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How does your payment history impact your credit score?
How does your payment history impact your credit score?

Understanding payment history better

Francis avatar
Written by Francis
Updated over a week ago

Payment History regards how consistently someone makes their payments. This factor has the highest impact on your credit score as the score is primarily used to determine how likely you are to pay back debt.

Proof of being responsible with repayments = HIGHER chance of being approved for credit cards and loans!

As a credit score factor, payment history takes into account your payments over 7 years, with more recent late payments weighted heavier than older ones. All of your account repayments are calculated into this factor from credit card to loan accounts. A repayment is considered late once it's more than 30 days past due, paying off debts before this time can improve your credit score significantly.

In the Rocket Money app you're provided with a chart which shows your total available payment history. The chart indicates how you've done in terms of payments each month. For months where you've had a late payment you can tap on the month to display which account the late payment is associated with. You can also see a full list of all of your late payments by tapping 'Late/Missed Payments' below the chart.

Below this you can also see negative marks. These occur when you're significantly behind on payments and include factors such as collections, foreclosures and repossessions. You should avoid these as much as possible.

Keep in mind, rent and utility payments are generally not included in your credit report because they don’t involve paying down a debt or line of credit. For more information on rent reporting please check out this guide.

Should you find any inaccuracies in your credit score, you can dispute them directly with the credit reporting agency here: Credit report disputes: How to fix an error on your Credit Report

While Rocket Money pulls your credit report and credit score from Experian to give you easy access to monitor your credit information, our team unfortunately doesn’t have direct access to your credit report or score to provide details or make changes.

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