Your credit score is sensitive and can change any day, based on changes in your credit report. If you’re eager to improve your score and have been taking measures to do so, such as paying off your earlier dues and making timely payments, you’d want to see a change at the earliest.
How Soon Will Your Credit Score Improve?
There’s no way to predict when or by how much your credit score will improve. You can expect to see a change in your score based on when the business sends your credit report updates—while some businesses send updates daily, others send them monthly.
Even after your report is updated with positive information, there’s no guarantee your score will increase immediately or that it will improve enough to help with an application. Your score may remain the same or even decrease, depending on how significant the change is and the other details in your credit report.
What Impacts Credit Score Update Timing?
The timing of changes to your credit report influences when your score gets updated. A positive change in your credit report is all that your score needs to increase.
On the other hand, the addition of any negative information to your credit report can offset any positive changes you were expecting. Seriously negative data can make your score take longer to improve. For example, if you have a bankruptcy or foreclosure on your credit report, your score will take a very long time to raise. Additionally, the more recent these additions are, the heavier their impact on your score is.
Fastest Ways to Increase Your Credit Score
There are some steps you can take to improve your credit score quickly. Getting a credit card limit increase or clearing a large credit card balance, especially before your account statement closes, can help your score increase rather quickly. Both these aspects could better your credit utilization rate, which accounts for 30% of your credit score.
How to Estimate Credit Score Changes
You can use a credit score simulator to find out how much your credit score is likely to change. myFICO and Credit Karma offer such simulators that can tell you how your credit score will change in your report if you take actions like taking out a new loan, paying off an account and the like.
