Check Your Credit Report and Raise Your Score

MoneyHelper's basics are to be registered to vote at your current address, pay your bills on time, stay within any agreed overdraft and avoid too many credit applications in a short space of time.

• Register to vote at your current address, and do it as soon as possible if you move home
• Pay your bills on time, and set up Direct Debits to help with this
• Open and manage a current account and stay within any agreed overdraft

• Making too many credit applications in a short space of time, because too many hard credit checks could negatively impact your credit score and your chances of getting approved

When you apply for credit, the lender essentially wants to know if you will pay them back. A history of paying on time and as agreed helps to show them you have been reliable in the past.

• Use eligibility checkers that use a soft search before applying for credit, because soft credit checks do not affect your credit score
• If you rent, you can add your rent payments to your credit report, and most services charge a fee
• If you have a poor credit score or have not borrowed before, consider a credit card with a low credit limit from a regulated provider
• The optional Experian Boost scheme uses Open Banking data to include payments for council tax, subscriptions and to savings accounts when calculating your credit score

• Products advertised as credit-building that charge high interest rates or fees, which might negatively affect your credit score, particularly if you cannot pay them in full each month

Sometimes the problem is in your report rather than your behaviour. If you spot mistakes, report them to the credit reference agency to investigate. MoneyHelper says this process shouldn't take longer than 28 days.

• Check that all your details are correct and report any mistakes to the credit reference agency straight away
• Report anything that looks like it might be fraud, such as credit that you have not applied for
• The agency checks with the organisation that provided the information and removes the mistake if appropriate
• While the agency investigates, the mistake is marked as disputed and lenders should not rely on it when assessing your credit rating
• If you close a joint account, request a notice of disassociation to stop your credit report from being linked
• If there were reasons why you fell behind with payments that no longer apply, you can add a note to your credit report to explain this, called a Notice of Correction

• Accurate negative information, like missing a payment, usually stays on your credit report for six years and cannot be removed sooner

The Information Commission (the ICO until 30 September 2026) says a default stays on your credit file for six years from the date of the default. A county court judgment, high court judgment or decree stays for six years from the date of the judgment, even if it is paid in full, but it may be removed if it is paid in full within one month of the judgment date.

MoneyHelper says four agencies compile your credit report, Experian, Equifax, TransUnion and Crediva, so it is best to check all four well in advance of any application, and it is free. See our guide to your credit report for how to check and correct it, and our guide to what a CCJ means and how to set one aside.

• Paying a credit repair company to remove accurate information, because information such as a county court judgment that has been accurately recorded normally cannot be removed until after a set period
• Lying to the credit reference agencies, which MoneyHelper says some repair firms encourage

The Information Commission (the ICO until 30 September 2026) says you should think carefully before deciding whether to use a credit repair company. These companies may promise to remove information such as county court judgments from your credit reference file to improve your credit rating. They will charge a fee for doing this.

GOV.UK lists free, confidential and independent debt advice services, including National Debtline, Citizens Advice, PayPlan, Community Money Advice, StepChange Debt Charity and MoneyPlus Advice. You can also use the MoneyHelper website to find more free debt advice services.

GOV.UK says its list covers UK-wide organisations and ones based in England and Wales, and it points to separate pages for debt advice in Scotland and Northern Ireland. See our guides on dealing with debt, priority debts and Breathing Space, or go back to the debt section.