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8 Things That Won't Affect Your Credit Score

credit score scale report on a notepad

8 Things That Will Not Affect Your Credit Score

It’s true that missing the due date on some of your bills will damage your credit score, but there are some financial transactions that don’t have any effect, either good or bad.

1. Your Income

Although information about your employer is available on your credit report, your income is not. Creditors use your income information to determine how much you can afford to borrow and whether they can approve your application, but this information won’t directly impact your credit score.

2. Checking Your Credit

There’s a long-standing myth that checking your own credit score will lower it. Luckily, this isn’t true. You can check your credit report as often as you’d like through reputable sources without negative repercussions. However, hard inquiries by lenders, banks and other creditors will lower your score.

3. Your Marital Status

If you apply for a loan with your spouse or significant other, the lender will most likely review a credit report for each one of you. They may even pull a “joint” credit report and although the credit information will be there for both parties, the information is stored at the credit bureaus as separate records. If you apply for a loan without your significant other, the only information that will be reviewed is yours.

4. Late Rent Payments

You should do everything in your power to pay your rent on time, but if you miss a payment by a few days, don’t worry about it affecting your credit score. It won’t in most cases. However, if you become delinquent on your payments and are evicted, your credit score and ability to rent or receive lines of credit in the future will suffer.

5. Your Age

Age is not considered when calculating your credit score. However, the older you are, the longer your credit history is, and more positive account interaction will lead to a higher score. Also, the older someone is, the more time for early mistakes to fall off your report. Young borrowers typically have shorter histories, which could limit their credit score.

6. Bank Overdrafts

Bank overdrafts can only affect your credit score if your account remains overdrawn for several weeks and is sent to a collection agency. Even then, it is not the overdraft itself that affects your score, but the debt collection from the overdrawn account.

7. Credit Counseling

Another myth is that credit counseling is as harmful as filing Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Though it might be noted on your report, it won’t harm your score. If a credit counseling agency is handling your payments, ensure they are paying on time. Late payments will hurt your score no matter who is paying them.

8. Insurance Payments

Much like creditors, insurance companies check your credit score to decide whether they can insure you and to determine your premium amounts. They do not report payment habits to credit bureaus, so a few late payments won’t affect your score. However, if you miss too many payments, they will likely cancel your policy rather than send your unpaid bills to collections.1

Get Your Finances Back on Track with Help from American Financial Solutions

Although not every action will affect your credit score, auto, student and personal loans, credit card payments, and home equity lines of credit will. At American Financial Solutions, we offer a variety of services to help people keep or get their credit on track and add to their financial success. Feel free to share our contact information with someone you know or give us a call at (888) 864-8659. You can also contact us online to speak with one of our credit counselors, today.

1 https://www.wisebread.com/6-monthly-bills-that-wont-affect-your-credit-score


Published May 4, 2022.