How often do credit scores get updated?

Even though your credit score is a general indication of how much of a risk you would potentially pose to a new lender, in reality it is your financial records that matter. Your credit score is just a number. Each credit agency have their own method of working out your credit score, and the number that you get would depend on where you check it.

Additionally, lenders don’t tend to look at your score in isolation, but will look at your credit file in its entirety and make an informed decision based on their own criteria.

Your credit history tends to change or improve when the information in it changes. As time goes by, certain undesired items will become less significant, although those that process will have a minimal impact on your credit score.

By using credit in daily life, new information will continuously be added to your credit file, and unless any payments are missed then it is considered reliable information. Every time a new piece of credit information is added, it could either have a positive or detrimental effect on your credit rating. Generally, anyone who provides you with a line of credit would need to report that information along to the main credit agencies, in most cases this is done about once a month.

That means that each month your credit file is gaining several new bits of information from current credit sources, as well as personal movements such as electoral role, credit cards, store cards, utility bills, phone contracts etc.

The thing to keep in mind that relatively small pieces of information don’t tend to have a massive effect on your overall score. If you have just paid off a large personal loan, then that would be the kind of thing that would have a noticeable positive affect within your credit file.