CCJ on Your Credit File — How Long It Stays and How to Avoid One

A county court judgment — a CCJ — sits on the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines for six years from the date it was entered. Every mainstream credit reference agency (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion) picks it up. Mortgage applications, car finance, credit cards, business lending, even some tenancy checks — all of them flag an active CCJ.

How a CCJ gets registered

A CCJ is entered when a county court makes a formal order that you owe money. That happens in one of three ways:

• Default judgment: you did not respond to the claim in time. The claimant may request judgment, which the court can enter without a hearing if the rules for default judgment are met.
• Judgment on admission: you admitted the claim (on Form N9A) and the court entered judgment on your proposed terms or set different terms.
• Judgment after a hearing: the case went to trial and the judge decided against you.

The Register records the date, the amount, the court, and whether the judgment has been satisfied (paid). It does not record whether you disputed the claim, whether you had a defence, or what the underlying dispute was about. To anyone checking your credit, a CCJ is a CCJ.

How long it stays

A CCJ remains on the Register for six years from the date of judgment. It can come off the Register before then in these circumstances:

Paid within one calendar month: if you pay the full judgment amount (including court costs and any interest ordered) within one calendar month of the judgment date, you can apply to the court using Form N443 to have the CCJ removed from the Register entirely. This is a "certificate of cancellation" under the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines Regulations. The court fee is currently £19. A judgment may also be removed if it is set aside.

Paid after one month but before six years: apply for a certificate of satisfaction using Form N443 (fee £19). The judgment stays on the Register but is marked as "satisfied" once payment is recorded. Satisfied CCJs carry less weight than unsatisfied ones with credit agencies, but they are still visible.

Set aside: if the judgment was entered by default and you successfully apply to set it aside under CPR Part 13 (using Form N244, court fee £321 on notice or £126 by consent), the CCJ is removed from the Register as if it never existed. The case then restarts — you file a defence and it proceeds as a defended claim.

How to avoid a CCJ

The most direct route is to prevent judgment from being entered in the first place.

Respond to the claim on time. For a paper or MCOL claim, file an Acknowledgment of Service within 14 days of deemed service. This extends your defence deadline to 28 days from deemed service and stops the claimant from getting a default judgment. Then file a defence on Form N9B before the extended deadline. For an OCMC claim, respond by the date in your online account, normally 4pm on the 28th day after the claim was issued; that route does not use the 14-day Acknowledgment of Service step.

Pay the claim in full before judgment. If you owe the money and can pay it, paying the full amount claimed (including any interest, court fee and fixed costs) before any judgment is entered means there is no CCJ to register. Pay the claimant directly using the payment reference on the claim form and get written confirmation.

Settle before judgment. Negotiate with the claimant. If you agree on a figure, pay it and ask the claimant to file a Notice of Discontinuance (Form N279). No judgment means no CCJ. Even a Part 36-style offer, if accepted, avoids a judgment being entered.

Admit and pay within a month. If you file an admission on Form N9A and judgment is entered on your proposed terms, pay the full amount within one calendar month and apply for cancellation. The CCJ is removed entirely.

What if you already have a CCJ?

If the judgment was entered by default — meaning you did not file a response in time — apply to set it aside on Form N244. Under CPR Part 13.3, the court may set aside a default judgment if you have a real prospect of successfully defending the claim or there is some other good reason, and it must consider whether you applied promptly. If the claim form was not validly served under CPR Part 6, CPR 13.2 requires the court to set aside the judgment; being abroad or moving house does not by itself establish that service was invalid or guarantee a set-aside.

If the judgment was entered after a hearing, you can pay it in full and apply for cancellation if you do so within one calendar month. If you need instalments or a changed payment schedule, apply using Form N245. You may appeal if there is an error of law or procedure; simply disagreeing with the decision is not enough.

The county court money claim response guide includes a deadline calculator, a defence-drafting framework and a step-by-step walkthrough of the set-aside process — designed to help you respond before a default judgment lands on your credit file.

See more England and Wales guides →