 TITLE: What Is a Divorce Decree? CONTENT: Does Divorce Affect Your Credit Report or Credit Scores?\n--------------------------------------------------------\nYour marital status, including whether you've gone through a divorce, isn't noted on your credit reports. As such, going through the divorce process has no direct impact on your credit scores or your credit reports. The impact of a divorce is, instead, indirect and can only be caused by missed payments on joint liabilities and debt.\nThe indirect impact of a divorce will vary from person to person. For some, divorce is immaterial to their credit. For others, a divorce can be very destructive.\nRemember, joint accounts will still appear on your credit reports even if the court assigns payment responsibility to your ex-spouse. The only way to have those debts exhausted would be to either pay off the debt or to refinance the loan into only one spouse's name. That would effectively pay off the joint debt or create a new debt, but only in one spouse's name. This won't cause the former account to be removed from your credit reports, but it will cause a zeroing out of the balance and an end to any activity.\nTo the extent a divorce leaves you unemployed and without sufficient income, that can certainly cause you to lean more heavily on credit cards to make ends meet. This can lead to a higher balance relative to your credit limits, which can lower your credit scores. And you may start missing payments on your own accounts, which will eventually lead to potentially score damaging late payments. END