Quick Answer: Buy now, pay later loans are in the middle of a slow, uneven shift onto credit reports, but as of late 2026 most BNPL activity still doesn’t affect the credit score your lender actually pulls. Affirm reports its pay-over-time loans to Experian (since April 2025) and TransUnion (since May 2025), but both bureaus have said those trade lines aren’t yet factored into traditional scores. Klarna and Afterpay generally still don’t furnish U.S. pay-in-4 data to the major bureaus at all. FICO announced dedicated BNPL-aware scores (FICO Score 10 BNPL and FICO Score 10 T BNPL) back in June 2025, but as of mid-2026 they still aren’t widely used by lenders, largely because most BNPL companies aren’t yet sending the underlying data at scale. Separately, the CFPB withdrew its 2024 rule that would have regulated BNPL like credit cards at the federal level, even as individual states move to regulate BNPL on their own.
Key Takeaways
- FICO Score 10 BNPL and FICO Score 10 T BNPL were announced June 23, 2025, but more than a year later they still haven’t seen wide adoption by lenders, since the bureaus don’t yet have enough BNPL data flowing in to build them on.
- Affirm reports its pay-over-time loans, including Pay in 4, to Experian and TransUnion — but not Equifax — and both bureaus say the trade lines are informational only for now, not factored into the scores lenders currently pull.
- Klarna and Afterpay have largely held off on furnishing U.S. pay-in-4 loan data to credit bureaus, meaning most of what you do on those apps still isn’t visible to lenders at all.
- The CFPB withdrew its May 2024 interpretive rule that would have treated BNPL providers as credit card issuers under federal law, and in June 2025 said it does not intend to reissue a revised version.
- With federal rulemaking stalled, states are filling the gap: Illinois enacted a dedicated BNPL licensing law in June 2026, Oregon issued a bulletin reminding BNPL providers they generally need a lending license, and California’s DFPI has treated BNPL products as loans subject to state lending law since 2019-2020.
- Even without a scoring impact today, an unpaid BNPL balance that goes to collections can still damage your credit, regardless of whether the original loan itself was ever reported.
How BNPL Loans Actually Work
Buy now, pay later is a short-term financing option offered at checkout by providers like Affirm, Klarna, Afterpay, and PayPal Pay Later, typically letting a shopper split a purchase into four interest-free installments over about six weeks (the “pay-in-4” model), or into longer monthly installments that may carry interest on larger purchases. Approval is usually near-instant and, for the smaller pay-in-4 products, historically hasn’t involved a hard credit check the way a credit card application does. That combination — easy approval, no interest on the short-term option, and historically invisible to the credit system — is exactly what made BNPL grow so quickly, and also what’s driving the current push from regulators and credit bureaus to bring it into the same reporting framework as other consumer debt.
What FICO Actually Announced — and Why It Hasn’t Landed Yet
On June 23, 2025, FICO announced FICO Score 10 BNPL and FICO Score 10 T BNPL, describing them as the first credit scores from a leading scoring company to incorporate buy now, pay later data. The plan was for lenders to receive the new scores starting that fall, offered alongside FICO’s existing models at no additional fee, so lenders could compare the two before deciding whether to adopt the new version.
More than a year later, adoption has been much slower than the initial announcement suggested. The core problem is a data chicken-and-egg: FICO’s BNPL-aware scores need lenders and credit bureaus to have BNPL loan data at scale to build meaningful models on, but a May 2026 Senate Banking Committee letter noted that multiple BNPL companies told the committee they still weren’t sharing usage data with credit reporting agencies. Until more BNPL providers actually furnish data the way Affirm has, the scoring models FICO built have little to work with, and lenders have little reason to switch over from their existing scorecards.
What Actually Gets Reported Today: Provider by Provider
The honest, current-as-of-2026 answer to “does BNPL affect my credit score” depends entirely on which app you used, and the landscape is genuinely inconsistent across providers.
Affirm
Affirm expanded credit reporting to Experian for all its pay-over-time products, including Pay in 4, starting with loans issued April 1, 2025. It extended the same reporting to TransUnion for loans issued starting May 1, 2025. Affirm does not report to Equifax. Critically, both Experian and TransUnion have stated that these Affirm trade lines will not be factored into traditional credit scores in the near term — the loans show up on your credit file where you (and, in some cases, other lenders performing a full pull) can see them, but the score itself doesn’t move because of them yet. The one exception: Affirm’s longer-term Pay Monthly product functions as a regular installment loan, and a 30-plus-day delinquency on that specific product has always been factored into your traditional score, independent of any BNPL-specific reporting changes.
Klarna and Afterpay
Klarna and Afterpay have generally declined to furnish their U.S. pay-in-4 loan data to the major credit bureaus. Klarna’s own help documentation describes running soft credit checks for its Pay in 4, Pay in 30 Days, and Pay Over Time products — soft checks that don’t affect your credit score and aren’t visible to other lenders. Both companies have publicly signaled they’re waiting until they’re confident that reporting will help responsible customers rather than just exposing missed payments, though neither has committed to a firm timeline for changing that stance.
What this means practically
If you’re using Affirm, your loan activity is now visible on your Experian and TransUnion credit files, even though it isn’t yet moving your score. If you’re using Klarna or Afterpay for pay-in-4 purchases, that activity generally isn’t visible to lenders at all right now, for better or worse. In every case, a preliminary FICO/Affirm joint study found that most consumers with five or more Affirm BNPL loans either saw no score change or a slight improvement under early testing of the new BNPL-aware models — a reassuring signal for people who use BNPL responsibly, once the new scores actually reach lenders.
The Federal Regulatory Picture: CFPB’s Reversal
Alongside the credit-scoring story, there’s a separate regulatory thread that shapes what protections BNPL users currently have. In May 2024, the CFPB issued an interpretive rule stating that BNPL providers offering “digital user accounts” for short-term installment credit should be treated as credit card issuers under the Truth in Lending Act, which would have extended cardholder-style protections — like dispute rights for defective merchandise — to BNPL purchases.
That rule didn’t survive the change in administration. On March 26, 2025, the CFPB told a federal court it planned to revoke the rule, and on May 12, 2025, it formally withdrew the 2024 BNPL Interpretive Rule along with several other guidance documents. On May 6, 2025, the agency separately announced it would not prioritize enforcement actions based on the rule while the withdrawal was pending, saying it wanted to focus resources on “pressing threats to consumers, particularly servicemen and veterans.” By June 2025, the CFPB confirmed in a court filing that it did not intend to issue a revised version of the rule, stating that the original interpretation had applied “ill-fitting open-end credit regulations” to BNPL products, which are generally structured as closed-end loans. Legal analysts note the withdrawal doesn’t necessarily mean courts will agree BNPL providers owe no card-issuer duties — the question remains legally unsettled — but for now, there’s no active federal rule requiring it.
States Are Filling the Gap
With federal rulemaking on hold, individual states have increasingly stepped in to regulate BNPL directly, and the resulting patchwork is worth knowing if you live somewhere with a more active state regulator. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed the Buy-Now-Pay-Later Loan Consumer Protection Act into law on June 25, 2026, establishing a dedicated licensing and supervisory framework for BNPL providers operating in the state, effective January 1, 2028. Oregon’s Division of Financial Regulation issued a bulletin in 2026 reminding nonbank BNPL companies and their service providers that they generally must hold an Oregon lending license before offering BNPL products to state residents. California has taken the most sustained approach: its Department of Financial Protection and Innovation has treated BNPL products as loans subject to the California Financing Law since clarifying that position in 2019-2020, and has since settled enforcement actions against several BNPL providers, including Quadpay, Sezzle, Afterpay, Klarna, and, more recently, Four Technologies, for operating without the required state lending license. If federal-level BNPL oversight remains paused, expect more states to follow this pattern rather than wait for Washington to act.
Why This Matters for BNPL Users Right Now
The combination of these threads — slow-moving credit reporting, a withdrawn federal consumer-protection rule, and a growing patchwork of state licensing requirements — means BNPL sits in a genuinely unusual place in 2026: increasingly mainstream as a payment method, but only partially integrated into the credit and regulatory systems that govern most other forms of consumer debt. A Federal Reserve report found that nearly one-quarter of BNPL users made a late payment in 2024, up from 18% in 2023, which is a meaningful trend given how invisible most of that activity currently is to lenders assessing overall creditworthiness. Missing a payment on an app that doesn’t report to bureaus won’t directly hurt your score today, but it can still lead to late fees, and if the debt is eventually sent to collections, that collections account can show up on your credit report and hurt your score regardless of the original BNPL provider’s own reporting practices.
What to Do With This Information
Treat every BNPL loan as if it could eventually affect your credit, even the ones that don’t report today, since both the FICO scoring rollout and individual providers’ reporting practices are actively changing and could shift with little advance notice. If you’re using Affirm, check your Experian and TransUnion reports periodically to make sure the trade lines are accurate, since errors are more likely in a newly built reporting pipeline than an established one. If you’re stacking multiple BNPL loans across several apps at once, be aware that this pattern is exactly what regulators and FICO’s own research have flagged as a risk signal — even if it isn’t visible to a lender today, it may become visible as more providers begin reporting. And if you’re using BNPL specifically to build credit history, understand that right now, only Affirm loans have any chance of eventually helping your score, and even that requires the new FICO models to see meaningful lender adoption first.
Related Financial and Regulatory Guides
Credit reporting changes are one of several federal shifts worth tracking if you manage household finances closely. For a look at other consumer protection rules currently in flux, see our coverage of the FTC’s click-to-cancel rule and its current enforcement status. If you’re building or protecting your credit more broadly, our guide to the best identity theft protection services covers monitoring tools that can flag new accounts, including BNPL loans, opened in your name. And if state-level consumer protections matter more to your situation than federal rules, our breakdown of state privacy laws covers how protections vary depending on where you live.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does buy now, pay later affect your credit score in 2026?
For most people, not yet in a direct way. Affirm reports its loans to Experian and TransUnion, but both bureaus say that data isn’t currently factored into the credit scores lenders pull. Klarna and Afterpay generally don’t report U.S. pay-in-4 activity to bureaus at all. An unpaid BNPL balance sent to collections can still hurt your score, regardless of the provider.
What is FICO Score 10 BNPL?
FICO Score 10 BNPL and FICO Score 10 T BNPL are credit scoring models FICO announced on June 23, 2025 that specifically incorporate buy now, pay later loan data. As of mid-to-late 2026, they still haven’t achieved wide adoption by lenders, largely because most BNPL providers aren’t yet furnishing enough data to bureaus for the models to be broadly useful.
Does Klarna report to credit bureaus?
Generally, no, for its core U.S. Pay in 4 product. Klarna’s help documentation describes running soft credit checks that don’t affect your score or appear to other lenders, and the company has said it’s holding off on full credit bureau reporting until it’s confident the change benefits responsible users.
Does Affirm hurt your credit score if you pay on time?
Early FICO and Affirm joint research found that most consumers with five or more Affirm BNPL loans saw either no change or a slight improvement in testing of the new BNPL-aware scoring models. However, since those models aren’t yet widely used by lenders, on-time Affirm payments generally aren’t affecting the score your lender actually sees as of this writing.
Is BNPL still regulated like a credit card?
No, not at the federal level. The CFPB withdrew its 2024 interpretive rule that would have treated BNPL providers as credit card issuers under the Truth in Lending Act, and confirmed in June 2025 that it does not intend to reissue a revised version. This means BNPL purchases currently don’t carry the same guaranteed dispute rights as a credit card purchase under federal law, though state-level rules vary.
Can a missed BNPL payment still hurt my credit?
Yes, indirectly. Even if the original BNPL provider doesn’t report to credit bureaus, an unpaid balance that gets sent to a debt collector can result in a collections account appearing on your credit report, which does affect your score regardless of which BNPL app the original purchase came from.
Should I use BNPL to try to build credit?
Only Affirm currently has any realistic path toward helping build credit, since it’s the main provider reporting to major bureaus, and even that benefit depends on the new BNPL-aware FICO scores eventually seeing meaningful lender adoption. Klarna and Afterpay’s pay-in-4 products currently offer no credit-building value since they generally aren’t reported at all.
Why hasn’t BNPL data affected credit scores yet if it’s being reported?
Traditional scoring models like FICO 8 and VantageScore 4.0 were built before short-term BNPL was a significant product and don’t have a calibrated way to weigh a six-week, four-payment loan against something like a 60-month personal loan. The newly reported BNPL trade lines currently sit as informational entries on your credit file until lenders widely adopt newer scorecards designed to properly weight them.
Do any states regulate BNPL directly?
Yes, and the number is growing. Illinois passed a dedicated BNPL licensing law in June 2026 (effective January 1, 2028), Oregon has reminded BNPL providers they generally need a state lending license, and California’s DFPI has treated BNPL as a loan product subject to state lending law since 2019-2020, with several enforcement settlements against BNPL companies operating without the required license.
Is it a hard or soft credit check to sign up for BNPL?
It depends on the provider and product. Pay-in-4 style loans from Klarna and similar short-term products typically involve only a soft credit check that doesn’t affect your score. Longer-term, larger-balance BNPL products, like Affirm’s Pay Monthly, can involve a hard credit inquiry through certain partner lenders, which can cause a small, temporary dip in your score similar to any other hard pull.