CFPB Withdraws 67 Guidance Documents, Many on FCRA

Source

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Decided

May 12, 2025

Bottom line

The FCRA itself did not change; the duties the guidance described still come from the statute and court decisions, but the CFPB is less likely to enforce them.

Background

Over the years, the CFPB issued guidance explaining how it read the consumer financial laws it enforces, including the FCRA. Between 2021 and 2024 it issued several advisory opinions and circulars aimed at credit reporting and background screening. Those documents were not binding regulations, but courts and companies often looked to them, and they signaled what the CFPB would treat as violations.

On May 12, 2025, the CFPB, under Acting Director Russell Vought, published a notice in the Federal Register withdrawing 67 guidance documents.

What changed

The notice withdrew a long list of items. Those most relevant to credit and background reporting include:

• Advisory opinions: Fair Credit Reporting; File Disclosure (89 Fed. Reg. 4167, Jan. 2024); Fair Credit Reporting; Background Screening (89 Fed. Reg. 4171, Jan. 2024); Fair Credit Reporting; Permissible Purposes for Furnishing, Using, and Obtaining Consumer Reports (87 Fed. Reg. 41243, July 2022); Fair Credit Reporting; Name-Only Matching Procedures (86 Fed. Reg. 62468, Nov. 2021); and FDCPA advisory opinions on time-barred debt and medical debt collection.
• Interpretive rule: The Fair Credit Reporting Act’s Limited Preemption of State Laws (87 Fed. Reg. 41042, July 2022).
• Circulars and bulletins: including Circular 2022-07 on reasonable investigation of consumer reporting disputes, Circular 2022-05 on invalid nursing home debts, Circular 2024-06 on background dossiers and algorithmic scores used in employment, Circular 2023-03 on adverse action notices and Regulation B sample forms, and older bulletins on furnisher and bureau dispute investigation duties.

The CFPB gave three reasons: that guidance should issue only where necessary and where it reduces compliance burdens; that the Bureau is reducing its enforcement activity and has no pressing need for interpretive guidance; and that reliance interests do not require keeping it. The notice states that withdrawal “is not necessarily final,” that review would continue, and that the Bureau “does not intend to prioritize” enforcement of the withdrawn guidance during that review. In October 2025, the CFPB confirmed the withdrawal of the 2022 preemption rule and replaced it with a new interpretive rule.

Our take

The most important thing to understand is what did not change. Advisory opinions and circulars interpret the statute; they do not create the duties. The FCRA still requires consumer reporting agencies to follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy, to conduct reasonable reinvestigations, and to provide complete file disclosures. Background screeners still may not report obsolete adverse information. Courts decide what those requirements mean. Advisory opinions never had the force of law, and after Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024) courts interpret the statute independently in any event.

Several of the withdrawn opinions restated positions courts had already adopted. For example, the problems with matching people to records using names alone have been the subject of FCRA litigation for years, including in the Supreme Court’s 2021 TransUnion v. Ramirez decision. Withdrawing an advisory opinion does not make a careless matching procedure reasonable.

What did change is enforcement. With the CFPB stepping back, private lawsuits and state attorneys general become relatively more important for holding bureaus, screeners, and furnishers accountable. Defendants may argue that the withdrawal reflects a better reading of the law; consumers can respond that the statute’s text, not the agency’s current policy preferences, controls.

What it means if your report is wrong

Your rights under the FCRA are the same as before May 2025. You can request your file, dispute errors with the bureaus and the companies that furnished the information, and sue for willful or negligent violations. If you were the subject of a background check that mixed you up with someone else, reported sealed or expunged records, or omitted the outcome of a criminal charge, those issues remain actionable under the statute even though the CFPB’s opinions on them have been withdrawn.

A free case review can assess how these changes affect a claim, and there is no fee unless we win.

Sources

Primary

• Interpretive Rules, Policy Statements, and Advisory Opinions; Withdrawal, 90 Fed. Reg. 20084 (May 12, 2025)

Commentary we reviewed

• Commentary: The continued vitality of 67 withdrawn CFPB guidance documents (NCLC Digital Library)
• Commentary: CFPB rescinds dozens of regulatory guidance documents in major regulatory shift (Consumer Financial Services Law Monitor)
• Commentary: CFPB withdraws guidance documents (Venable)

Updated November 1, 2026. "Our take" is the firm's opinion. This page is general information, not legal advice, and later decisions may change the law.