IClosed-End Credit
Portfolio Type I: Installment
Portfolio Type I means "Installment". Closed-end loans repaid in equal installments over a fixed term, including auto loans, personal loans, most student loans, and point-of-sale buy-now-pay-later plans. The consumer borrows once and pays it down. It is reported in Portfolio Type (Field 14) of the Base Segment, 1 character at position 83.
Specification
| Code | I |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Installment |
| Field | Portfolio Type (Field 14) |
| Record | Base Segment |
| Length / position | 1 char · 83–83 |
| Category | Closed-End Credit |
| CRRG reference | CRRG Base Segment field definition, Portfolio Type |
What Portfolio Type I means
- The defining feature is that repaid principal cannot be re-borrowed. The balance moves in one direction, and the account ends when it reaches zero.
- I is the residual closed-end type. Anything amortizing that is not secured by real property lands here: vehicles, unsecured personal loans, private and federal student loans, equipment finance, retail sales finance, and point-of-sale instalment plans.
- Pay-in-Four and other buy-now-pay-later products are point-of-sale installment products under this field. Each plan is a discrete closed-end obligation with a fixed number of equal payments, which is exactly what I describes.
- I does NOT mean the payments are monthly. Terms Frequency carries the cadence separately, and a sub-monthly cadence such as bi-weekly is a real and unsettled question for short BNPL plans, discussed on the Terms Frequency pages.
- I does NOT mean secured. Collateral is expressed through Account Type, not portfolio type. An unsecured personal loan and a secured auto loan are both I.
- I does NOT change when the loan defaults, charges off, or is sold. Account Status, Original Charge-off Amount, and the K1 or K2 segments carry those facts; the portfolio type stays I for the life of the tradeline.
When to report I
- 1A credit union reports a 60-month new-auto loan (Account Type 00) with a fixed monthly payment and a Terms Duration of 060.
- 2A consumer lender furnishes a 36-month unsecured personal loan originated online, with the original principal in Original Loan Amount and the declining balance in Current Balance.
- 3A student loan servicer reports a private education loan in repayment, and a second one in deferment with Terms Frequency D.
- 4A point-of-sale lender reports a six-month, twelve-payment BNPL plan for a furniture purchase as a closed-end installment obligation.
- 5A retailer's sales-finance arm furnishes a promotional equal-payment plan for an appliance purchase.
Reporting rules
- Always populate Scheduled Monthly Payment. A missing scheduled payment on an installment account is one of the highest-frequency validation failures in the format, and it removes the bureau's ability to compute debt-to-income signals.
- Populate Original Loan Amount (or Highest Credit, per your bureau mapping) with the amount actually financed, and never restate it as the loan pays down.
- Do not populate Credit Limit on an installment account. There is no limit to draw against, and a populated limit invites a bureau to compute a utilization figure that has no meaning.
- Do not re-open or re-use an installment tradeline for a new loan to the same consumer. A new advance is a new account with a new Account Number and a new Date Opened.
- Keep reporting the account after it reaches a zero balance in the cycle you close it, with Date Closed and the appropriate paid status, rather than dropping it silently from the file.
Codes and fields that must agree
A file can be structurally valid and still be wrong. These are the cross-field conditions Portfolio Type I has to satisfy.
- Valid Account Types include 00 (auto loan) and the student, personal, and sales-finance types. Pairing I with 18 (credit card) or 92 (utility open account) is a portfolio-type-mismatch.
- Scheduled Monthly Payment is expected and non-zero for an account in repayment. A blank or zero value trips scheduled-payment-missing-installment unless the account is deferred, charged off, or paid.
- Terms Duration is expected as a count of scheduled payments, for example 036, 048, 060, 072. An open-ended Terms Duration on Portfolio Type I is a contradiction.
- Terms Frequency is normally M. D (deferred) is legitimate for student loans in deferment and for documented skip-payment workouts. W, B, and E are legitimate for short-cycle products but interact awkwardly with a monthly Scheduled Monthly Payment figure, which is a terms-frequency-mismatch risk.
- Utilization is not computed for I. The comparable signal is Current Balance against Original Loan Amount, which is a paydown ratio, not utilization.
- Credit Limit should be blank or zero. Current Balance exceeding a populated Credit Limit on an installment account trips balance-exceeds-limit and usually means the portfolio type is wrong rather than the balance.
- Highest Credit reported as zero on a loan that was actually disbursed trips highest-credit-zero and destroys the bureau's ability to show how large the original obligation was.
- Date of First Delinquency must be populated once the account goes delinquent and must never be advanced by a later cure, because the FCRA purge clock runs from it.
Common errors involving I
B018B012B017
Scheduled Monthly Payment Missing on Installment Account
An installment or mortgage account has no Scheduled Monthly Payment Amount
Portfolio Type Mismatch
The portfolio type does not match the account type or terms
Highest Credit / Original Amount Is Zero
Highest Credit or Original Loan Amount is zero on an account that should carry one
Vocabulary
Keep browsing
- All 5 portfolio types — the full set with categories and cross-field rules.
- Metro 2 codes cheat sheet — every CRRG code set on one page.
- Portfolio Type field reference — position, length, and validation rules.
- Metro 2 format reference
See Portfolio Type I in your own file
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