Embodiments presented herein provide systems and methods for managing data decay. A system is provided for maintaining metadata about data attributes or relationships between data. A data decay engine can read the metadata and perform a decay calculation. The type of decay calculation can be associated with the type of data or be determined from user inputs. The decay engine can provide a score as to the staleness of the data. An update engine can determine specific data attributes that may require updating. The update engine may be able to update the data from external data sources.