Where can I get a free credit report?

Credit Karma partners with Equifax and TransUnion to provide free credit reports from those two credit bureaus. You can check them as often as you like with no impact on your credit scores. You can also use annualcreditreport.com to view your reports from all three bureaus, including Experian. Credit Karma also provides VantageScore 3.0 credit scores, the scoring model co-developed by the three main bureaus: Equifax, TransUnion and Experian.

How long does information stay on your credit report?

Different information stays on your credit report for different lengths of time. For instance, a hard credit inquiry may stay on your credit report for two years. Items like late payments can stay for seven years. Bankruptcies can stay on your credit report for seven to 10 years, depending on the type of bankruptcy filed.

Why is it important to know about your credit?

Understanding how credit scores work can help you build healthy habits to reach financial goals. Your credit reports and credit scores can help lenders decide if you qualify for financial products like credit cards or loans. A good credit score can also help you get competitive interest rates.

Which credit report is most accurate?

No one credit report is necessarily more accurate than the others. Your TransUnion credit report might contain information that your Equifax credit report doesn’t, or vice versa. This is partly because lenders are not required to report your information to all three credit bureaus. In some cases, they may only report to one bureau and not the others, or they may report information at different times — meaning your scores may not be the same.

The credit bureaus use “personally identifiable information,” such as your name, address, date of birth, Social Security number and any jobs you’ve held, to ensure you’re really you, but it doesn’t factor into your credit scores.

Credit account information

You can expect to see information about any credit cards, auto loans, mortgages or other types of loans you’ve opened. Each credit account may include your payment history, your loan amount or credit limit, your current account balance and the age of the account.

Typically, if you apply for credit, the hard inquiry will show up on your credit report and may impact your credit scores. Soft inquiries — common when you prequalify for credit — don’t usually impact your scores or show up on your report.

Your credit reports may also contain derogatory marks associated with past financial bumps in the road. These derogatory marks could include bankruptcies, late payments, and delinquent accounts that have been sent to collections.

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