How Often Does Your Credit Score Update?
11 Min Read | Last updated: June 16, 2025
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See when, why, and how often credit scores update. Learn how to track your credit score's progress for free and see how much your credit score may change.
At-A-Glance
- Credit scores may update at least once monthly.
- However, in some cases, your score could update more frequently.
- When the creditor reports the information can impact how often your credit score updates. Some accounts report to credit bureaus monthly.
How often does your credit score update? It’s an important question if you’re trying to get your credit into top shape, particularly if you’re shopping for a new car, applying for a mortgage, or undertaking any other transactions that may require a credit check.
More specifically, how long does it take for potentially credit-boosting activities, like paying down credit card balances, to appear in your credit report and lift your credit score? Conversely, how long could it take for a financial slip-up, like a missed payment or unusually high monthly credit card balance, to drag down your score?
In this article, we’ll take a look at how often credit scores may update. Read on to see things that could impact how frequently yours is updated.
How Does a Credit Score Work?
If you’re feeling confused, it may help to understand a little about how the credit scoring process works.
Lenders, credit card companies, and other creditors report information about your financial accounts to the three big credit reporting agencies, Equifax®, Experian®, and TransUnion®, once a month. The information includes key data points that can affect your credit score, such as whether you’re paying on time, your amount of debt, and your credit limit. As the bureaus receive the information, they incorporate it into your credit report and your credit score may update accordingly.
How to Check Your Credit Score
Checking your credit score is free and accessible with American Express® MyCredit Guide. Regularly checking your credit report is also another free way to monitor your credit health and get ahead of any potential fraud that could compromise your score.
How Often Does My Credit Score Update?
The answer to how often your credit score updates is, unfortunately, “it depends.” As a guideline, credit bureaus suggest allowing at least a month for financial activity to be reflected in your credit report, but it could happen much sooner as well. However, each bureau has relationships with different financial institutions, so some information may be reported to one bureau but not to another.
TransUnion says it can take a month to 45 days for activity to be reported to credit bureaus.1 Experian is equally cautious, reporting a period of 30-45 days before the payoff of an account balance is reflected in your credit report.2 As a result, each lender and creditor have their own reporting schedule, and some companies don’t report activity at all.
Still, in some cases, account information can reach the bureaus quickly. Credit card companies and lenders often report at around the same date that they create your monthly billing statements. Furthermore, even though monthly reporting is the standard, some lenders report more frequently, especially when there are substantial changes, such as an account payoff or closure. And because each creditor has a unique reporting schedule, the credit bureaus may receive streams of reports from various companies throughout the month.
In another scenario, when you apply for a credit card or a loan, the company that’s assessing your application sends a credit inquiry to one or more of the bureaus. In response to that inquiry, the credit bureaus feed the information in your credit report into a credit-scoring algorithm, which then generates a fresh credit score in real time.
What Is Rapid Rescoring?
Rapid rescoring is a tool used by some lenders to update a credit report with more recent information. This is often used in the lead-up to approval for a larger loan, such as a mortgage, in which certain credit score thresholds could help you to qualify for a loan or a lower interest rate. Only a lender or another financial institution can request a rapid rescore, which can involve a fee.
Keep in mind that it can’t erase any negative history, but it can ensure that recent positive activity is reflected in your current score ahead of the typical credit reporting cycle.
How Much Can Your Credit Score Change?
How much your credit score changes over time depends on where and how you started and the different credit-management challenges you may have faced. Your credit score can and should change over time, but drastic monthly score increases and decreases aren’t common, especially in the case of FICO Score 8.3 That said, there are some loose timelines for when credit score changes might kick in:4
- 6 or more years following bankruptcy
- 3 or more years following foreclosure on a home
- 1-1.5 years following missing credit card or other loan payments
- 1-3 months following late mortgage payments
- 3+ months for closing credit card accounts, maxing out a credit card, or applying for new cards
What Is a Good Credit Score?
A credit score is a tool that’s used by lenders to help assess an individual’s creditworthiness. Your credit history, which includes things like repayment history and amounts owed among other factors, is the basis for your credit score.
Credit scores may be classified into ranges that categorize the three-digit number on a scale. The most common scoring models typically use numbers from 300-850.5 The higher your number, the likelier you’ll be considered a low-risk borrower and be approved for loans and other lines of credit, but there’s no bulletproof number that guarantees acceptance.
FICO Score 8 Ranges fall into the following categories:
- Exceptional: 800 to 850
- Very good: 740 to 799
- Good: 670 to 739
- Fair: 580 to 669
- Poor: 300 to 579
Why Are There Different Types of Credit Scores?
There are multiple credit scoring models because there are multiple credit reporting bureaus, and each model computes its score based on the information found on your credit report but uses different weights for each aspect. One model may put the most emphasis on timely payment history; another could prioritize your credit mix, which refers to your different types of accounts and debts; or your utilization ratio.
In this manner, the same information about your credit history can lead to different scores depending on the model used.6 Even the same agency may consult one score versus another depending on the type of loan you’re seeking.7
Is Your Credit Score Always Changing?
Frequent updates to your credit score signal that it’s constantly being updated, and lenders generate reports at different times of the month to different agencies, so the credit bureaus may have different information at any given moment.8 Your score is calculated upon request from you or a financial institution, and it will represent whatever information is available at the time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Your credit score may change monthly or more, especially if you use multiple financial products.9 However, seeing month-to-month score updates may be more common.
Your score may not be updating if your institution isn’t reporting new information to credit bureaus.10 You may also not see any updates if you haven’t had any recent changes in your credit behavior or credit limit.
You may see that your credit score dropped after paying off debt because your credit mix diversity, one factor used to calculate your credit score, has decreased.11 For example, if you had a car loan, a credit card, and a mortgage, paying off the car loan would eliminate the only auto lending aspect of your credit mix, making it less varied.
The Takeaway
There’s no single answer to the question of how often a credit score is updated, largely because each lender has its own schedule for reporting information to credit bureaus. Some bureaus suggest allowing at least a month for payment activity to be reflected in your credit report, but it can happen faster in some cases.
1 “How Often Do Credit Scores and Reports Update?,” TransUnion
2 “How Can I Update the Balance On My Credit Card?,” Experian
3 “Do FICO® Scores change that much over time?,” myFICO
4 “How long does it take for your credit score to go up?,” Bankrate
5 “What Is a Good Credit Score?,” Experian
6 "Credit Scoring Models," Debt.org
7 "Why are there different types of credit scores?," Bankrate
8 "Why Did My Credit Score Change When I Didn’t Do Anything?," Experian
9 "Constantly checking your credit score? Here’s how often it updates," CNBC - select
10 "How Often Does Your Credit Score Update?," Equifax
11 "Why Your Credit Scores May Drop After Paying Off Debt," Equifax
Mike Faden has covered business and technology issues for more than 30 years as a writer, consultant, and analyst for media brands, market-research firms, startups and established corporations.
All Credit Intel content is written by freelance authors and commissioned and paid for by American Express.
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