 TITLE: How Can You Reduce Your Debt-to-Income Ratio? CONTENT: Does DTI Affect Your Credit?\n----------------------------\nDTI does not affect your credit report or score. That's because income information does not appear on your credit report, so credit reporting agencies can't calculate DTI. DTI also doesn't reflect your credit status: You can have an excellent credit score and a clean credit report and still have a high debt-to-income ratio. In fact, many people do.\nThere is an indirect relationship between DTI and credit utilization. Credit utilization is the percentage of available credit you're using by carrying credit card balances. Higher credit utilization generally lowers your credit score; it's an indicator that you have a lot of debt relative to your debt capacity. If you pay off credit cards to lower your credit utilization and raise your credit score, you will also reduce your monthly debt payments and improve your DTI. END