What is a good credit score?
Uncover what each credit reference agency considers a ‘good’ credit score, how to get one, and the benefits of having one.
17.03.25
Jasmin
Jasmin is Knowledge Manager at Checkmyfile and has been part of the team for over 10 years. She previously led the customer care team for five years, adding invaluable front-line experience to her credit report knowledge.
Put simply, your credit score gives you an idea of how likely you are to be approved for credit.
In general, the higher your score, the better the chances you’ll be accepted for a credit agreement. This is where you borrow money from a lender and pay it back each month (like a mortgage, credit card, personal loan, car finance, or mobile phone contract).
But what is a good credit score?
The short answer is that there’s no universal number for a ‘good’ credit score. The UK’s three main credit reference agencies (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion) all have specific ranges and scoring systems, so your score can look different depending on which one you use. What’s considered ‘good’ can vary between credit reference agencies (CRAs) and lenders, too.
How is your credit score calculated?
Before we look at the different scoring ranges used by each agency, it’s helpful to understand how your credit score is put together.
Your credit score is calculated using information found in your credit report.
Your credit report is a record of your financial history maintained by the agencies. It’s sourced and updated with information from banks, lenders, and public records, and used by lenders to help make informed lending decisions.
While each agency will use a different formula to calculate your score, they’ll all consider the following factors:
How much credit you’re using and how much you owe.
Whether you’re making your repayments on time.
How often you’re applying for credit.
Public records (for example, whether you’re on the Electoral Roll and if you have any County Court Judgments (CCJs)).
Generally speaking, ‘positive’ information (such as being registered on the Electoral Roll and having a good repayment history) can help increase your credit score. Unsurprisingly, ‘negative’ information (late payments, defaults, and CCJs, for example) could have it moving in the other direction.
What is considered a ‘good’ credit score by each CRA?
Your credit score will vary depending on which credit reference agency you check – and what they consider to be ‘good’ will also look different.
Even though CRAs get most of their information from many of the same sources, some lenders only report to specific CRAs (for example, your credit card company might only report your account and its repayments to TransUnion, so Experian and Equifax won’t hold this data).
This means there’s no guarantee that they’re all looking at the same information when they calculate their scores. Each CRA also uses a different scoring system, so for example, their opinions on how many ‘points’ a repayment should be worth towards your score can differ.
What does Checkmyfile consider a ‘good’ credit score?
If you want to see your Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion information in one place, you’ve come to the right place. At Checkmyfile, we offer the most detailed credit report, and we even provide our own credit score using the data from all three of the main CRAs.
The Checkmyfile credit score is calculated out of 999.
Did you know that we were the first company in the UK to provide consumers with online access to their credit scores? Try Checkmyfile free for 30 days (then £14.99 a month). You can cancel online anytime.
What do the credit scoring bands mean?
We don’t like to use terms like ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’, so it’s useful to know what it means if your credit score happens to fall into one of these categories. Let’s take a look.
They might say: | We say: | What this means: |
Very Poor or Poor | Room for improvement | Getting approved for credit might be a challenge. Take steps to improve your credit score. |
Poor or Fair | Things are looking up | You have a chance of being approved for credit. But you’ll likely be charged a higher interest rate and have a low credit limit. |
Fair or Good | Keep going | You should be able to borrow at a reasonable interest rate, but your initial credit limit may be low. |
Good or Very Good | Good work | You’re likely to be approved for credit. But you might not be offered the best deals on loans, mortgages, and credit cards. |
Excellent | Excellent | Although there are never any guarantees, you’re very likely to be approved for credit. |
How to get a good credit score
Sadly, there are no shortcuts to a good credit score. But there are a few things you can do to steadily improve things over time, including:
Getting on the Electoral Roll: Registering to vote gets you onto the Electoral Roll (also known as the Electoral Register), which helps lenders confirm your name and address. They use this to reduce the risk of fraud and assess your stability (i.e., if you’ve been at one address for a long time, this may be considered a positive sign). You can register online – it’s free and only takes around five minutes. Once registered, the information can take between one and three months to appear on your credit report.
Making your payments on time: One of the best ways to build towards a good credit score is to be consistent with your payments over a long period. By knowing when bills are due (and having enough money in your account to pay them), you can avoid missed or late payments which could help increase your credit score.
Monitor your credit utilisation: Lenders want to see active accounts, but too much unused credit could be perceived negatively. You need to strike the right balance. Having too many credit card accounts open at once could make it look like you’re too reliant on credit. It may help to close old accounts that you’re no longer using. Just bear in mind this may temporarily harm your credit score because you’ll subsequently have a less active positive repayment history.
How to maintain a good credit score
Once you have a good credit score, it’s important to check your report regularly to try and maintain it. Here’s what to look out for:
Monitor your credit report for errors (and fix them): Even the slightest mistake in your credit report could bring your score down. Go through your report carefully to ensure everything is correct and you’re not being accused of missing a payment you’ve made. If you spot an error, you can get in touch with the lender and ask them to fix it.
Make sure your address is correct across your accounts: If you don’t use a consistent address format across your credit accounts, some of your repayment information might not show up in your credit report. The address you use should match the one on your Electoral Roll listing.
Keep your accounts updated with the right name: If you’ve recently married, divorced, or decided to change your name, you’ll need to update your lenders with your new name. Like your address, your name needs to be consistent to ensure your most recent payment history shows up the next time you apply for credit.
Does checking your credit score too much lower it?
No, checking your credit score using a website or app won’t affect it in any way. You can check it as often as you like, and it’s good to monitor things so you can spot and fix any errors or inaccuracies that might crop up.
However, the types of checks lenders do when deciding whether to approve a credit application could affect your score. There are two types of checks:
Soft credit checks, also known as enquiry or audit searches. These look at the public information on your credit report such as your Electoral Roll record and any court information. Lenders usually perform this search first to establish if your application might be successful before diving deeper into your credit history. Soft searches won’t have an impact on your credit score.
Hard credit checks, also known as application searches. These look at your entire credit report, including your credit account repayment history, address history, financial associations, and public court records.
Every hard check is recorded on your credit report, and companies searching it can see if you’ve applied for credit recently. Having too many hard searches over a short period could impact your chances of being approved for credit in the future.
What can stop you from getting a good credit score?
The following factors can affect your credit score. Try your best to avoid these in order to protect and build your score:
Missing payments: If you fall behind on your credit repayments, your account can be placed in ‘arrears’. This means a marker between 1 and 6 will be placed on your credit report to show the months of consecutive missed payments (for example, ‘3’ shows a customer who is three months in arrears). Payments that are two months in arrears can have a more noticeable impact on your credit score, and anything later than this will be seen as serious arrears. If you continue to miss repayments, the lender could record a default on your account. Defaults stay on your report for six years, but they tend to have less significance the older they get. Make sure you’re paying on time every month for all your accounts (even if it’s just the minimum payment). When the default drops off after six years, you should see your score grow, providing there’s no other negative information that could be holding it back.
Making too many credit applications: Every credit application you make records a hard search on your report. As the outcome of the search isn’t recorded on your credit report, too many in a short space of time may make a lender hesitant to accept your application. This is because it could make it look like you’ve been rejected several times and are in desperate need of credit, or you’ve recently taken on a lot of new credit, meaning they won’t be able to accurately assess your affordability.
Using too much credit: Your credit utilisation is the proportion of available credit you’re using. If you use too much, lenders may be reluctant to give you any more credit because they don’t want you to take on unaffordable debt. Start paying off your cards whenever you can, it’s beneficial to keep your credit utilisation around 30% of your available credit. As always, paying on time every month helps build your positive history and grow your score.
Not using credit: On the flip side, if you don’t use credit, it is harder for lenders to see that you can manage it responsibly. Even a small amount of activity on your credit accounts can help build a positive credit history and grow your score if you make your repayments on time. That said, you don’t need to use credit to grow your score and you should only ever use the credit you can afford.
Having a County Court Judgment (CCJ) issued against you: If you’re unable to repay your debts, lenders may try to reclaim the money you owe by getting a CCJ registered against you. Having a CCJ on your credit file will likely reduce your chances of getting credit. However, if you can pay back what you owe in full within a month of the CCJ being issued, it will be removed from your report.
What are the benefits of having a good credit score?
The main benefit of a good credit score is that it can improve your chances of getting a credit application (like a credit card, mortgage, loan, overdraft, or car finance) accepted.
This is because your credit score reflects your credit report. A high score usually means your report is in good shape, and you’ve shown you can manage credit responsibly over time. As a result, lenders will consider you a lower-risk applicant.
A good credit score can also unlock lower interest rates and can open up longer term agreements.
But it’s important to note that a high credit score doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed approval.
The credit score shown on your credit report isn’t the same as the one lenders use, so any credit application you make will also be subject to the individual lender’s criteria. Even a seemingly ‘perfect’ credit score won’t guarantee a successful application if you don’t tick all the lender’s boxes.
Do I need a good credit score to get a mortgage?
You don’t necessarily need a good credit score to be approved for a mortgage. Your score is just one of several factors lenders consider before deciding whether to give your application the green light.
Alongside your credit report, mortgage lenders will examine your overall financial situation, your monthly income and outgoings, and your employment status to see if you meet their specific lending criteria.
A high credit score can suggest you’re a lower-risk applicant, but it doesn’t guarantee you’ll be accepted. And while a low credit score might make you appear like a high-risk applicant, it doesn’t always mean you’ll be declined.
Read more about credit scores and mortgages here: What Credit Score Is Needed To Buy a House?
How long does it take to get a good credit score?
Depending on your starting position, it can take anywhere from a few months to a few years to build a good credit score.
This is because certain positive actions can take several weeks or months to appear on your credit report, and the highest scores are usually linked to a lengthy and consistent habit of making repayments on time.
For instance, once you register on the Electoral Roll, it can take up to three months to show up on your credit report, while it can take anywhere from 1 day to 2 months for your monthly repayments to appear.
Unless there’s a significant change to your credit file, you’re unlikely to see your score shift drastically from one month to the next. However, it should increase gradually over time as long as you keep making your repayments on time and stay registered on the Electoral Roll.
To recap:
There’s no universal number for a ‘good’ credit score. Each credit reference agency has access to varying amounts of data and slightly different scoring methods, meaning your score will likely differ depending on which one you check.
So, why not check all your data at once? At Checkmyfile, we give you the most detailed credit report you can get, because it’s based on information from all three agencies, not just one.
Review your credit history as reported to Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion to find out what lenders see when they check your details. Look for differences in what’s been reported, identify problem accounts, errors, or missing information, and take steps to minimise their impact and grow your score.
Try Checkmyfile with a 30-day free trial, then it’s £14.99 a month. Cancel online anytime.
