There are five key elements that comprise your FICO score: payment history: outstanding debts, credit history age, inquiries, and account types. Each of these items is given a different weight in the algorithm that determines your FICO score. Payment history is 35% of the score, outstanding debt is 30%, credit history age is 15%, and both inquiries and account types are 10% of your total FICO score.

Now you know what components are included in your credit score. What does each of these include? More importantly, what’s considered good and what’s bad for each component?

Payment History

Your payment history includes the details of how you’ve been paying your bills. That is, if you’ve been paying them at all. Each of your credit accounts reports your payments as on time or late. Late payments are reported as being 30-, 60-, 90-, and 120-days late. After six months of non-payment, many creditors charge-off your account, deeming it as an uncollectible account. The more recent the late payments are, the worse the effect it is on your credit score. Timely monthly payments boost your score in this area.

Outstanding Debts

This portion of your FICO score takes into account the total amount you owe on all your credit accounts. This includes credit cards, student loans, auto loans, mortgages, lines of credit, etc. Not only does the FICO score consider the total amount you owe, it also considers the total credit you have available. This ratio is known as your credit utilization. The higher your credit utilization – meaning the closer your balances are to the limit – the lower your credit score. You should keep credit account balances at or below 30% of the limit.

Credit History Age

The length of time that you have had credit is a determining factor of your FICO score. A longer credit history is better than a shorter one. This is because there is more data to create a pattern of good or bad payments.

Inquiries

Each time a business uses your FICO score to make a credit-based decision about you, an inquiry is made to a credit bureau. This inquiry then appears on your credit report. Multiple inquiries within a relatively short period of time have a negative effect on your FICO score, especially if these are credit card inquiries. Few to no inquiries is better. The good news is that only inquiries from the past two years are factored into your FICO score.

Account Types

When you have several different types of credit accounts – loans and revolving credit – it is better than having a single type of credit account.

Questions Raised about Credit Scores