What Is the Lowest Credit Score?

The lowest score you can have is 300, according to FICO and VantageScore®, the two big systems lenders use. And the highest score is 850. 

Why does it matter? Because higher scores could help you get the financial products you need in life, at affordable prices. When your scores are lower, life is more expensive.

Understanding Credit Score Ranges

Every lender decides how it considers and labels credit scores—a score considered excellent by one creditor might only be very good to another. Here’s an idea of how FICO and VantageScore break it down:

Knowing these ranges could help you understand where your score fits and how it affects your borrowing options. Higher scores open more doors.

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What Is a Low Credit Score?

A credit score is low when it falls into the fair or poor ranges:

• FICO Score: Fair: 580-669; Poor: 300-579

• VantageScore: Subprime: 300-600

Scores in these ranges can make it hard to get approved for credit cards and loans. Lenders are likely to offer you higher interest rates and worse terms, if they approve your application at all. 

Read: Credit score chart and score ranges

Why Is Your Credit Score So Low?

Your credit score is a three-digit number that reflects your history with credit accounts. Lenders consider this score a way to assess how likely you are to repay your debt in the future. If the likelihood is low, they take a bigger risk lending money to you. Because of that risk, they charge you more.

Credit scores are calculated by FICO or VantageScore algorithms. If your score is low, it might be because of:

• Money troubles. Late payments, big balances, or applying for too much credit. Serious issues like a bankruptcy or mortgage foreclosure could really hurt your score.

• No credit history. You start low because you haven’t built any track record.

More things that hurt your credit score

Several factors can push your score toward the lowest credit score:

• Missed payments. Being late or skipping payments lowers your score.

• Using too much credit. Using a lot of your available credit can hurt your score.

• Debts in collections. Unpaid bills sent to debt collectors have a significant negative impact.

• Big financial events. Bankruptcy or foreclosure can drastically reduce your score.

• Too many applications. Applying for a lot of new credit in a short time can lower your score.

• Mistakes on your report. Errors or fraudulent activity can drag down your score.

If you're struggling with debt, it might be time to consider debt relief.

How long things stay on your credit report

Negative records on your credit report typically last seven to 10 years. There’s usually no way to remove them earlier. This can be problematic when you’re raising your score—some items push your score down until they vanish from your report.

Length of score impact:

• Late payments: 7 years from date of missed payment

• Charge-offs: 7 years from the delinquency that led to charge-off

• Collection accounts: 7 years from the date of the (first) missed payment that led to collection efforts

• Chapter 7 bankruptcies: 10 years from filing date

• Chapter 13 bankruptcies: 7 years from filing date

• Foreclosures: 7 years from date of foreclosure

• Tax liens: Indefinite, though paid ones are usually removed 7 years from date of payment

• Civil judgements: 7 years usually, but can vary depending on which state you’re in.

Though all of these can greatly impact your credit score when they first happen, they become less harmful over time.

Collection accounts example

A collection account is one taken over by a third-party debt buyer. When you’re late on payments, your creditor may sell your debt to a debt collector for pennies on the dollar. That’s how your debt ends up in collections.

Say you don’t pay a credit card bill. After 180 days, your creditor charges off your debt and sells it to a debt collection company. Your account is in collections. You soon receive communications from collectors attempting to collect your debt. Done properly, this is legal.

Your collections account is marked as “paid” or “unpaid” on your credit report. Both could hurt your score, but paid accounts are less damaging. Paying your debt can quickly raise your score, even if the record of it remains on your report for years.

Credit mix

It’s good for your credit score when you have experience with different kinds of credit products, like car loans, student loans, credit cards, and so on. Your score might be suffering because you only have one or two lines of credit, or because all of your credit is the same type. 

A revolving credit line is one that can be used repeatedly, and payments vary over time. Types of revolving credit accounts:

• Credit cards

• Home equity lines of credit (HELOCs).

Installment credit lines are taken out once and paid back on a fixed schedule, with equal payments. Types of installment credit accounts:

• Mortgages

• Auto loans, student loans, personal loans.

Lenders like to see a mix of revolving and installment credit. It’s proof you can manage diverse types of credit. That said, avoid taking on debt just to improve your credit mix. The positive impact is minor, and the cons outweigh the pros.

Hard credit inquiries

A hard inquiry is a formal request to check your credit report. Creditors make hard inquiries when deciding whether to offer you a line of credit (such as a loan, credit card, mortgage, apartment rental, or cell phone plan). Creditors must get your permission to make hard inquiries.

A hard inquiry usually has a small impact on your credit score (usually a 5-10 point dip). An inquiry remains on your credit reports for about two years, but only impacts your score for one year. 

Soft credit inquiries don’t impact your credit score. You get these when checking your own score, when a prospective employer makes a background check, or when credit card companies send you pre-qualified offers that you didn’t ask for.

Identity theft

Identity thieves can swipe your cards and open credit accounts in your name. They might scam you any number of ways: impersonating someone you trust, stealing your mail, or even stealing your wallet.

Signs of theft include unfamiliar accounts on your credit report, suspicious credit inquiries, and records of purchases you don’t remember.

To handle identity theft:

• Freeze your credit account. All three credit bureaus allow you to do this for free online. Search “Equifax freeze,” “Experian freeze,” and “TransUnion freeze” online.

• Report theft to your creditors and the FTC (at identitytheft.gov).

• Dispute anything on your credit report that doesn’t belong to you. The easiest way to do this is to click through the dispute process while viewing your credit report online. You have to file disputes with each credit bureau separately. 

You can catch thieves early by frequently checking your credit report and paying attention to your credit account balance. 

Can You Have a Score Under 300?

No, 300 is the lowest score possible for FICO and VantageScore.

You have many credit scores

You have multiple credit scores, including several versions from FICO and several from VantageScore. Scores differ because of constantly changing versions, different info, and different calculations for different industries.

• New systems. FICO and VantageScore regularly update their systems with new versions, and lenders don’t all upgrade immediately to the new scores. 

• Different info. Not all lenders report every account to all three credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion). That means the three bureaus may not all have the same information about you.

• Different scores for different industries. Your auto loan credit score is different from your mortgage credit score.

The things you do to improve your credit will affect all of your scores. 

Is It Possible to Have No Credit Score?

Yes, you can have no credit score. This is called being credit invisible, and it happens when you haven’t built credit yet. You might be invisible as a young adult, an immigrant, or someone who spends exclusively with cash and debit. If you don’t have a credit score, lenders may have to take additional steps when you apply for a loan. 

How long until you get a score

It takes six months to establish a credit score with FICO. You need:

• An account open for at least six months

• A creditor who reports the account to the credit bureaus.

VantageScore, the other major credit bureau, is quicker to calculate a score. You might be able to access a new VantageScore within a month.

Establish a score

You can establish a credit score without opening an unsecured credit card (the usual type). And thank goodness for that, or else it could be difficult to start building credit.

Ways to establish a score from nothing:

• Open a secured credit card. These are more accessible than typical cards. You have to pay a cash deposit to open the account, but then it works like any other credit card. After six to 12 months of on-time payments, you can apply for a traditional credit card and ask for your deposit back. 

• Take a small credit builder loan. You build credit history as you make payments.

• Become an authorized user. A family member can add you to their card. You benefit—if they have good credit and make timely payments.

More: How to Build Credit in Three Steps

Why Does it Matter if You Have a Low Credit Score?

A low score makes borrowing money more expensive. You face higher interest rates, which add up. We’ve calculated how much you could save with a better score. Here’s what it looks like for a $400,000, 30-year mortgage (rates as of April 2025).

Potential mortgage savings

For a $400,000, 30-year fixed-rate mortgage:

If your score is 638, you’d pay $224 more each month and $80,785 extra over the loan’s life, compared to someone with a 761 FICO Score. That would be the price of the lower score.

Ask the lender what credit score you would need to get the next lower rate. Sometimes it’s possible to bump yourself into the next bracket without too much effort.

Potential auto loan savings

For a $25,000, 60-month auto loan (rates as of April 2025):

A lower score could cost you $5,769 more in interest over five years. And it’s not just mortgages and auto loans that penalize borrowers with below-average credit scores. You can expect the same results for most kinds of credit accounts. 

A low score could also increase your insurance and other costs. 

Higher insurance premiums

In some states, a low credit score makes your insurance premiums more expensive. Insurers score you based on many factors, including your credit score. A low credit score indicates you’re more likely to make a claim. Insurers may then charge you higher premiums.

Types of insurance that might charge you higher premiums:

• Car insurance

• Homeowners/renters insurance

• Life insurance

According to a study by insurance comparison site The Zebra, drivers with poor credit (below 580) pay about twice as much as drivers with exceptional credit (above 800). That’s the difference between paying annual insurance fees of $1,400 and $2,800. 

Rental application issues

A low credit score could make it harder to get approved for rental housing. Landlords use credit checks to assess whether you’ll make timely payments. A low credit score means they consider you at higher risk of making late payments or missing payments.

When your credit score is low, landlords might:

• Reject your application

• Ask you to pay a higher security deposit (i.e., two months instead of one)

• Landlords might ask for a cosigner

• You might be limited to landlords with poor reputation or low-quality housing

Utility deposits and cell phone plans

Utility companies (electricity, gas, water) and cell phone plans often check your credit score before providing service. If your score is low, your provider may ask you to make a deposit before it turns on your service. A deposit could be a few hundred dollar or more. 

Cosigners may be able to reduce a deposit or eliminate the need for one entirely. Also, some companies offer prepaid plans that don’t require a deposit. These plans require you to make your payments before you get service. 

The same down payment principle extends to rental deposits and cable/internet services. In general, any service that measures risk tends to offer worse terms for a low credit score, believing it makes you a riskier bet. You may have to jump through hoops for services you might usually take for granted.

Financial stress

A low credit score can lead to financial stress. It can even strain romantic relationships by making it more difficult to buy a car or a home, leading to difficult conversations about expectations. 

A low score can also lead to difficult conversations with friends and family about borrowing money, or asking for cosigners for leases. Borrowing or asking for cosigners means navigating social dynamics many of us find uncomfortable.

If you can’t raise your credit score quickly, such as by paying off a big chunk of debt, this stress could go on for some time. Debt collectors or service denials can make small stressors snowball into something that feels unmanageable. Financial stress can even lead to health issues that make everything harder.

Though a low score makes things heavy, there are many ways to ease your burden. In fact, there are established ways to deal with financial stress beyond just raising your credit score.

Credit Score Myths and Facts

Credit score myths make it harder to sort out your finances. Here are some of the biggest credit myths.

Myth: Checking your own credit hurts your score

When you check your credit score, you’re performing a soft credit inquiry. A soft inquiry has no impact on your credit score. Only hard inquiries impact your score. These are performed by credit card companies and other creditors during an application process, with your permission.

Myth: Closing old credit cards is always good

Closing old credit cards could damage your credit score. If you have a balance on other credit cards, closing one could increase your credit utilization. If your other credit accounts are newer, you could also lose points for your average account age. 

You may want to keep an old card around purely for the sake of preserving your score, especially if there is no cost to you. If there’s a fee, it may be worth taking credit score damage to close a card if doing so helps you save money.

Myth: You need to carry a balance to build credit

Carrying a balance does not raise your score. In fact, it can hurt your score if your balance is large. Credit utilization, how much of your available credit you use, makes up a big portion of your score. Your scores go down when utilization goes up.

Carrying a balance also costs you money in interest. Pay off monthly balances in full to build credit and avoid fees. If you’re struggling to lower your balance, you might want to look into debt relief. 

You can build credit without ever paying credit card interest on an unpaid balance. You build credit by using credit products and promptly paying them off.

Myth: All credit scores are the same

There are many types of credit scores. FICO and VantageScore are the two main types of credit credit scores, but there are many different versions (FICO 8, FICO 9, VantageScore 2.0, VantageScore 3.0, etc.). 

Scores also differ based on which credit bureau you look at (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion). Some lenders don’t report to all three bureaus. Different data can lead to your credit score being higher at one bureau than another.

Scores differ, but they generally move in the same direction. Improve your credit score with one bureau, and you should improve your score with all three. If not, there may be a credit report error to address.

Myth: Employers can see your credit score

Employers do not see your credit score. Employers can, with your permission, check out a limited version of your credit report, sometimes called an “employment credit report.”

What’s excluded from your employment credit report:

• Credit score

• Account numbers

• Date of birth

What’s included on your employment credit report:

• Payment history

• Outstanding debts

• Public records like bankruptcies

How employers can use reports is regulated by laws like the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Mostly, they’re used to see how you manage money, especially for positions that involve handling financials or sensitive information.

Ways to Improve Your Credit Score

The first rule when trying to improve your credit score is to always pay every bill on time. This has the single biggest positive impact on your credit score.

The second rule concerns your credit card balances. Basically, you want to have credit but not use it. Keep each balance below 10% of the card’s credit limit. This advice may come as a shock. And it may well take you a while to pay your balances down to that level. But it can be your quickest route to a higher score. 

In the past, FICO recommended keeping each credit card balance below 30% of your credit limit. VantageScore still recommends that. But FICO recently changed its tune. The company now recommends keeping it below 10%. 

Beyond the basics, you can improve your credit score by becoming an authorized user, taking out small loans, or using debt payment strategies.

Become an authorized user

You can become an authorized user on someone else’s credit card. This usually means their payment history appears on your credit report, potentially boosting your score. You get a card, but the original user is responsible for making payments.

Becoming an authorized user is one way to build a credit history from nothing—very useful when you have no credit score to speak of, or when you’re rebuilding damaged credit.

It’s a relatively easy way to build your score, but it requires trust. Only become an authorized user with someone you trust. If they make late payments, it could damage your score.

Take out a credit builder loan

You can take out a credit builder loan to establish a score. To do this, you take out a small loan (think $300 to $1,000), and the creditor locks the money in a CD or savings account. Once the loan is paid off, you receive the funds. Your lender reports the loan and payments to the credit bureaus. 

Open a secured credit card

You can open a secured credit card to establish a score. A secured card requires a cash deposit that usually becomes your new credit limit (you could make a bigger deposit to get a higher limit). You swipe the card like a normal credit card. After a period of successful use, you can usually upgrade to an unsecured card and get your deposit back.

Debt payoff strategies

A solid debt payoff strategy makes it easier to pay down debt. Paying it down lowers your debt utilization ratio—how much of your available credit you’re using—which should improve your credit score. 

Two popular debt payoff strategies are the debt snowball method and the debt avalanche method. The debt snowball is best for most people. It helps you stay motivated over long periods. The strategy is to pay down debts from smallest to largest, building momentum.

The debt avalanche is the second major debt payoff strategy. Unlike debt snowball, it doesn’t necessarily help you stay motivated, but it usually saves you more money. The debt snowball has you pay down debts from highest to lowest interest rate, reducing how much total interest you pay.

Check your credit report

Errors on your credit report can drop your score. One in four people find errors on their credit reports, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Challenge credit report errors to potentially improve your score.

Say you find that a credit card company incorrectly reported a late payment. First, contact the credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion) directly. Then reach out to the credit card company that reported incorrectly. Credit bureaus typically take a month or so to investigate.

Contact a professional if you need to

Sometimes, debts are too unwieldy to handle alone. Maybe the debt is too large to DIY. Maybe creditors are calling constantly, or your stress levels make it difficult to function. In such cases, you may benefit from contacting a professional. 

For debt you can’t afford to pay, you may want to contact a professional debt relief company. A debt relief company can usually help you settle a debt for less than you owe. 

Credit Monitoring Tools and Resources

You can check your credit reports without paying a dime at AnnualCreditReport.com. You can also use a credit-monitoring service to track changes made to your credit report. Credit monitoring services are usually free, but provide limited information.

Speaking of limited information—your credit report is much more detailed than your credit score. Your credit report is a detailed log of your financial history. It includes payment history, types of credit accounts, personal identifying information, and more.

Your credit score is a three-digit score derived from your credit report. It’s a simplified version of your report designed to quickly give lenders an idea of how likely you are to pay off debt. It’s like the “face” of your credit report. You don’t get your credit score when you check your credit report, but many banks and credit card companies offer free credit scores when you log into your account online. FICO and Experian offer free FICO Scores to anyone who creates an account and verifies their identity.

Checking your credit reports and scores is important to your financial wellness. Track changes to spot fraud quickly.

What to watch out for

Watch out for signs that indicate fraud or errors:

• Sudden score drops

• Unfamiliar accounts or inquiries

• Incorrect personal info

Keep an eye out to avoid losing money to fraudsters who want to steal your info or impersonate you. You don’t want them to open fake accounts and spend in your name. Credit-monitoring services can alert you to sudden changes that may indicate fraud.