Anatomy of a Credit Report

Personal Information

When you apply for credit, you typically provide various pieces of personally identifiable information. This can include your name, date of birth, address, and the names of current and previous employers. Personal information doesn't impact your credit score.

This section can help provide information to lenders when they review credit reports to identify you.

Accounts

This section shows all your open credit accounts, as well as closed ones. Information related to open and closed credit accounts can remain on your credit reports for up to 10 years.

With each account, you'll be able to see the following:

• Name of the creditor
• Type of account (credit card, loan, etc.)
• Account number
• Current balance
• Account status (open, closed, etc.)
• Payment status (current, 30 days past due, etc.)
• Usage (credit utilization)
• Credit limit
• Date opened
• Date closed, if applicable

Once accounts start to show up on your credit report, you'll see a record of how you manage the account. For instance, on-time payments will be added to your credit report every time you pay your bill on time as agreed. Late payments will show up if you're 30 days late or more to pay your bill. Your account balances will be current as of the time the account was reported to the credit bureau, so you can expect some lag time there. If the information shown on your credit report doesn't match your records, you may consider disputing the information you believe to be incorrect.

Items on your credit report that can impact on your credit score include your payment status and your credit utilization, which compares the current balance on your accounts with their credit limits. Also, the longer an account has been open, the more beneficial it is to the length of your credit history, which is another credit scoring factor.

Collection Accounts

If you stop making payments on a debt or service account for too long, the creditor may send the bill to a collection agency, which reports a new collection account to the credit bureaus.

Collection accounts can have a significant negative impact on your credit score. They typically remain on your credit report for seven years from the date of the first missed payment on the original debt.

Public Records

The only public record that is reported on credit reports is bankruptcy. The most common types of bankruptcy are Chapter 7 and Chapter 13, and they'll stay on your credit report for 10 or seven years, respectively. Bankruptcy typically has a major negative impact on your credit score.

Check Your Credit Reports Regularly

Checking your credit reports regularly is important to help you build and maintain a good credit history. It can also help you spot and spot identity theft and take action before it gets out of hand.