How to Improve Your Credit Score

-- Updated June 2026 --

Article summary

• Your credit score reveals how well you manage debt and helps mortgage companies, credit card issuers and other lenders predict your financial reliability.
• Lenders calculate this number using crucial details like your payment history, credit utilization ratio, length of credit history and recent account inquiries.
• You can steadily improve your score over time by checking your credit reports for errors, making consistent on-time payments, keeping your credit use under 30 percent, and leaving old accounts open.

If you’ve ever wondered exactly what your credit score is and how it’s calculated, you’re not alone. It may go up a few points, or down a few, after seemingly small financial moves. Or you may check it after years and realize it’s lower—or higher—than you thought. Despite its puzzling nature, your credit score simply reveals how successful you are at managing debt. It’s a number that taps into your past financial behavior to let lenders, such as mortgage and credit card companies, know how likely you are to repay them. 

Think of it like this: If you regularly pay for a friend's matcha latte, and they always say they'll get the next one but never do, you can pretty well count on them to repeat that behavior. Next time, you may not offer to pay. The same goes for lenders. If you’ve borrowed money that you haven’t paid back, or you’re consistently late or have taken on too much debt, your risk level goes up, and your credit score goes down.

Other factors are at play, too, like your length of credit history and the types of accounts you have open. But if you know how the system works, you can build a high score that can work to your advantage over time. Having a high credit score can give you access to things like lower mortgage and car loan interest rates and lower insurance premiums. When it comes to ways to improve your credit score, follow these helpful tips:

1. Know your credit history.
2. Make payments on time.
3. Use debt wisely, including ensuring a low credit utilization ratio.
4. Diversify your types of debt.
5. Establish a long track record.
6. Don’t open debt products that you don’t need.

Pull your credit report

Know your credit history and ensure its accuracy.

• First, pull your credit report at AnnualCreditReport.com, where you can access your complete credit history for free weekly. (Don’t bother with sites that require payment.)
• Here, you’ll be able to access a comprehensive overview of your past credit-related behavior from all three credit bureaus—Experian, TransUnion and Equifax.
• Review these reports diligently to ensure that everything is accurate. Common errors include ex-spouse’s names still listed on your accounts and wrong addresses.
• If anything looks off, contact the appropriate bureau to request the changes. Freeze your credit temporarily so no fraud or additional fraud can occur under your name. When it’s all sorted out, you can unfreeze your account.

Note: The site does not provide credit scores from the three credit bureaus, only credit reports.

Make payments on time

According to Debt.org, the most important factor in building a high credit score is payment history, which accounts for 35 percent of your score. Missing payments signals to your lenders that you may be overleveraging yourself, meaning your income is insufficient to cover your bills.

• Get creative and use calendars and reminders to help remind you of your due dates.
• Better yet, sign up for autopay so the company deducts your payment in full by its due date. This common “set-it-and-forget-it” action acts as a guardrail against missed payments. (Hack: Many companies, like mortgage lenders, will allow you to change your payment due date so that it hits at a time of your budget cycle when you want it to. If all of your bills are due on the first of the month, you may find yourself without any cash to get you through to your next payday. Spacing out payments can help with cash flow.)
• Pay consistently over time, and your credit score should increase.

Be responsible with debt

Most people with high credit scores have a responsible relationship with debt. They do not spend loosely on frivolous items they can’t afford; rather, they use credit as a tool. For example, since it’s very difficult and out of reach for most people to buy a primary residence in cash, most people turn to mortgage lenders (a form of debt) to invest in the real estate market. They then pay their bill, on time, every month, until it’s paid off. 

Minimize your “credit utilization” ratio

Credit utilization is simply the amount of credit you are using compared with how much you have available to you at any time. Even if your credit limit is very high, experts recommend keeping the amount you use under 30 percent.

Example: If your credit card limit is $15,000, aim to use no more than $4,500. Keeping within these parameters accounts for 30 percent of your credit score.

Don’t open unnecessary credit…

Do you open a credit card every time you get offered a retail discount? Or to enjoy that $200 introductory cash offer? You may want to reconsider. While it may be OK to do so periodically, that behavior accounts for 10 percent of your score. If repeated frequently, it can signal to lenders that you are strapped for cash and about to rack up a bunch of debt—a red flag.

• Hard vs. soft inquiries: To gauge whether you’re a good fit for a credit card, lenders will usually pull a “hard inquiry” on your account (versus a “soft inquiry,” which typically occurs during credit checks or pre-approvals).
• Hard credit pulls can lower your credit score over time.

…but don’t close old accounts

Just like opening new accounts too frequently can lower your score, closing long-standing accounts isn’t a good idea either, even if you’re trying to clean things up and streamline your reports.

• Lenders care about your track record.
• In fact, 15 percent of your credit score is from your length of credit history.
• The older your account, the longer lenders can see that you’ve (hopefully) been a responsible account holder, which is an important way to increase your credit score.

If you’re looking to improve your credit score, be patient. While your score won’t jump dramatically overnight, with proper financial behaviors in place, you should see steady improvement over time.