What is a FICO score?

Your credit score is a numerical ranking lenders use to judge credit risk. It is calculated from the data in your credit report, and it exists so a bank can decide in seconds what most humans would take an afternoon to work out.

Scores usually run from 300 to 850. The higher your score, the more creditworthy you look, and the less every financed dollar costs you. That last part is the whole reason this matters: the same car, the same house, the same card, at wildly different prices.

What goes into the number

Scoring models weigh several categories. Roughly in order of impact:

• Payment history. Did you pay on time, every time? This is the heaviest single factor, and it is why one 30-day late can sting for years.
• Amount of credit currently being used. The share of your available credit sitting as balances. Lower is better, and this one you can change within a month.
• Length of credit history. How long your accounts have been open. This is the argument against closing your oldest card.
• Recent requests for credit. Several hard inquiries in a short window reads as pressure.
• Amount of available credit. Total headroom across your accounts, which is why a limit increase can help even if you never use it.

Under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, credit scoring may not use gender, marital status, national origin, race, or religion. If a lender's decision seems to lean on any of those, that is a legal problem, not a credit problem.

What you can do this month

Pay every account on time, even the minimum, because history outweighs amounts. Bring balances down relative to limits. Leave old accounts open. And pull all three reports, because a score built on a wrong entry is a score you are overpaying for.

If the report itself is the problem, that is exactly what our credit repair program handles: inaccurate, misleading and obsolete items challenged at all three bureaus at once.