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Last reviewed: 14 September 2026

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What your credit repair contract legally has to say

A credit repair organization isn't just banned from charging you before it delivers results — federal law also dictates the paperwork itself: what you must be told before you sign, what the contract must contain, and how you get out of it if you change your mind. Skip any of these and the contract isn't just unfair. It's legally void.

The disclosure you must get before you sign anything

Before a credit repair organization may have you sign a contract, the Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA) requires it to hand you a specific written statement, on its own — not folded into paragraph six of the contract itself (15 U.S.C. § 1679c). The statute doesn't leave the wording to the company's discretion; it specifies the actual sentences the disclosure must contain, headed "Consumer Credit File Rights Under State and Federal Law," including this core passage:

Required statutory text (excerpt): "You have a right to dispute inaccurate information in your credit report by contacting the credit bureau directly. However, neither you nor any credit repair company or credit repair organization has the right to have accurate, current, and verifiable information removed from your credit report. The credit bureau must remove accurate, negative information from your report only if it is over seven years old. Bankruptcy information can be reported for 10 years. You have a right to obtain a copy of your credit report from a credit bureau."

If a company hands you a contract and skips this disclosure — or buries a paraphrase of it inside the contract instead of giving it to you as its own document, before you sign — it has already violated the statute, independent of anything else in the deal.

What the contract itself has to contain

Assuming the disclosure was given, CROA separately dictates what the contract must say (15 U.S.C. § 1679d). No credit repair organization may perform any service until a written, dated contract meeting these requirements is signed — and even then, it can't start work until the three-business-day cancellation window below has passed. The contract itself must include, in writing:

A contract that just says "credit repair services — monthly fee" without an itemized description of what's actually being done, or one where the guarantee is a verbal promise made on a sales call but never appears in writing, doesn't meet this bar even if you signed it willingly.

The three-business-day right to cancel — and the form that has to come with it

CROA gives every consumer a mandatory cooling-off period: you can cancel a credit repair contract, for any reason, without penalty, at any time before midnight of the third business day after the contract is signed (15 U.S.C. § 1679e). This isn't a courtesy the company can choose to offer or withhold — it's a legal right built into every contract by default, and the company cannot lawfully start work until that window has closed.

To make that right usable in practice, the statute requires the contract to be accompanied by an actual, two-copy cancellation form, headed "Notice of Cancellation," carrying — in bold-face type — wording close to: "You may cancel this contract, without any penalty or obligation, at any time before midnight of the 3rd day which begins after the date the contract is signed by you… To cancel this contract, mail or deliver a signed, dated copy of this cancellation notice, or any other written notice," to the company, by the deadline. If you never received that form, you were never given a working way to exercise a right the law says you already have.

What happens if a company skips any of this

CROA doesn't treat these as minor paperwork defects. A contract for services that doesn't comply with the Act's disclosure, contract-content, or cancellation requirements is void and cannot be enforced against you by any court (15 U.S.C. § 1679f). The same section separately voids any attempt by a company to get you to waive these protections — a clause buried in fine print saying "consumer waives the right to cancel" doesn't hold up just because you signed underneath it; CROA treats an attempt to obtain that waiver as its own separate violation.

Before you sign anything, in this order: (1) did you receive the written CROA disclosure statement as its own document, before signing? (2) does the contract itemize the actual services, the total cost, and any guarantee in writing? (3) did a "Notice of Cancellation" form come with it, in duplicate? A company that can produce all three without hesitation is following the law's actual mechanics — not just its headline "no fees before results" rule. See our advance-fee rule explainer for the fee-timing side of CROA, and our standard for how we check a company's cancellation-rights disclosure specifically.

References

  1. Credit Repair Organizations Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1679c (Disclosures) — required pre-contract written disclosure statement and its statutory text.
  2. 15 U.S.C. § 1679d (Credit repair organizations contracts) — required contract contents and the bar on performing services before a compliant contract is signed and the cancellation period has passed.
  3. 15 U.S.C. § 1679e (Right to cancel contract) — the three-business-day cancellation right and the required "Notice of Cancellation" form and its wording.
  4. 15 U.S.C. § 1679f (Noncompliance with this subchapter) — noncompliant contracts are void and unenforceable; waivers of CROA rights are void and an attempt to obtain one is itself a violation.
  5. Federal Trade Commission, consumer guidance "Credit Repair: How to Help Yourself," summarizing the three-business-day cooling-off period and Notice of Cancellation requirement in plain language, corroborating the statutory text above.

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