What Actually Drives Your Score
| Factor | Weight |
|---|---|
| Payment history | 35% |
| Credit utilization | 30% |
| Length of credit history | 15% |
| Credit mix | 10% |
| New credit | 10% |
Payment history and utilization together make up nearly two-thirds of your score — so an inaccurate late payment or collection is generally the highest-impact type of error to correct, while a minor inquiry error tends to move the needle much less.
Why the Same Fix Affects Two People Differently
Removing one inaccurate 30-day-late mark from a report with an otherwise clean payment history can swing a score meaningfully, since payment history carries the most weight. That same removal on a report already carrying multiple other negative items tends to move the score less, because the other factors are still dragging it down. Score-improvement estimates that quote a specific number of points without knowing your full report are guessing, not calculating.
What You Can Actually Influence
- Disputing genuinely inaccurate, unverifiable, or outdated items — the only kind of item that can legally be removed
- Paying down revolving balances to lower utilization, which compounds with any dispute win
- Keeping older accounts open, since length of history is a real factor lenders and scoring models weigh
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