 TITLE: How Does Length of Credit History Affect Your Credit? CONTENT: What Other Factors Affect Your Credit Scores?\n---------------------------------------------\nYour credit scores are determined by complex scoring algorithms that analyze many aspects of your credit reports. The most important factors are typically your payment history and your credit usage.\n*   **Payment history** includes whether you've made on-time payments, missed payments, had accounts sent to collections or filed for bankruptcy. Having a long history of on-time payments is best for your scores.\n*   **Credit usage** includes the number of accounts you have with balances and how much debt you still have to repay on loans. But it primarily depends on your credit utilization ratio—how much of your available credit you're using on revolving accounts, mainly credit cards. Using only a small portion of your available credit is best for your credit scores.\nThere are also other minor scoring factors, such as whether you have recent hard inquiries from applying for new credit accounts or whether you maintain a mix of credit accounts.\nIf you want a good credit score, focus on the most important categories while being mindful of the less important ones. In general, try to:\n*   Have a few open accounts that are reported to the credit bureaus.\n*   Make all your monthly payments on time.\n*   Only use a small portion of your revolving accounts' credit limits.\n*   Don't apply for or open too many new accounts.\nOver time, all of these actions can work together to help you earn an excellent credit score. END