How Often Does A Credit Score Update?

When making improvements to your credit score, watching for any small movements can be anxiety-inducing. Credit score updates can happen on a daily basis. However, most people won’t notice it change that often because many credit monitoring tools only update credit scores once per month. 

We’ll dive in deeper on why and how this happens.

How Often Does My Credit Score Change?

Some people think major credit bureaus are responsible for credit score updates. That’s not entirely true. 

Major credit bureaus calculate your score based on information provided to the credit bureaus by each of your creditors, also known as the lenders, that you have accounts with. How often your score updates is partially dependent on when your creditors supply new information. 

A credit reporting agency also calculates credit score updates constantly as your accounts age. Over time, negative marks become less of a factor in your credit score and your age of accounts increases, which impacts the FICO credit scoring model. 

Your lenders and other credit providers report information such as payments, credit limit balances, credit utilization, and more. That information is used to develop a credit score based on your unique credit history. 

Most creditors report new information every month, but they don’t all report on the same schedule. So your credit score is constantly changing depending on factors like: 

• Number of open accounts
• Credit card balances and credit limits
• Payment history and amounts
• Age of accounts
• Credit reporting schedule your lender uses
• Number of bureaus your creditor reports to
• New credit account applications

That means you could have a different credit score between today and tomorrow if new information is reported during that time. 

How Often Does Your Credit Report Update?

Your credit report is what’s used to update your credit score. As we mentioned earlier, most lenders report information to your credit report on a monthly basis. This includes companies such as: 

• Banks, credit unions, and financial institutions
• Credit card issuers

If the payments to your lender are on time, you’ll see your score rise as you hit a streak of consecutive timely payments. 

Other creditors won’t update information about your credit report unless your account is significantly past due or has been sent to collections. These are usually companies where you likely had to do a credit check to get approved for their services. 

• Utilities 
• Cell phone
• Landlords
• Insurance 

Having negative information on your credit report, such as a late payment or public record, can damage your credit score and take time to bounce back from.  

How Long Do Creditors Take To Report to Credit Bureaus?

Lenders usually take about one month to report updated information to the credit bureaus. Some creditors do it more often, but the standard expectation is every 30 days. It’s also important to check how many credit bureaus your lender reports to.

A good portion of creditors report to all three credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion). However, some only report information to one or two credit reporting agencies. 

That may mean that your credit score with one major credit bureau is different from your score with other credit bureaus. 

Many people don’t realize this until they’re waiting for their score to update. For example, if you’ve been making large credit card payments that aren’t reflected in your Experian score, it might be because the credit card issuer only reports to Equifax and TransUnion. 

How Often Should You Check Your Credit Score?

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recommends checking your credit score at least once a year. However, you may want to check your credit report more often if you’re in the market for a new mortgage, personal loan, or auto loan. 

Checking your score once every 2-3 months is ideal to be aware of any major changes in your score. Some credit experts in the 800 credit score range suggest checking your credit report once a month to scan for errors or signs of fraud. 

According to recent credit score statistics, only 21% of adults check their credit score once a month and only 33% check their reports once a year. 

Checking your credit report doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive. You can get a free credit report once a year from Annualcreditreport.com. Sites like Credit Karma and Credit Sesame also offer free credit scores along with credit reports. 

How To Improve Your Credit Score

Get a Credit Builder Loan

One of the best ways to build credit and improve your credit score is to get a credit builder loan with CreditStrong. These types of loans secure your loan proceeds in a locked savings account while you make loan payments each month. 

CreditStrong reports those monthly payments to all three credit bureaus. By the end of the loan term, you have the full amount of the loan unlocked for your use, and you’re walking away with better credit as long as your payments were all made on time. 

Start building strong credit today without worrying about the hard inquiry. CreditStrong doesn’t do a hard pull to get you approved. Choose which affordable monthly plan is best for you. 

Pay Your Bills on Time

Your payment history is the biggest contributing factor behind your credit score. It makes up 35% of the FICO credit scoring model. By simply making all of your payments on time, you can improve your credit score. 

Sometimes the problem isn’t scheduling the bill payment, it’s finding the funds to pay the bill on time. If you already have the income to prioritize your monthly bills, then the easiest thing to do is skip to step 4 and set your bills on auto-pay. If not, you’ll have to do some reorganizing first. 

1. Set a budget that prioritizes your bills and stick to it. 
2. Cut expenses where it’s reasonable to do so.
3. Find ways to increase your income if needed. 
4. Set your bills on auto-pay to ensure each one gets paid on time.

Pay Down High Credit Card Balances

If you’ve been slowly chipping away at large credit card balances by faithfully making the minimum payment, it might be time to try a different plan. To get a noticeable rise out of your credit score, you’ll want to contribute a larger payment to your high-balance credit cards. 

If you have it available, try making a lump sum payment to a credit card with the highest interest rate and balance. This action causes two things to happen. 

1. It lowers your credit utilization ratio by increasing your available credit. 
2. It lowers the amount of interest you’ll pay on the balance over time. 

If you can’t afford a full or partial payoff, try paying more than the minimum on one card and pay the minimum on other credit card debts. This is known as the avalanche method or the snowball method. 

Keep the Accounts That You Already Have

If you already have credit card accounts or loans open, it’s a good idea to hang onto those. If you’ve fallen into the credit card debt trap in the past and managed to escape, it’s no wonder why you’d want to close the card. Managing a credit card balance can be hard. 

However, when you close a credit card that’s been on your credit file for several years, you might be lowering your credit score instead of helping it. Here’s why you should rethink closing an old credit card.

• It could lower your average age of accounts
• It will lower your available credit
• Lowering available credit has a domino effect on your credit utilization
• It could impact your credit mix

Dispute Incorrect Items on Your Credit Report

It’s hard work to fix your credit and unlearn bad credit habits that may have impacted your credit score in the past. That’s why it’s important to regularly monitor your credit report. You should be checking your credit report at least once every 2-3 months to confirm all information is correct. 

If you come across errors on your credit report bringing down your score, you have the right under the Fair Credit Reporting Act to dispute those errors with the credit bureaus. 

Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion allow you to begin your dispute process online, by phone, or by sending a dispute letter via postal mail. 

Once your dispute is received, the credit bureau investigates within 30 days to confirm whether or not the credit information you’re disputing is a true error. After getting the error removed, it’s helpful to have credit monitoring to stay informed of any other issues that arise. 

Conclusion

Trying to get your credit score to move is a lesson in patience. Sometimes, you’re doing all the right things and it just takes your score a little time to catch up to the changes you’ve made. 

It only takes about a month to see changes in your credit report and score, but that can feel like forever when you’re waiting. Building a good credit score takes patience and a good plan around disputing errors, paying down debt, and paying your bills on time. 

FAQs

Does Your Credit Score Change Every 7 Days?

Your credit score doesn’t systematically change every seven days. While it’s true that you could see a different score from one week to the next, your credit score only updates when new information is supplied by one of your creditors. 

Creditors usually update your files with each credit reporting agency once every 30 days. Since all of your creditors don’t run on the same 30-day cycle, you can see updates to your credit score every month, every week, or even day to day. 

How Long Does It Take for a Credit Score to Update After Payment?

After making a payment, it typically takes 30 to 45 days to see any improvements in your credit score. This also depends on what point in the billing cycle you made your payment as a typical credit card company reports payments at the end of the billing cycle. 

How Often Is the FICO Score Updated?

The Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO) updates its scores based on credit activity reported by your creditors. This means your FICO score has the potential to change daily.