The 5 Factors That Affect Your Credit Score
Published May 5th, 2026
Understanding how your credit score is calculated can help you make smarter financial decisions and avoid habits that may lower your score. Each part of your credit profile plays a different role in how lenders evaluate your financial responsibility, approval odds, and borrowing risk.
There are 5 factors that makes up your credit score.
- Payment History: 35%
- Utilization: 30%
- Length of Credit History: 15%
- New Credit: 10%
- Types of Credit: 10%
Payment Story
Payment history makes up about 35 percent of your credit score. Payment history is if you make payments on time for your accounts. This factor has the biggest impact on your credit score.
Your payment history will also show late payments, collections and charge offs, as well as public records like bankruptcies, judgments or liens. Certain things can remain on your credit report for up to seven years or more.
Credit Utilization
The goal is to keep your lines of credit such as your credit cards under 30% of each credit card's limit. It is actually better to keep your utilization under 15%. Meaning only use that amount of the card and do the minimum payment, OR use what you can afford, and pay your card down to under 20% on the credit card due date. You can pay your credit card off, but only pay it off to 0% AFTER the credit card closing date.
Length of Credit History
The length of your credit history it determined by how long you've had lines of credit. The longer you've established credit, the better you look to lenders and creditors.
New Credit
New credit applications affect 10% of your credit score. Your score will take a small decrease (drop) in points for new credit applications. New credit is also known as credit inquiries. You can raise a red flag to creditors when you have too many inquiries in a 12month to 2 yr period. Be wise about your credit applications before you complete them because once you do, your score decreases (on average by 5-10 pts per inquiry) and the inquiries stay on your credit for 2 yrs before they fall off.
Types of Credit
The rule of thumb for having a high score is your credit mix on your credit profile. You should have both revolving credit (credit cards) and installment accounts (loans i.e. car loan, mortgage, personal loans etc.). A lender will analyze your credit profile and base the amount they will lend you off of how well you maintained different lines of credit.