Credit Report
A credit report is a detailed record of your credit history maintained by each of the three major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion). It includes your open and closed accounts, payment history, current balances, public records, and recent inquiries. You can pull a free copy from each bureau weekly at AnnualCreditReport.com.
Credit reports are the underlying data that scoring models like FICO and VantageScore calculate scores from. The score is a summary; the report is the full record.
What’s on your credit report
A typical credit report includes:
- Personal information: name, addresses (current and past), Social Security number, employers
- Account history: every credit account, with payment history for the past 7 years
- Public records: bankruptcies and some judgments
- Inquiries: every time someone pulled your credit, soft or hard
- Collections: debts sold to or assigned to collection agencies
Your report does NOT include income, savings account balances, or investment accounts. Credit reports are about credit obligations specifically.
Why pulling your report matters
About 1 in 5 credit reports has at least one error significant enough to affect a score. Common errors:
- Accounts that don’t belong to you (mixed files or identity theft)
- Late payments reported incorrectly
- Closed accounts still showing as open (or vice versa)
- Wrong balances
Disputed errors can typically be corrected within 30-45 days. Pull your reports at AnnualCreditReport.com (the only federally authorized free source: others may try to sell you services). Check at least once a year, and always before a major credit application.