---
title: "What the payment markers on your report mean"
description: "OK means you paid on time. The numbers 1 to 6 count how many months you're behind. Everything else is a status code — D for default, AR for an arrangement…"
canonical: "https://totalcreditcheck.co.uk/help-centre/guides/payment-markers-explained/"
topic: "Reading your credit report"
published: 2026-08-25
updated: 2026-08-25
author: "Katie Callaghan"
publisher: "Total Credit Check (Piomes Ltd)"
---

# What the payment markers on your report mean

Your payment history isn't written in words. It's a row of one- and two-character codes, one for every month, on every account. Here's how to read them.

**The short version:** OK means you paid on time. The numbers 1 to 6 count how many months you're behind. Everything else is a status code — D for default, AR for an arrangement to pay, SF for a default you've settled. Almost all of them stay on your report for six years.

Open the payments section of your credit report and you're looking at a grid. Each account gets a row, each month gets a cell, and each cell gets a code.

It's an efficient way to show six years of history at a glance. It's also completely opaque until someone tells you what the codes mean.

## How payment history is recorded

Your lenders report to the credit reference agencies roughly once a month. Each time, they say what happened on your account: whether the payment arrived, whether it arrived on time, and whether it was the amount you'd agreed.

That answer becomes a marker. Positive months show as `OK`. Anything else is what the industry calls a [negative payment entry](https://totalcreditcheck.co.uk/help-centre/glossary/#negative-payment-entries), or a negative payment marker — and those are what drag on your [credit score](https://totalcreditcheck.co.uk/help-centre/glossary/#credit-score).

The more of them there are, and the more recent they are, the heavier the effect.

## The arrears scale

The numbered markers aren't a severity rating someone assigns. They're a count of how many months behind you are.

| Marker | What it means |
| --- | --- |
| `OK` | The payment was made on time |
| `1` | A payment was made late, or missed entirely |
| `2` | Two consecutive missed payments — you're now in [arrears](https://totalcreditcheck.co.uk/help-centre/glossary/#arrears) |
| `3` | Three months' arrears |
| `4` | Four months' arrears |
| `5` | Five months' arrears |
| `6` | Six months' arrears |

A single `1` isn't the end of the world. It's one missed payment, and lenders can see it in the context of everything around it. A run of them tells a different story.

You formally enter arrears at `2` — two missed payments back to back. At that point the account is usually passed to the lender's collections team.

Six is as high as the scale goes. After that, the account moves out of the numbered system and into one of the status markers below.

## What happens after six months

Six months of arrears is generally the point at which a lender decides the relationship has broken down.

They'll issue a [notice of default](https://totalcreditcheck.co.uk/help-centre/glossary/#notice-of-default) — a formal letter giving you 14 days to pay what you owe. If you can't, the account defaults and the marker becomes `D`.

So the six-month window matters. Clear what you owe inside it and you avoid a default, which is a considerably more serious marker than arrears. But be clear about what "avoid" means here: the arrears markers themselves don't disappear. However many months you racked up, they stay on your report for six years from the date each one was recorded.

## The status markers

Once an account stops being a straightforward month-by-month payment, you'll see one of these instead.

| Marker | What it means |
| --- | --- |
| `AR` | [Arrangement to pay](https://totalcreditcheck.co.uk/help-centre/glossary/#arrangement-to-pay) — you've agreed different terms with the lender |
| `D` | The account has [defaulted](https://totalcreditcheck.co.uk/help-centre/glossary/#default) |
| `SF` | The default has been satisfied — you've paid what was owed |
| `PS` | Partially settled: you paid part of the debt and the lender wrote off the rest |
| `S` | The account has been settled and closed |
| `DA` | [Debt assigned](https://totalcreditcheck.co.uk/help-centre/glossary/#debt-assigned) — passed to a third party, or an arrangement made with the original lender |
| `DM` | Debt management has been arranged |
| `DMP` | Debt Management Plan — a formal agreement to repay a reduced amount each month |
| `RP` | [Repossession](https://totalcreditcheck.co.uk/help-centre/glossary/#repossession) — the lender took back goods secured against the debt |
| `VT` | Voluntary termination: you chose to end the agreement early |
| `Q` | A query has been raised with the lender, usually a dispute |
| `IC` | An insurance claim has been submitted to the provider |
| `US` | Unknown status — the lender isn't sending updates. Common on defaulted accounts |
| `U` | Status unknown, normally because the account is new or no payments have been reported yet |
| `NR` | Not reported — no update sent to the agencies this month |
| `IN` | Inactive: the account isn't being used, or was opened and never used |

Not all of these are bad news. `S` is simply a closed account in good order. `U`, `NR` and `IN` are administrative — they say the lender hasn't reported anything, not that anything went wrong.

The ones that genuinely count against you are `AR`, `D`, `PS`, `DA`, `DM`, `DMP` and `RP`.

## Arrangements to pay

`AR` deserves its own explanation, because people often take the step that produces it without realising it will be recorded.

An arrangement to pay is exactly what it sounds like: you've asked your lender to change your monthly payment, up or down, from what you originally agreed. It's usually a sensible thing to do when money is tight — far better than simply missing payments.

But it does get reported, it stays on your report for six years, and lenders read it as a negative marker. To them it reads as a signal that you couldn't keep to the original terms, which raises a question about whether you could keep to theirs. An arrangement may also stretch out the length of the agreement and change what you pay each month.

None of which is an argument against making one when you need to. It's an argument for knowing it will show up, and for asking your lender how they intend to report it before you agree.

## If a marker looks wrong

Markers are reported by lenders, not by the credit reference agencies — so the lender is where a correction has to start.

Your report shows which lender reported each entry, so you already know who to contact. Explain which marker you believe is wrong and why, and send whatever evidence supports it. If they agree, they'll update the agencies, and it usually takes four to six weeks to filter through to your report.

If the lender won't correct it, you can raise a dispute directly with the credit reference agency reporting the information. They have 28 days under law to respond. There's more on how that works in [how to dispute credit report errors](https://totalcreditcheck.co.uk/help-centre/guides/how-to-dispute-credit-report-errors/).

Two things worth checking before you assume an error: a marker you don't recognise may belong to [an account you've forgotten](https://totalcreditcheck.co.uk/help-centre/guides/an-account-you-dont-recognise/), and a default that looks wrong often turns out to have [a straightforward explanation](https://totalcreditcheck.co.uk/help-centre/guides/when-a-default-looks-wrong/).

## The key things to remember

- `OK` is a payment made on time. Everything else is a negative payment marker.
- The numbers `1` to `6` count months behind, not severity levels someone assigned.
- You're formally in arrears at `2`, and six months is usually the point before a default.
- Most markers stay on your report for six years, whether or not you later pay.
- An arrangement to pay shows as `AR` and counts against you, even though agreeing one is often the right call.
- Corrections start with the lender that reported the marker, not with the agency.