Utility companies do not report accounts and payment history to the three major credit bureaus (Experian, TransUnion and Equifax), and as a result, these types of bills have not historically had an impact on your credit scores.
Does Paying Phone and Utility Bills Help Build Credit? If you keep up with your utility and phone bills and that activity is reported to credit bureaus, it could help boost your credit.
Utility Bills
Your electricity or gas bill is not a loan, but failing to pay it can hurt your credit score. While utility companies won't normally report a customer's payment history, they will report delinquent accounts much more quickly than other companies you may do business with.
Most utility companies don't report to the big three consumer reporting agencies (CRAs) whether or how regularly you pay on time. However, if you fail to pay a bill and it is sent to a collection agency, that debt could show up on your credit reports from any of the big three CRAs.
Dispute the utility bill in writing, urges the Federal Citizen Information Center. Provide your complete name and contact information in your letter, as well as a description of the old utility bill that you are disputing and why you feel the information should be removed or corrected.
Once you've paid off or settled your debt, all you have to do is wait. This negative mark will automatically drop off of your credit report seven years after the date of the last activity on the account.
Payment History Is the Most Important Factor of Your Credit Score. Payment history accounts for 35% of your FICO® Score. Four other factors that go into your credit score calculation make up the remaining 65%.
If you have long-overdue bills, a utility company can send your account to a collection agency that can forward it to one or more of the credit bureaus. If you want to build your credit score, simply paying your utility bills on time usually won't do the trick.
Paying your bills on time is the most important thing you can do to help raise your score. FICO and VantageScore, which are two of the main credit card scoring models, both view payment history as the most influential factors when determining a person's credit score.
Key Takeaways. Cable TV, phone, and other utility bills usually aren't reported to credit bureaus or reflected in your credit score. However, if you are seriously delinquent in paying your cable bill, that may show up on your credit report.
Rent payment history, in general, affects around 35% of your overall credit score. So, even a single late rent payment or missed rent payment can significantly impact your credit score — especially if it's already on the higher side.
There's a missed payment lurking on your report
A single payment that is 30 days late or more can send your score plummeting because on-time payments are the biggest factor in your credit score. Worse, late payments stay on your credit report for up to seven years.
Credit scores can drop due to a variety of reasons, including late or missed payments, changes to your credit utilization rate, a change in your credit mix, closing older accounts (which may shorten your length of credit history overall), or applying for new credit accounts.
Utility bills don't usually appear on your credit reports—unless you fail to pay them. This can be both a good and bad thing: good because late payments don't always automatically count against you, and bad because your on-time payment history doesn't help your score.
Generally speaking, on-time payments will help your credit score, while late payments may cause your credit score to drop. Otherwise, if the loan isn't reported to the credit bureaus, your monthly payments will have no bearing—good or bad—on your credit score.
Your score falls within the range of scores, from 580 to 669, considered Fair. A 595 FICO® Score is below the average credit score. Some lenders see consumers with scores in the Fair range as having unfavorable credit, and may decline their credit applications.
Since your credit files never include your race, gender, marital status, education level, religion, political party or income, those details can't be factored into your credit scores. Making charges on a debit card. Since your credit reports only include credit accounts, bank accounts aren't included.
A conventional loan requires a credit score of at least 620, but it's ideal to have a score of 740 or above, which could allow you to make a lower down payment, get a more attractive interest rate and save on private mortgage insurance.