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Many people know their credit scores are important. They help you with your long-term future. Yet, many people still don’t have the resources or tools on how to improve their credit scores. Knowing how to improve credit scores can be beneficial when it comes time to purchase a house.
This Moving Help® guide will provide you with five action items that you can use to start building your credit scores.
What Is a Credit Score and Why Does It Matter?
The credit score was first created in 1956, but it wasn’t used universally with a modern credit score — also known as the FICO score — until 1989. The scale goes from Very Poor to Excellent, which is usually between a range of 300 to 850 points. It’s based off the following factors:
- Payment history
- Amounts owed
- Length of credit history
- Credit mix
- New credit
- Among other factors
Your credit score matters because it can have long-term consequences for your future. Your credit score can determine what kind of loan you can get when purchasing a house, for example. Additionally, it can determine how high or low your interest rate will be for your mortgage when purchasing a home.
Note: Housing mortgage rates also are determined during the Federal Reserve’s meetings. You can read about the January 2026 Meeting and the March 2026 Meeting.
1. Review Your Credit History
Before you can even begin improving your credit score, you should review your credit history. You should know everything about your credit score up to this point.
Check for Mistakes
Just because credit scores are serious, it doesn’t mean mistakes won’t happen. Sometimes situations slip through the cracks, and mistakes are reported to the credit bureaus. If you find any mistakes, make sure you take the steps to get them corrected.
Handle Debt Collectors
If you have any debt that collectors are calling you to receive payment, make sure you take care of it. While debt collectors can’t call you endlessly, you can’t ignore them forever either.
Additionally, you should always negotiate with your debt collector because you can usually pay less than the total amount.
2. Payment History and Paying on Time
One of the largest factors that determine your credit score is your payment history. Along with your payment history, paying on time is crucial. If you pay on time each month, you’ll have a perfect payment history. If you miss a payment, it can hurt your credit score depending on how late the payment is submitted.
Set up Automatic Payments
To help with paying on time, it’s recommended to turn on/set up automatic payments. This way, you don’t have to remember each month when to make your payments.
If you’re a forgetful person, this is an especially important tool for you. Just make sure you have enough money in your account when your automatic payment withdraws your money to make the payment.
3. Keep Credit Utilization Low
One way on how to improve credit scores is to keep your credit utilization low. It’s recommended to keep your credit utilization below 30 percent. If you can keep it below 10 percent, that’s the best-case scenario.
Ask for Higher Credit Limits
If you’re in good standing with your credit card, you could ask for a higher credit limit. Since the more money you have available with a higher credit limit, it’ll help decrease your total credit utilization.
If you update your annual income, credit card companies will sometimes increase your limit.
Pay More Than Once a Month
Most people just pay their credit cards and debt once a month. They’ll pay when their monthly statement is due. If you have a higher utilization percentage, you might consider paying more than once in during the month. If you consistently pay your credit, you’ll create a lower credit utilization percentage.
4. Have an Older Age Credit History
While it’s not a huge factor when trying to figure out how to improve credit scores, having older accounts can help you with your odds. Lenders like to see that you’ve been handling credit, loans, and debt responsibly throughout the years. It makes you more trustworthy to lenders.
Don’t Close Old Accounts
Never close out old accounts, especially when it comes to credit cards. Even though you might not spend much money with an account, it’s better to leave it open than to close it. Once you close an account, you lose all that history associated with it, which can have a negative difference for your credit score.
Keep using your account even if you only spend $100 or less with that account.
5. Number of Total Accounts
The number of total accounts doesn’t have a huge percentage in the makeup of your credit score, but it’s still one way on how to improve credit scores. Whether you can open new accounts or join someone else’s account, you can grow your total number of accounts.
Applying for Credit Cards
One way to increase the total number of accounts is to apply for credit cards. Credit cards are an easy way to increase your total number. Of course, don’t apply to multiple credit cards at once, and you need to make sure you’ll be approved before applying. Otherwise, it’ll look bad.
When you apply for a credit card, you’ll receive a hard inquiry. After a while, the hard inquiry should fall off and have less of a negative difference.
Diversify Your Debt
While you can have one type of debt, it’s best to diversify your debt. If you have credit cards, student loans, and a car loan, and you’re paying them off responsibly, it shows you can handle different types of debt.
Join an Account As an Authorized User
If you can’t apply for a new credit card or you don’t want to go that route, you can try joining a family member’s or friend’s account as an authorized user. You’ll benefit from being on their account and qualifying as an authorized user. Just remember to follow their rules and don’t spend more money than you earn to pay the monthly statements.
Use a Secured Credit Card
You can always use the secured credit card approach. A secured credit card is an account when you pay a refundable security deposit that equals the credit limit. For example, if you pay $500, your credit limit is $500. If you default, the issuer keeps the money.
This is mainly meant for people who have no credit, poor credit, or damaged credit. It’s an easy way to build your credit scores while being at a low risk to the issuer.
Build Credit While Renting
More and more landlords are offering third-party services to report a tenant’s monthly rent to the credit institutions. This is an easy way to build credit, create a credit history, and pay on time. If you don’t have a credit score at all, this is a great way to get you started.
Credit Scores Are a Long-Term Game
How to improve credit scores doesn’t happen overnight. If you’re trying to create good credit, it’s a long-term game. You can’t have a quick fix or an immediate positive difference to your score.
By taking advantage of some of the points listed above, you can create a strong foundation for a higher credit score in the long-term future.
It’s easier said than done, and you’ll need to have patience. By having some patience, you can make sure you’re on the right track.
Improve Your Credit Scores Today
Credit scores are important, and they need to be taken seriously. Even if you didn’t have good habits previously, you can still improve your credit score now to help with your future. Our Moving Help guide on how to improve credit scores with these five ways can help make a world of difference starting today.
