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 For a score with a range between 300 and 850, a credit score of 700 or above is generally considered good.   

For a score with a range between 300 and 850, a credit score of 700 or above is generally considered good. A score of 800 or above in the same range is considered to be excellent. Most consumers have credit scores that fall between 600 and 750. In 2022, the average FICO® Score☉  in the U.S. reached 714.

Achieving a good credit score can help you qualify for a credit card or loan with a lower interest rate and better terms. That said, different lenders use their own criteria for deciding whom to lend to and at what rates. Here's more on what qualifies as a good credit score, what impacts your credit, and how to improve your credit score. 

The base FICO® Scores range from 300 to 850, and a good credit score is between 670 and 739 within that range.

FICO creates different types of consumer credit scores. There are "base" FICO® Scores that the company makes for lenders in multiple industries to use, as well as industry-specific credit scores for credit card issuers and auto lenders. FICO's industry-specific credit scores have a different range—250 to 900. 

However, the middle categories have the same groupings and a "good" industry-specific FICO® Score is still 670 to 739.

 VantageScore's first two credit scoring models had ranges of 501 to 990. The two newest VantageScore credit scores (VantageScore 3.0 and 4.0) use a 300 to 850 range—the same as the base FICO® Scores. 

For the latest models, VantageScore defines 661 to 780 as its good range. 

 To increase your odds of approval and qualify for a lower-rate mortgage, you should aim to have a credit score in the good range. That's a FICO score of 670 or higher.

The minimum credit score needed to buy a house can range from 500 to 700, but will ultimately depend on the type of mortgage loan you're applying for and your lender. Most lenders require a minimum credit score of 620 to buy a house with a conventional mortgage. Other types of mortgages have different credit score requirements:

• FHA home loans typically require a credit score of at least 500 if you put 10% down or 580 if you put 3.5% down.
• USDA loans don't have a set credit score requirement, but lenders typically require a score of at least 580.
• VA loans also don't have a set minimum credit score, but lenders typically require a score of 620 or higher.
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Remember that your credit score plays a role in determining the interest rate and payment terms on a mortgage loan. Lenders base the interest they charge on how risky they view you as a borrower. So while it may be possible to get a mortgage with bad credit, you're typically better off improving your score before you apply for a mortgage to qualify for good terms.

 While there isn't a set minimum credit score to buy a car, you should aim to have a score of 670 or higher, which puts you in the good credit range. You'll qualify for better auto loan terms with a higher credit score.

Auto lenders view low credit as a sign of risk, so an applicant with poor or fair credit will pay more in interest to borrow a car loan. If your FICO® Score is below 670, aim to build credit before you buy a car. Reaching the "good" credit score range may help you qualify for lower interest and better terms.

 Common factors can affect all your credit scores, and these are often split into five categories:

• Payment history: Making on-time payments on your credit accounts can help your scores. But missing payments, having an account sent to collections or filing bankruptcy could hurt your scores.
• Credit usage: How many of your accounts have balances, how much you owe, and your credit utilization rate—the portion of your credit limit that you're using on revolving accounts—all come into play here.
• Length of credit history: This category includes the average age of all your credit accounts, along with the age of your oldest and newest accounts.
• Types of accounts: Also called "credit mix," this considers whether you're managing both installment accounts (such as a car loan, personal loan, or mortgage) and revolving accounts (such as credit cards and other types of credit lines). Showing that you can manage both types of accounts responsibly generally helps your scores.
• Recent activity: This considers whether you've recently applied for or opened new accounts.

FICO and VantageScore take different approaches to explaining the relative importance of the categories.

Having good credit can make achieving your financial goals easier. It could be the difference between qualifying or being denied for an important loan, such as a home mortgage or car loan. And, it can directly impact how much you'll have to pay in interest or fees if you're approved.

For example, the difference between taking out a 30-year, fixed-rate $250,000 mortgage with a 620 FICO® Score and a 670 FICO® Score could be $161 a month. That's extra money you could be putting toward your savings or other financial goals. Over the lifetime of the loan, having the better score would save you $57,842 in interest payments. Learn more about what credit score you need to buy a house.

Additionally, credit scores can impact non-lending decisions, such as whether a landlord will agree to rent you an apartment.

Your credit reports can also impact you in other ways. Some employers may review your credit reports (but not your credit scores) before making a hiring or promotion decision. And, in most states, insurance companies may use credit-based insurance scores to help determine your premiums for auto, home and life insurance.

To improve your credit scores, focus on the underlying factors that affect your scores. At a high level, the basic steps you need to take are fairly straightforward:

• Make at least your minimum payment and make all debt payments on time. Even a single payment made 30 days or more late can hurt your credit scores and it'll stay on your credit report for up to seven years. If you think you may miss a payment, reach out to your creditors as quickly as possible to see if they can work with you or offer hardship options.

• Keep your credit card balances low. Your credit utilization rate is an important scoring factor that compares the current balance and credit limit of revolving accounts such as credit cards. Having a low credit utilization rate can help your credit scores. Those with excellent credit scores tend to have an overall utilization rate in the single digits.

• Open accounts that will be reported to the credit bureaus. If you have few credit accounts, make sure those you do open will be added to your credit report. These could be installment accounts, such as student, auto, home, or personal loans, or revolving accounts, such as credit cards and lines of credit.

• Only apply for credit when you need it. Applying for a new account can lead to a hard inquiry, which may hurt your credit scores a little. The impact is often minimal, but applying for many different types of loans or credit cards during a short period could lead to a larger score drop.

Other factors can also impact your scores. For example, increasing the average age of your accounts could help your scores. However, that's often a matter of waiting rather than taking action.

Checking your credit scores might also give you insight into what you can do to improve them. For example, when you check your FICO® Score 8 from Experian for free, you can also look to see how you're doing with each of the credit score categories.

Credit scoring models use your credit reports to determine your score, but they can't score reports that don't have enough information.

For FICO® Scores, you need:

• An account that's at least six months old
• An account that has been active in the past six months

VantageScore can score your credit report if it has at least one active account, even if the account is only a month old.

If you aren't scoreable, you may need to open a new account or add a new activity to your credit report to start building credit. Often this means starting with a credit-builder loan or secured credit card or becoming an authorized user.

In addition, you can begin establishing credit immediately with Experian Go™. Experian Go helps you jump-start your credit by creating an Experian credit report for you even if you don't have any credit accounts yet. It then provides you with personalized insights on how to move forward with building credit.

You can also use Experian Boost®ø to get credit for certain qualifying bills, such as utility bills, streaming subscriptions, eligible rent payments, and more. This can help you build a positive payment history using regular monthly bills, which can instantly increase your score.

 Your credit score can change for many reasons, and it's not uncommon for scores to move up or down throughout the month as new information gets added to your credit reports.

You may be able to point to a specific event that leads to a score change. For example, a late payment or new collection account will likely lower your credit score. Conversely, paying down a high credit card balance and lowering your utilization rate may increase your score.

But some actions might have an impact on your credit scores that you didn't expect. Paying off a loan, for example, might lead to a drop in your scores, even though it's a positive action in terms of responsible money management. This could be because it was the only open installment account you had on your credit report or the only loan with a low balance. After paying off the loan, you may be left without a mix of open installment and revolving accounts, or with only high-balance loans.

Perhaps you decide to stop using your credit cards after paying off the balances. Avoiding debt is a good idea, but a lack of activity in your accounts could lead to a lower score. You may want to use a card for a small monthly subscription and then pay off the balance in full each month to maintain your account's activity and build its on-time payment history.

Keep in mind that credit scoring models use complicated calculations to determine a score. Sometimes you might think one event caused your score to increase or decrease, but it was a coincidence (for example, you paid off a loan, but your score actually increased due to a lower credit utilization ratio). Also, a single event isn't "worth" a certain amount of points—the point change will depend on your entire credit report.

A new late payment could lead to a large point drop for someone who's never been late before, for example, as it may indicate a change in behavior and, in turn, credit risk. However, someone who has already missed many payments might experience a smaller point drop from a new late payment because it's already assumed that they're more likely to miss payments.

Checking your credit score right before you apply for a new loan or credit card can help you understand your chances of qualifying for favorable terms—but checking it further ahead of time gives you the chance to improve your score, and possibly save hundreds or thousands of dollars in interest. 

If you are ready to get started on your credit rebuilding journey you can CLICK HERE!