Will This Affect My Credit Score? Find Out What's NOT Included. | myFICO (2024)

FAQs

What is included not included in determining your credit score? ›

However, they do not consider: Your race, color, religion, national origin, sex and marital status. US law prohibits credit scoring from considering these facts, as well as any receipt of public assistance, or the exercise of any consumer right under the Consumer Credit Protection Act. Your age.

Soft inquiries do not affect credit scores and are not visible to potential lenders that may review your credit reports. They are visible to you and will stay on your credit reports for 12 to 24 months, depending on the type. The other type of inquiry is a “hard” inquiry.

Missing a payment

Late or missed payments can seriously hurt your credit score if you're more than 30 days past due.

Your credit report won't, however, list your gender, race, religion, citizenship, political affiliation, medical history, or criminal records (unless you were convicted of a crime related to your finances, e.g. bank fraud).

Making debt payments on time every month benefits your credit scores more than any other single factor—and just one payment made 30 days late can do significant harm to your scores. An account sent to collections, a foreclosure or a bankruptcy can have even deeper, longer-lasting consequences.

As someone with a 650 credit score, you are firmly in the “fair” territory of credit. You can usually qualify for financial products like a mortgage or car loan, but you will likely pay higher interest rates than someone with a better credit score. The "good" credit range starts at 690.

Checking your credit score on your own, which is a soft credit check or inquiry, doesn't hurt your credit score. But when a creditor or lender runs a credit check, that's often a hard credit check, which could affect your credit score.

You can start by going to the three major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion first by logging on to AnnualCreditReport.com to check your report for free. Each agency gives you access to your report once every 12 months. 4 You'll have to pay them if you want your credit score.

What is the number one credit killing mistake? ›

Mistake 1: Late payments

Just about any creditor can report you to credit agencies.

Payment history is the most important factor in maintaining a higher credit score as it accounts for 35% of your FICO Score. FICO considers your payment history as the leading predictor of whether you'll pay future debt on time.

There are several reasons why you might not see a FICO^® Score, such as: Your account is new (generally less than six months), and the FICO^® Score service is not yet available. Your credit history is too new (generally less than six months) or limited to allow a FICO score to be calculated.

FICO scores consider a wide range of information on your credit report. However, they do not consider: Your race, color, religion, national origin, sex and marital status.

Your credit report does not include your marital status, medical information, buying habits or transactional data, income, bank account balances, criminal records or level of education. It also doesn't include your credit score.

Factors that don't affect your credit score

Rent and utility payments: In most cases, your rent payments and your utility payments are not reported to the credit bureaus, so they do not count toward your score. The exception is if you use a rent-reporting service or if you are late on utility payments.

Answer. The number of places you have lived is not a factor used to determine your credit score. Credit scores are calculated based on payment history, outstanding balances, credit history length, new credit applications, and credit mix.

Neither FICO nor VantageScore use any of the following information to determine your score: Race, religion, national origin, sex or gender, or marital status: It is against the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) for any of these factors to be considered in credit transactions, including credit scoring.

Factors that don't affect your credit score

While credit transactions do affect a person's credit score, you may be surprised to learn that these personal factors are not credit score components and don't affect your credit score: Age. Marital status. Income.