Credit Trends

Trends by Age

Based on our data, there is clearly a relationship between age and average credit scores. Generally speaking, younger individuals will have lower credits scores on average.

There is a very good technical reason for this phenomenon. The length of your credit history is a factor that goes into the credit score calculation. Since younger individuals will have shorter credit history, they will tend to have a lower credit score all else equal.

The depth of your credit is probably lower with younger individuals as well. The combination of the two effects lead to the lower averages for younger people.

Keep in mind the chart does not mean you can't have high credit if you are young. It just points out the correlations and averages. There are dozens of factors that affect credit scores. Being aware of all the factors is important to being a well informed consumer.

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Interesting that people who use Gmail as their Email provider have the highest credit scores while people who use Yahoo as their Email provider have the lowest scores. Won't be long before credit providers will be using this as another determining factor to grant credit especially if they ask for your Email address.

teetotaler 1 year ago

This site is the best I've come across. The tools and calculators are easy to use and access to analysis is also easy. I found it by chance and will definitely pass it along to friends and family.

sdarago 1 year ago

Save your money. Don't spend money you don't have. The 'system' tries to make it appear as 'normal' to borrow. It will enslave you. Being debt free makes you a clearer thinking, straighter acting person. Debt creates fear and dependency. Good for the 'system', bad for you and your family.

akim 1 year ago

I, too was surprised by my score of 765. I'm 57, have had numerous mortgages during my life and never missed or been late on a payment. My credit cards have always been paid on time and well over the minimum due. I have, however, paid off cards and closed the accounts and I'm told that can negatively affect your credit score. One of my credit reports shows (erroneously), late payments but when you look through the report, there isn't a single late payment recorded. I don't know how I get this corrected but it is contributing to the lower score, I'm sure.

isolde 1 year ago

Last year my score was 990. This year it's 768. I do and have always paid off my credit cards in full every month and only years ago remotely approached my credit card limit. I have over sixty years of credit history and for the past several years have not cancelled, nor applied for, new cards. What's the problem?

webwin 1 year ago

The only popular credit score with a range as high as 990 is the Vantage Score. Even then, this would suggest you had a perfect Vantage Score so it is difficult to determine. Because there are different scores, we suggest you use one consistent score to tract your score over time. This way you don't have to worry about all the scores since they tend to be all highly correlated.

CK Moderator

This is a great site, I found Credit Karma as a link on Prosper.com. Normally I do not click on links, however, I trust Prosper.com to be associated with quality vendors.

tampapc 1 year ago

Note to Isolde (1/4/09) - My history reads similar to you. I'm 64, had 7 mortgages and numerous cards, etc. NEVER a late pay, or anything else negative in over 40 years of history. My current mortgage is down to about $10,000. NO OTHER DEBT (except monthly credit card charges that get paid off every month on time!)Annual income $75,000.And I'm at 755... 10 points below you! And there are 20 yr olds with scores in the 750-800 range??? Lesson: This scoring is arbitrary and absurd! Any comments, moderator?????

charlie4721 1 year ago

The credit scoring system is complicated but definitely not arbitrary. There are trillions of dollars of loans based on credit scores. Age is not the only factor in a credit score. In fact, age itself cannot be used in credit scoring by law since it would be discriminatory. Rather what you are seeing in the age chart are the correlated variables with age. For example, older people have longer credit histories, are generally more responsible, know the importance of good credit, etc.

When it comes to younger people with good credit scores, you have to remember that they are 200+ factors that go into a credit score. Credit history are some of the factors but you can't just base it on metric. At 22, you could have a mortgage, an auto loan, several credit cards all in good standing and all of these would be a positive factor for a credit score. Hope this helps.

CK Moderator

This is a fantastic site and an educative one. I do hope that more people learn about the existence of this site. Keep up the good work and reputation. Thanks

hampapur 1 year ago

You have a great site! The tools are very useful in determining one's credit criteria. An excellent way to learn about credit scores and how various factors influence them. Thanks!

jmjr 1 year ago

My Transunion score is 719 (10 days ago) and on this site score shows as 756.

Why is the score on this site a lot higher than the actual transunion score?

gokcer 1 year ago

From which site did you get your TransUnion score? Other sites may use a different TransUnion score. Our score is the same as TrueCredit which is owned by TransUnion. Hope that helps

CK Moderator