, or an identity-theft report).
- The bureau must investigate, typically within 30 days, and contact the creditor for verification.
- If the creditor cannot verify the item, the bureau must remove or correct it and provide you an updated report.
Keep a paper trail
Send disputes in writing and keep copies of everything, including the bureau's confirmation number. If a dispute is denied and you disagree, you may add a consumer statement to your file explaining your position for future lenders to see.