What's on a credit report

Your credit score gets all the attention. But the score is just a number calculated from your credit report. If you want to understand your credit, start with the report. That's where the facts live.

A credit report is a record of how you've handled credit. Lenders, card companies and collection agencies send information to the credit bureaus, and the bureaus put it together into your report. Most reports have five parts:

• Personal information. Your name and any variations of it, current and past addresses, part of your Social Security number, your date of birth, and sometimes employers.
• Accounts (also called tradelines). Credit cards, car loans, student loans, mortgages and other credit. Each one shows who the creditor is, when it was opened, the limit or loan amount, the balance, the monthly payment history and the current status.
• Collections. Debts that were sent or sold to a collection agency.
• Public records. Today, on the three main bureaus' reports, this is mostly bankruptcies.
• Inquiries. A list of who has looked at your report. Hard inquiries happen when you apply for credit. Soft inquiries, like checking your own report, don't affect your score.

What's not on your report: your score, your income, your bank account balances, your race, your religion or your marital status.

• Credit bureau: a company that collects credit information and sells reports. The three nationwide bureaus are Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.
• Furnisher: the company that sends information about you to the bureaus, like your card issuer or a collection agency.
• Tradeline: one account on your report.
• Status: where an account stands right now, for example current, late, closed, charged off or in collections.

Maria pulls her report and finds a store card she opened in 2019. It shows a $1,500 limit, a $300 balance, "Pays as agreed," and one 30-day late payment from March of last year. Below that, she finds a collection account from a company she's never heard of, for $412. Two lines on one report, and she already knows exactly what she wants to learn more about. (Maria is a made-up example.)

• Names, addresses or accounts you don't recognize. Those can be simple mix-ups, or a sign someone used your information.
• Balances and limits that look wrong or out of date.
• Late payments you believe you paid on time.
• The same debt showing up more than once.
• Hard inquiries for applications you didn't make.

Each bureau keeps its own report, so the three can be different. Check all three.

Pull one free report at AnnualCreditReport.com. Find each of the five sections. Then grab a highlighter (or a notes app) and mark anything you don't recognize or don't understand. That list is your starting point.

Educational information only. Not legal, financial, investment or tax advice. Results vary, and no one can guarantee credit outcomes.