Some Steps to Raising Your Credit Score in 30 Days

You should not plan to have great credit within a month if you have a poor credit history, but you might be able to see a significant change. Some factors in the FICO scoring formula, such as your length of credit history and payment history, take years to build, but you can deal with some factors immediately. Raising a score quickly is easiest when you have errors or outstanding debt as your main problem.

Dispute Errors

Removing erroneous mistakes on your credit report often is the easiest way to raise your credit score, because negative items far outweigh most positive data. The credit bureaus must provide one free credit report each year, and they all have online forms for the dispute process. Gather as much evidence as possible that supports your dispute before initiating it. Even errors that seem obvious may take months to prove, because the dispute process is mostly automated and the credit agencies try to avoid investigations by an employee.

Wipe Out Debt

Get as much debt as possible off of your credit report. Revolving account balances, such as those on credit cards, are the most offensive in credit scoring. Maxing out credit cards is a huge drag. Your score could see a 10 to 45 point boost by bringing the percent of your credit limit you use to less than 30 percent and hopefully 0. You could ask the lender to raise the limit on your card if you cannot pay down a significant portion of the balance.

Adding a New Account

Adding a new account to your credit profile could boost your score if you lack a revolving or installment account, because a mix of credit counts for 10 percent. This could backfire in some cases. The application for credit dings your score zero to five points and lowers the average age of your accounts. If the new account is an installment, the added debt burden probably knocks down your score for a few months.

Tip

Ironically, paying a collection account does little to help your score, except it takes outstanding debt off of your credit profile. If you decide to settle an account, at the very least get the creditor to state in writing that the account will be marked "paid as agreed," because a settled account does further damage. You can ask for the debt collector to delete the account, but do not expect this at all, especially when you make a partial payment.