Short answer
No. The core retention provisions in Sections 16 and 17 of Latvia's did not change between 1 January 2020 and the research date, 13 September 2026. The version actually in force on 1 January 2020 was the consolidation effective 1 November 2019. A provision-by-provision comparison with the current consolidation shows the same retention periods and the same rules after a bureau-user relationship ends.
There was a related change on 1 March 2020. New Section 12(1.2) and revised Section 12(2) changed how certain payment-obligation and other credit information could be added to a bureau database. That may affect which data fall into the non-debt category governed by Section 16(3), but it did not lengthen or shorten the specific debt-retention clocks in Section 16(1).
For compliance systems, the result is continuity of deadline calculations but a need to classify debt, other fulfilled obligations and public-register data correctly.
Start with the version in force, not the calendar date
A point-in-time comparison should not assume that a separate consolidated text exists for every day. Legalcode's exact inForceOnDate search for 1 January 2020 resolved to the . That version remained valid until 1 March 2020.
The current indexed version is dated 1 July 2020. Its later date does not imply that every provision changed on that day. The July consolidation incorporated administrative-offence provisions that came into force then; the retention provisions remained unchanged.
The indexed law family contains five consolidated versions:
The comparison endpoints are therefore the 1 November 2019 and 1 July 2020 sourceRefs, not a guessed 2020-01-01 record.
The debt-retention formula stayed the same
Section 16(1) at both endpoints divides debt information into paid or otherwise extinguished debt, and unpaid debt.
For a paid debt, or one extinguished on another legal ground, the bureau retains the information for five years after that event. The same five-year event period applies when the debt is assigned or otherwise transferred to a person that is not another credit-information user. But all three routes are subject to an outer cap: retention cannot continue beyond ten years from the first payment-default date.
The historical text states:
piecus gadus pēc parāda samaksas dienas … bet ne ilgāk kā 10 gadus pēc pirmās maksājuma kavējuma dienas
—
In English: five years after payment or the other listed event, but no longer than ten years after the first default.
For an unpaid debt, Section 16(1)(2) states:
10 gadus pēc pirmās maksājuma kavējuma dienas, ja parādu nesamaksā
—
That is ten years from the first payment-default date if the debt is unpaid. The rule also remained unchanged.
The earlier deadline controls a paid debt
The paid-debt rule contains two clocks:
- five years from payment, other legal extinction, or qualifying transfer; and
- ten years from first default.
The record reaches its statutory endpoint when the earlier clock expires.
Suppose the first default occurred on 15 February 2018 and payment was made on 1 June 2021. Five years after payment is 1 June 2026; ten years after first default is 15 February 2028. The event-based date arrives first, so 1 June 2026 controls.
If the first default occurred on 15 February 2012 and payment was made on 1 June 2021, the ten-year cap arrives on 15 February 2022, before the five-year post-payment date. The cap controls.
Neither outcome changed between the two comparison dates.
Payment changes status before it ends retention
Unchanged retention does not mean an unchanged record. Section 12 requires the bureau record to state whether the debt no longer exists, the date from which it ceased to exist and the way it was extinguished. The supplier must provide current information.
A debt paid in 2021 therefore cannot remain described as outstanding merely because Section 16 permits historical retention until a later date. Accuracy and retention answer different questions:
- accuracy asks what the debt's present status and amount are;
- retention asks how long the correctly updated history may remain.
That distinction existed on 1 January 2020 and remains essential on the research date.
Other payment obligations follow a different rule
Section 16(3) deals with fulfilled payment-obligation information that is neither Section 16(1) debt information nor data obtainable from public or publicly accessible registers.
The bureau may keep those data until the customer asks the supplying bureau user to delete them and the bureau is notified. But the customer cannot demand deletion under that special route while the supplier continues to have a lawful basis and statutory purpose for including the information.
This is not a five-year rule. Treating every fulfilled payment record as “paid debt” would collapse distinct statutory categories.
What changed on 1 March 2020
The March 2020 change sits in Section 12, which defines information that can enter the database.
Section 12(1.2) began operating. It authorises the Cabinet to determine the content, scope, timing and procedure for payment-obligation information that lenders enter under consumer-protection requirements, outside the debt fields listed in Section 12(1).
Section 12(2) also changed. The current form permits a bureau user or the bureau to add other credit information not covered by Sections 12(1) and 12(1.2) when a GDPR processing basis exists. The text in force on 1 January 2020 referred only to the bureau user and still named Latvia's former personal-data statute.
These changes may increase or clarify the non-debt payment information available for creditworthiness assessment. When that information is later fulfilled, Section 16(3) may become relevant. But the change did not rewrite Section 16 or create a new debt-retention period.
Public-register data remained source-limited
Section 16(4) also remained identical. Information obtainable from a public or publicly accessible register may be retained only while necessary for the law's credit-information purposes and no longer than it remains available in that register.
The outer boundary is therefore tied to source availability as well as necessity. A bureau cannot convert a public source's time-limited publication into indefinite bureau retention by treating the item as ordinary paid-debt history.
Request logs remained a separate category
Section 16(2) requires a bureau to keep information about a bureau user's request for one year after receiving it. A rule governing a restricted-access state information system may prescribe a different period for requests involving that system.
This is an access-audit record, not the underlying debt record. The one-year period did not change during the comparison interval.
Ending the supplier relationship did not erase every history item
Section 17 remained unchanged as well. When the agreement between a bureau and a bureau user ends, the bureau generally deletes information obtained from the former user immediately. The statute preserves defined exceptions, including debt information retainable under Section 16(1)(1) and other payment-obligation information where the obligation ended while the agreement was in force.
The former user's departure therefore does not automatically shorten the paid-debt period. At the same time, Section 17 maintains routes to correct, update or delete retained information, including a final court or arbitral decision establishing materially different debt content.
Operational consequences of “no change”
A system migrating records from 2020 to a current platform should not reset clocks at migration, at the July 2020 consolidation date or at the research date. It should preserve the legally relevant events:
- first payment-default date;
- payment, extinction or qualifying-transfer date;
- current outstanding amount and status;
- category of information under Section 16;
- public-register source and availability, if applicable;
- end date of the supplier relationship; and
- correction, dispute and adjudication evidence.
The computed deletion deadline must be reproducible from those facts. “Five years after payment” without the ten-year cap is incomplete; “ten years for every record” is also wrong.
MCP source-quality findings
The production MCP handled this historical comparison correctly. Point-in-time Search selected the 1 November 2019 version for 1 January 2020. An attempted guessed sourceRef dated 2020-01-01 returned a clear source_not_found response and directed the researcher to use an exact Search or Trace result. All-version Search returned one current and four historical versions, matching the reported historical count.
Fetch labeled the earlier sourceRef as historical, supplied its validity interval and pointed to the current version. Exact comparison of Sections 16–17 produced no textual difference. No new MCP or ingest issue was identified.
Conclusion
From 1 January 2020 to 13 September 2026, Latvia did not change the Credit Information Bureau Law's core debt-retention clocks. Paid, extinguished or qualifyingly transferred debt remains subject to five years after the event and a ten-year first-default cap; unpaid debt remains subject to ten years from first default.
The meaningful intervening development was a March 2020 change to what other payment-obligation information could enter the database and on what basis. That affects classification and potentially Section 16(3), but it should not be misreported as a change to the debt-retention period itself.
Sources
This article provides general legal information, not advice for a specific matter. Laws, facts and procedural deadlines may change the result. Follow the linked primary sources and obtain local advice before acting.