Why Has My Credit Score Gone Down? (2024)

FAQs

Why Has My Credit Score Gone Down? ›

Credit scores can drop due to a variety of reasons, including late or missed payments, changes to your credit utilization rate, a change in your credit mix, closing older accounts (which may shorten your length of credit history overall), or applying for new credit accounts.

Payment history has the biggest impact on your score, followed by the amounts owed on your debt accounts and the length of your credit history. There are other elements, too, that could affect your credit scores, such as inaccurate information on your credit report.

Things like new credit applications and missed payments may impact your credit score. You may be able to improve your credit score in a number of ways, including making sure you're on the electoral register, managing accounts well and limiting new credit applications.

Maxing out your credit cards will typically lower your credit score. Your payment history and your amount of debt has the largest impact on your credit score.

When reviewing the factors that affect your credit score, the one that has the most impact is your payment history (35%). Lenders like consistency and reliability. So if you miss a payment, it can lead to a drop in score.

It's possible that you could see your credit scores drop after fulfilling your payment obligations on a loan or credit card debt. Paying off debt might lower your credit scores if removing the debt affects certain factors like your credit mix, the length of your credit history or your credit utilization ratio.

For your credit score to drop 100 points at once, you're most likely talking about being 90 days late or more on a loan or credit card payment you're on the hook for. Believe it or not, a single late payment could cause damage in that ballpark, especially if your credit score is higher to begin with.

A short credit history gives less to base a judgment on about how you manage your credit, and can cause your credit score to be lower. A combination of these and other issues can add up to high credit risk and poor credit scores even when all of your payments have been on time.

For a score with a range between 300 and 850, a credit score of 700 or above is generally considered good. A score of 800 or above on the same range is considered to be excellent. Most consumers have credit scores that fall between 600 and 750. In 2023, the average FICO^® Score^☉ in the U.S. reached 715.

How do hard inquiries impact your credit score? A hard credit inquiry could lower your credit score by as much as 10 points, though in many cases, the damage probably won't be that significant. As FICO explains, “For most people, one additional credit inquiry will take less than five points off their FICO Scores.”

How to get 850 credit score? ›

According to FICO, about 98% of "FICO High Achievers" have zero missed payments. And for the small 2% who do, the missed payment happened, on average, approximately four years ago. So while missing a credit card payment can be easy to do, staying on top of your payments is the only way you will one day reach 850.

For some credit scoring models, paying off collection accounts may improve credit scores. FICO® Score 9, FICO Score 10, VantageScore® 3.0 and VantageScore 4.0 credit scoring models penalize unpaid collection accounts. Paying off collection accounts may help improve these scores.

Missed or late payment

Your payment history has an impact in the VantageScore® 3.0 model. Making a late payment or missing a payment on any of your credit accounts, be it a credit card, student loan or mortgage, can be a detriment to your credit score — not to mention the fees you'll endure.

Using more of your credit card balance than usual — even if you pay on time — can reduce your score until a new, lower balance is reported the following month. Closed accounts and lower credit limits can also result in lower scores even if your payment behavior has not changed.

Highlights: While older models of credit scores used to go as high as 900, you can no longer achieve a 900 credit score. The highest score you can receive today is 850. Anything above 800 is considered an excellent credit score.

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.

Various weighted factors mean that even with no credit, your credit score could still be low because the length of your credit history or credit mix, for example, could also be low.

Making on-time payments to creditors, keeping your credit utilization low, having a long credit history, maintaining a good mix of credit types, and occasionally applying for new credit lines are the factors that can get you into the 800 credit score club.

Bottom line. If you have a credit card balance, it's typically best to pay it off in full if you can. Carrying a balance can lead to expensive interest charges and growing debt.

You have the right to dispute information in your credit report by contacting the credit bureau on whose report the information appears. It's also a good idea to check the other credit bureaus to make sure the same information doesn't also appear on those reports.

Why has my Experian score gone down? ›

Credit scores can decrease for a number of reasons, including high balances, missed payments and closed accounts. You can review recent factors that may be affecting your credit score by checking your credit score for free with Experian.

Most important: Payment history

Your payment history is one of the most important credit scoring factors and can have the biggest impact on your scores. Having a long history of on-time payments is best for your credit scores, while missing a payment could hurt them.

How soon can you see improvement? The length of time it will take to improve your credit scores depends on your unique financial situation. At the earliest, you may see a change between 30 and 45 days after you have taken steps to positively impact your credit reports.

When your score is 750, you're in a strong position to qualify for most financial products and get among the very best rates on them. A 750 credit score is considered excellent on commonly used FICO and VantageScore scales, which range from 300 to 850.

A FICO^® Score of 730 falls within a span of scores, from 670 to 739, that are categorized as Good.

Your recent payment history may affect your credit scores.

Making payments on credit accounts is a common cause of fluctuation in credit scores, as payment history is often the largest factor used to calculate credit scores.