What is a credit score in the UK?
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In short: There is no single official UK credit score. Three main credit reference agencies — Experian, Equifax and TransUnion — each hold your credit file and produce their own scoring scale. Lenders see your file and apply their own criteria; they do not rely on the app's number alone.
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Reviewed by Kaiser Khan
Your credit file is a record of borrowing and bill payment: credit cards, loans, mortgages, mobile contracts, some utilities and electoral roll registration. Credit reference agencies compile this data and sell it to lenders when you apply for credit. Each agency uses a different score range — for example, Experian scores up to 999, Equifax up to 1,000, TransUnion up to 710.
The score you see in free apps is a guide to how a typical product on that agency might view you. A mortgage lender may ignore the headline score and focus on payment history, recent searches, utilisation, county court judgments and whether you are on the electoral roll at your current address.
Improve your file by registering to vote, paying bills on time, keeping credit utilisation low, avoiding multiple applications in quick succession, and correcting errors through the agency's dispute process. Closing old accounts can sometimes shorten your credit history and hurt scores — keep long-standing accounts open if they have no fee.
Checking your own file is a soft search and does not damage your score. You have a legal right to a statutory £2 report (now often free online) from each agency. Before a major application such as a mortgage, review all three files — an error on one may not appear on another.
Primary source: moneyhelper.org.uk/en/everyday-money/credit/credit-cards
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