 TITLE: How to Improve Your Credit Score in 30 Days or Less CONTENT: What Factors Affect Your Credit Score?\n--------------------------------------\nYour FICO® Score☉ is influenced by five factors in your relationship with your creditors. Understanding each one and how much they impact your score can help you prioritize your efforts to improve your credit history.\n*   **Payment history**: The most important element, your payment history makes up 35% of your FICO® Score. Paying on time every month is crucial to maintaining a positive payment history. If you miss just one payment by 30 days or more, it could drop your score significantly.\n*   **Amounts owed**: The total amount you owe is a factor in your credit score, but this component focuses more on your credit utilization ratio than anything else. Your utilization ratio is the percentage of your available credit on credit cards and other revolving accounts that you're using at a given time. The lower your balances compared with your credit limits, the better it is for your credit score. This factor also considers how close you are to paying off your loans. Amounts owed makes up 30% of your FICO® Score.\n*   **Length of credit history**: The FICO® Score model considers how long you've been using credit, as well as the average age of your credit accounts. Opening multiple credit accounts in a short period can significantly decrease the average age of your accounts, so it's best to apply for new credit only when you need it. This factor makes up 15% of your score.\n*   **Credit mix**: Having different types of credit on your credit reports shows a broader capability of managing your debts. For example, having a credit card, an auto loan, student loans and a mortgage can be better than just having credit cards. However, you should avoid applying for new credit simply to bolster your credit mix. Your credit mix makes up 10% of your FICO® Score.\n*   **New credit**: The last 10% of your FICO® Score is determined by new credit accounts. Virtually every time you apply for credit, the lender will check your credit based on one or more of your credit reports. When this occurs, the credit report will record what's called a hard inquiry, which may cause your credit score to dip slightly for a short time. However, if you apply for multiple credit accounts in a short period, it could have a negative compounding effect.\nWhen you check your credit report and score, determine how well you're handling each of these five factors and what you can do to make adjustments for the better. END