How to Raise Your Credit Score

Improving your credit can seem complicated if you haven't had the proper training. However, I have had the pleasure of working in finances for the past few years, so let me offer my advice. 

#1) Payment history (how long and how well you have paid on your obligations) and your capacity (how much revolving credit you have) make up 2/3 of your score. Payment history is worth 35% and capacity 30%. Keep those in mind when trying to improve your score.

#2) Time is your friend! Especially if you have any bad credit history. The older your trade line, the better! Try to avoid getting rid of any long time revolving lines of credit or credit cards. 

#3) Contrary to popular belief and the first response, you DO NOT have to carry a balance on your card. Not a single buck. It is far better you never carry a balance and I'll explain why in the next point. 

#4) Capacity can help and hurt you. You can greatly improve your credit score by increasing your capacity, but if you abuse it, it will come back to bite you. For every percent of your capacity (or the total balance of your revolving unsecured credit) that you utilize, you lose about 1 point. For example, lets say you have a credit card with a $1,000 balance. It is your only revolving line of credit. If you are currently utilizing $900 of it, that's 90% and you are losing out on 90 points! 

So, like I said, focus on two things to improve your score: Payment History and Capacity. They make up two thirds of your score and are very important! 

I saw all the answers here are very informative and useful. So you definitely will get all the tips.

As a new to the united state and never been experienced debit or credit in my life before, i built 

my score from 300 to 750 within half and an year. I started with 300 capital one card because none

of other credit company believe me because of my less credit history but

now every company offer me starting with 2k to 3k. 

** There is one tip that I wanna give you from my experience

is If you're online person, pay ahead at least 4 days. What I mean is nowadays no one go to bank to pay 

credit debt , (except a few) So we all pay our debt from our mobile app. But some people forgot that

if you pay electrically it took at least 2 to 4 business days unlike paying at outside. For example, if your

due date is end of the month 28th on Friday, so you pay them on Friday. So you think , you paid off but actually your bank

report to credit Bureau that you didn't pay. The reason is your money didn't arrive to your bank until

Monday or Tuesday because Sat and Sunday aren't business day. So, the best thing is pay off your minimum 

due in the middle of the month.  So that way you won't get late payment fees. And if you want to pay off left

over debt, pay them 4 days before your monthly payment due date.  

This is how I handle my payment.

-My car loan due date is 27th of every month. So I set up auto payment 21st of every month.

- I pay my car insurance every 6 months but if I couldn't, i set up auto payment 5 days ahead/

-About my credit cards, I had 4 accounts and I checked them 10th of the month and if I have minimum 

due , i pay them right away. Minimum due is around 25$ to 35$ , so it won't be difficult to pay off.

and around 22nd I checked all accounts again and I paid the amount fully or sometimes if I couldn't

I will leave some amounts there. But having debt in the credit isn't a problem as long as you paid

off minimum due and paying some debt before they reported to credit bureau each month.

Hello  as a past Trans Union Analyst for 8 years, I would advise you to mix up your creditors to increase your score overtime. For example if you can apply for a small loan through a company like OPPLOANS. Fingerhut or a local finance company with minimum requirements that report every month to TU and EXPERIAN with minimum criteria  (Job) and not 100% credit driven. Collateral loans are great too but not everyone wants to give up a title to their paidoff car or house. Purchasing a new car is also a good way to boost your score.  Very important fact only utilize 30-50% of your credit card use each month. Just a few tips. Good luck.