&#62; In reality, a bankruptcy only lasts 7 years on your credit report and most banks will start lending after merely 2-3 years.<p>From my understanding, it goes off your credit score but banks can see past bankruptcies forever and it factors into their decisionmaking on whether to lend and what interest rates and terms to offer.<p>This is what my business banker said to me when I was chatting with him casually - so consider the bias, but he's quite the straightforward and standup guy and we're acquainted a bit outside of the bank. He's not the kind of guy that'd pull my chain (and I didn't have any debt anyways - was just getting a rundown on credit scores). Actually, it was pretty damn illuminating when he told me all of the stuff they have records on - they knew all sorts of information about me that I never gave them.