Here's What Happens When You Have Strong Credit and Are Late With a Payment

We're all human. And because of this, there may come a time when you're a little late making a loan payment or paying a credit card bill.

Rest assured that if you're a couple of days late with a loan or credit card payment, it shouldn't have an impact on your credit score. Even if you're a couple of weeks late paying that bill, your credit score shouldn't take a dive.

Rather, it's when you're 30 days late or more with a payment that the potential for credit score damage exists. And the extent of that damage will largely depend on how high or low your credit score was to begin with.

A single late payment could drag a higher credit score down

You might think that if you have strong credit to begin with, a single late payment won't do much harm. After all, if your score is, say, in the mid-700s or higher, it generally means you do a great job of paying your bills on time. So a single late payment shouldn't have much of an impact, right? 

Wrong. Believe it or not, the higher your credit score is, the more of a hit it might take when you're late with a loan or credit card payment. 

FICO says that someone with a credit score of 793 might see that number drop to 710 due to a single 30-day late payment. For a 90-day late payment, a credit score of 793 might plunge to 660. So we're talking about an 83-point drop in the first scenario and a whopping 133-point drop in the second.

Meanwhile, someone with a credit score of 669 who's 30 days late on a payment might only see their score fall to 625 -- a 44-point drop. For a 90-day late payment, a score of 669 might drop to 590, which is only a 79-point hit. 

This might seem gloriously unfair to you. But the reason a single late payment does more damage to a higher credit score is that such a thing is generally considered to be out of character. Because of that, the damage is more severe.

By contrast, someone with a credit score of 669 compared to 793 has probably made a late payment or two already -- hence the lower score. So at that point, credit bureaus tend to adopt a "what else is new?" mentality and penalize borrowers in that situation to a lesser degree.

Again, nobody said this method is fair. But it's important to know how the system works.

What to do when you're at risk of having a late payment reported

Lenders and credit card companies will generally report late payments once they've reached the 30-day mark. If you're nearing that point and know you can't make your payment on time, but it's your first offense along these lines, reach out and ask for some leeway. If you're able to make your payment within 14 days, for example, your lender or credit card issuer might throw you a bone and agree not to report that delinquency. 

Similarly, if you're experiencing a hardship that's likely to make it so you can't keep up with your loan or credit card payments, have a conversation about it. Your lender, for example, might allow you to pause your loan payments temporarily if you can show proof of financial hardship, like the loss of your job or an injury that's keeping you out of work.

A single late payment has the potential to cause a lot of credit score damage, especially if you have great credit to begin with. So it's really best to avoid being late with your payments, period. But if that's not possible, at least reach out and see if there's a way to mitigate the damage.