How Much Does Your Credit Score Go Up for Each Negative Item Removed?

Calculating your credit score takes more than just adding and subtracting numbers for each item in your credit report. The effect of negative items can vary with your overall situation, and so can the effect of removing them. If you rebuild your credit after bankruptcy, for instance, the damage may be gone long before the credit bureaus erase the bankruptcy from their files.

Credit Scoring

Your credit score is based on several elements: Your payment history is most important, but credit bureaus also look at how much you owe, how long your history is, how much new credit you have and what kinds of accounts you use. The damage done by negative information depends on multiple factors. Take payment history, which counts 35 percent of your FICO score: The point loss from a late payment depends on how late it was, how much money is involved, how long ago it happened and how many other defaults you have.

Fixes

The effect of eliminating negative items is also variable. Although bankruptcy will stay on your report for 10 years, you can start repairing the score damage -- possibly 100 points or more -- almost immediately by making timely payments, taking out a low-limit credit card and using it responsibly and keeping your total debts down. When the bankruptcy finally disappears from your report, you may already have made up the damage. In that case, deleting the bankruptcy won't affect your score much.

Considerations

It's impossible to set a definite figure for removing a negative item, the Experian credit bureau states, because the different elements interact. A bankruptcy will take a heavy toll, for instance, but it can wipe out dozens of delinquent debts. Over time, the damage from being consistently delinquent on multiple accounts might be far worse for your score. A five-year-old late payment is a minor blip if the rest of your history is good; if you just got your first credit card, a recent late payment will be much more serious.

Tracking Your Credit

One thing that will boost your score is purging inaccurate negative information from your report. You can use the Annual Credit Report website to obtain one annual free report from each of the major bureaus, Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. If you find errors, you have the right to contact the bureaus and challenge the information. Whatever effect the false negative has on your score should disappear once the item goes.