A loan you closed two years ago still shows as open. A credit card you never took sits in your report under a bank you have never dealt with. Either can cost you a loan approval, and the fix runs through a CIBIL dispute. What most guides leave out is the clock behind it: since 26 April 2024, if the dispute is not resolved within 30 calendar days, the lender or the credit bureau owes you ₹100 for every extra day, as TransUnion CIBIL’s compensation page confirms.
That rule comes from the Reserve Bank of India’s circular “Framework for compensation to customers for delayed updation/rectification of credit information”, dated 26 October 2023. It now sits in the Reserve Bank of India (Commercial Banks – Credit Information Reporting) Directions, 2025, dated 28 November 2025 and updated as on 1 July 2026. This piece explains how to raise the dispute, how the 30 days are split, and how to work out who pays you if the deadline slips.
How to raise a CIBIL dispute
CIBIL’s dispute page sets out the route:
- Get a current report. Only reports from the past 60 days can be disputed. CIBIL gives one free report a year through its site, and its guide to the dispute process points to that free annual report as the starting point.
- Log in to myCIBIL, open Credit Reports, go to the Dispute Center and click “Dispute an item”, as the steps on CIBIL’s help page describe.
- Pick the section with the error: personal, contact, employment, account or enquiry. One dispute can cover several fields.
- Enter what the field should say, add your bank account or UPI ID for any compensation, and submit. You get a dispute ID by email.
Offline routes exist too: CIBIL’s guide lists email to CIBILinfo@transunion.com, its customer service line and a walk-in visit. Disputing is free; CIBIL says no fee is charged for correcting your credit information.
The disputed field is marked “Under Dispute” until the case closes. CIBIL cannot change the entry on its own. Under the Credit Information Companies (Regulation) Act, 2005, it needs written confirmation from the bank or lender that reported the data, which is why the lender’s response decides most of the timeline.
Before you file: is it really an error?
CIBIL’s dispute page notes that lenders’ updates usually take 15 to 30 days to appear. The reason is the reporting cycle in the RBI directions: lenders send data as on the 9th, 16th, 23rd and last day of each month, the incremental files within four calendar days and the month-end full file by the 5th of the next month. A loan you repaid last week may simply not have been reported yet. CIBIL suggests waiting until 30 days have passed before disputing a missing payment.
Two other entries look wrong but usually are not:
- Closed accounts stay on the report. CIBIL says closed loans and cards remain visible however long ago they were closed. What you can dispute is a closed account shown as open or unpaid.
- Unfamiliar lender names. Loans taken through a digital lending app often appear under the partner bank’s or NBFC’s legal name. Check the app’s lending partner before disputing; our guide to checking RBI-regulated loan apps explains how.
An account you never opened is a different matter: dispute it as an ownership error and, if you suspect identity misuse, report it at the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal.
The 30-day clock: 21 days for the lender, 9 for the bureau
The RBI directions read two older rules together. Section 21(3) of the 2005 Act gives the lender or bureau 30 days to update information on request; rule 20(3) of the Credit Information Companies Rules, 2006 gives the lender 21 days to send corrected particulars. The result:
| Who | Time allowed | Pays ₹100 a day if |
|---|---|---|
| Lender (bank, NBFC, HFC) | 21 calendar days from being told by you or the bureau | It sends the correction after day 21 |
| Credit bureau (CIBIL or another) | The remaining 9 days of the 30 | It resolves after day 30 even though the lender replied on time |
| Both | 30 calendar days from your first filing | Delay is shared in proportion to each one’s lateness |
The case is “resolved” on the date the corrected report is sent to your email or postal address. Compensation must reach your account within five working days of that date.
A worked example: who owes how much
Say you file a dispute with CIBIL on 3 March 2026. The 30-day deadline is 2 April. CIBIL takes three days to forward it, so your bank is told on 6 March and has until 27 March.
| Scenario | Bank replies | CIBIL sends corrected report | Days late | Bank pays | CIBIL pays | You receive |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 3 April (7 days late) | 9 April | 7 | ₹700 | ₹0 | ₹700 |
| B | 3 April (7 days late) | 12 April | 10 | ₹700 | ₹300 | ₹1,000 |
| C | 29 March (2 days late) | 1 April | 0 | ₹0 | ₹0 | ₹0 |
In A, CIBIL used three days before forwarding and six after the bank replied: nine days in all, inside its share, so the whole ₹700 falls on the bank. In B, CIBIL used twelve days, three more than its nine, so it pays ₹300. In C, the bank was late but the case still closed within 30 days, so you get nothing; the RBI’s own illustration of this case says the lender is instead open to penal action by the RBI. The method follows the six illustrative cases in the RBI directions, which also show how a delay is split when several banks are late on one complaint.
Two points from CIBIL’s compensation page are worth knowing. Compensation is due even if your dispute is finally rejected, because it pays for delay, not for being right. And it only applies to disputes raised on or after 26 April 2024.
When the rule does not apply
The 2023 circular excludes complaints about how a credit score is computed, disputes already decided or pending before a consumer commission or court, and matters covered by the arbitration route in section 18 of the 2005 Act. So a dispute over a wrong entry qualifies; a complaint that your score is “too low” for the data shown does not.
If the error came from more than one lender, file with the bureau rather than with each bank: the directions make the bureau coordinate all of them and give you one answer. Lenders report to every RBI-registered bureau, and the RBI directions say errors must be corrected at the source by the lender that reported them. The fix should flow through to the others, but it is worth checking your reports at Experian, Equifax and CRIF High Mark as well.
If the compensation does not arrive
Bureaus have been fined for this. In three press releases dated 4 September 2026, the RBI said it had penalised TransUnion CIBIL ₹26,82,800, CRIF High Mark ₹6,89,600 and Equifax ₹1,19,400 because each “failed to credit the compensation amount to the bank accounts of certain eligible complainants, within the prescribed period”.
If a lender or bureau wrongly refuses or skips your payment, first write to its grievance officer, then complain to the RBI Ombudsman under the Integrated Ombudsman Scheme; our guide to filing an RBI Ombudsman complaint covers the steps. Where the lender is not covered by that scheme, the directions point you to the Consumer Education and Protection Cell at the RBI’s regional office. For a larger loss, such as a loan refused because of the error, a consumer court complaint against the bank is the other route, though a case pending there takes the dispute out of the ₹100-a-day framework.
