We are an independent, advertising-supported comparison service. Our goal is to help you make smarter financial decisions by providing you with interactive tools and financial calculators, publishing original and objective content, by enabling you to conduct research and compare information for free - so that you can make financial decisions with confidence. Bankrate has partnerships with issuers including, but not limited to, American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi and Discover.
How We Make Money.
The offers that appear on this site are from companies that compensate us. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site, including, for example, the order in which they may appear within the listing categories. But this compensation does not influence the information we publish, or the reviews that you see on this site. We do not include the universe of companies or financial offers that may be available to you.
At Bankrate we strive to help you make smarter financial decisions. While we adhere to strict , this post may contain references to products from our partners. Here’s an explanation for .
Editorial Integrity
Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions.
Key Principles
We value your trust. Our mission is to provide readers with accurate and unbiased information, and we have editorial standards in place to ensure that happens. Our editors and reporters thoroughly fact-check editorial content to ensure the information you’re reading is accurate. We maintain a firewall between our advertisers and our editorial team. Our editorial team does not receive direct compensation from our advertisers.
Editorial Independence
Bankrate’s editorial team writes on behalf of YOU – the reader. Our goal is to give you the best advice to help you make smart personal finance decisions. We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers. Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy. So, whether you’re reading an article or a review, you can trust that you’re getting credible and dependable information.
How We Make Money
You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. We continually strive to provide consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout life’s financial journey.
Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers.
We’re transparent about how we are able to bring quality content, competitive rates, and useful tools to you by explaining how we make money.
Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories. Other factors, such as our own proprietary website rules and whether a product is offered in your area or at your self-selected credit score range can also impact how and where products appear on this site. While we strive to provide a wide range offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service.
Maintaining an excellent credit score might seem almost impossible, but by using credit wisely, paying your bills on time and keeping the right balance between your debt and available credit, you can attain the best scores.
An excellent credit score varies according to the scoring system used. Credit scores range from a low of 300 to a high of 850. The most popular credit score indicators are the FICO Score and the VantageScore.
VantageScore
The VantageScore is a little more forgiving than the FICO Score, offering a broader range for “excellent” and a smaller range for scores on the lower end. VantageScore follows these ranges:
750-850: Excellent
700-749: Good
650-699: Fair
550-649: Poor
300-549: Very poor
FICO Score
The FICO Score is the score lenders use most. The scoring range is as follows:
800-850: Excellent
740-799: Very good
670-739: Good
580-669: Fair
300-579: Very poor
How to attain the best credit score
There are things you can do to reach a high credit score:
Pay bills on time. One of the biggest factors in determining your credit score is your payment history. Letting a bill fall behind 30 days or more will quickly lower your credit score.
Keep a good debt-to-credit ratio. Having a high credit limit is an opportunity to elevate your score, but you should use no more than 30 percent of the credit limit. Maxing out your credit cards will hurt your score. A debt-to-credit ratio no higher than 30 percent is best. Also, avoid credit cards with small credit limits. It’s hard to maintain a good level of available credit with a low-limit card, which hurts your credit score.
Don’t close out older credit cards. If you do pay off a credit card, keep it open, especially older cards. Older credit cards can show your long credit history. People with the best credit scores average 11 years of credit history, while those on the lower end average seven years of credit history.
Keep applications for credit to a minimum. Too many hard inquiries into your credit history hurt your score. Keep hard inquiries to no more than two every 24 months. Inquiries stemming from a home or auto loan count as one inquiry if they are all made within 45 days.
Share