Rent reporting

What It Means

Rent reporting means sending your rent payment historyPayment historyThe record in your credit reports of whether you paid each credit account on time, late or not at all; it's about 35% of a FICO Score. See more to one or more of the credit bureausCredit bureauA company that collects information about how people use credit and sells it as credit reports; Equifax, Experian and TransUnion are the three nationwide ones. See more, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, so it appears on your credit reportsCredit reportA record of how you've borrowed and repaid, kept by credit bureaus and sold to lenders, landlords, insurers and others who decide whether to deal with you. See more. Many landlords don't report rent on their own, so it usually happens through a rent reporting service that you or your landlord signs up for. Once the rent is on a report, whether it affects a score depends on the scoring model: newer FICO ScoresFICO scoreA credit score made by the company FICO from your credit report; base FICO Scores, including the widely used FICO Score 8, run from 300 to 850. See more and all versions of VantageScoreVantageScoreA credit scoring model from the company VantageScore; version 4.0 runs from 300 to 850 and gives payment history the most weight, at 41%. See more can count it, and FICO Score 8 and the older FICO Scores used for mortgagesMortgageA loan used to buy or refinance a home, secured by the home itself and repaid in monthly installments over a set term. See more don't.

How People Say It

• "I pay rent on time every month and it does nothing for my credit."
• "My landlord started reporting rent to Experian."
• "Does the rent reporting show up on all three reports?"

The Breakdown

A short example. Tasha has paid $1,400 in rent on time for two years but has only one credit card. She signs up for a rent reporting service, which adds her rent history to her Experian report. A few months later she applies for a car loanCar loanAn installment loan used to buy a vehicle, repaid in monthly payments over a set term, with the vehicle as collateral. See more and is surprised the rent made no difference.

Where it goes wrong. Her service reported to Experian only, and the lender pulled her TransUnion report. Even at a lender that pulled Experian, a FICO Score 8 wouldn't count the rent, since myFICO says only FICO Score 9 and the newer 1010,000 stepsA popular daily step goal that began as the name of a 1960s Japanese pedometer; later studies find health benefits begin well below it. See more and 10T use it. Rent reporting helps only when the rent reaches the bureau the lender pulls and the lender's score model reads it.

What to watch for

• Ask the service which bureaus it reports to; Experian notes that some report to only one or two.
• Check for fees, for you or your landlord, before signing up.
• Ask whether it can add past months, and how it handles a late month.
• Pull your free reports afterward to confirm the rent appears where you expected.
• Before a big application, ask the lender which bureau and score version it uses.

Good to Know

Experian says rent sent through its RentBureau goes to Experian only and isn't passed to Equifax or TransUnion, so only scores built from your Experian report can reflect it. Other services report to one, two or all three bureaus. myFICO notes that FICO Score 8 leaves reported rent out, as do FICO Scores 2, 4 and 5, the versions used for mortgages. Before you sign up, ask how the service handles a month that's paid late.

Related Terms and Categories

• Credit report

  A record of how you've borrowed and repaid, kept by credit bureaus and sold to lenders, landlords, insurers and others who decide whether to deal with you.

• Credit score

  A three-digit number calculated from your credit report that lenders use to judge how likely you are to repay; common models run from 300 to 850.

• FICO score

  A credit score made by the company FICO from your credit report; base FICO Scores, including the widely used FICO Score 8, run from 300 to 850.

• VantageScore

  A credit scoring model from the company VantageScore; version 4.0 runs from 300 to 850 and gives payment history the most weight, at 41%.

• Credit history

  The record of how you've handled credit over the years, as shown on your credit reports: which accounts you've had, for how long, and whether you paid on time.

• Credit builder loan

  A small loan that's held in a locked account while you repay it, so your on-time payments build a credit record before you receive the money.

Debt and credit