Special Notes:
A score takes into consideration all these categories of information, not just one or two. The importance of any factor depends on the overall information in your credit report. For some people, a given factor may be more important than for someone else with a different credit history. In addition, as the information in your credit report changes, so does the importance of any factor in determining your score. Therefore, it's impossible to say exactly how important any single factor is in determining your score - even the levels of importance shown here are for the general population, and will be different for different credit profiles. What's important is the mix of information, which varies from person to person, and for any one person over time.
Lenders look at many things when making a credit decision including your income, how long you have worked at your present job and the kind of credit you are requesting.
Late payments will lower your score, but establishing or re-establishing a good track record of making payments on time will raise your score.

Payment History

• Payment information (credit cards, installment loans, finance company accounts, etc.)
  
• Negative public records (bankruptcy, judgments, suits, liens, collection items, and/or delinquency and past due items)
  
• Past due Amounts of delinquent accounts or collection items
  
• Time since past due items (delinquency), or collection items (if any)
  
• Number of past due items on file
  
• Number of accounts paid as agreed
  

Amounts owed

• Amount owing on all accounts
  
• Number of accounts with outstanding balances
  
• Proportion of credit lines used (proportion of balances to total credit limits on certain types of revolving accounts)
  
• Proportion of installment loan amounts still owing (proportion of balance to original loan amount on certain types of installment loans)
  

Length of Credit History

• Amount owing on all accounts
  
• Time since accounts opened, by specific type of account
  
• Time since account activity
  

New Credit

• Number of recently opened accounts, by type of account
  
• Number of recent credit inquiries
  
• Time since recent account opening's, by type of account
  

Types of Credit Used

• Number of various types of accounts (credit cards, retail accounts, installment loans, mortgage, consumer finance accounts, etc.)