How To Get Your Free FICO Credit Score Online
It’s easy to obtain a free credit report ever since the Fair Credit Reporting Act legislation enabled you to obtain one free copy of your credit report every 12 months from each of the three major reporting agencies. However, getting your hands on your credit score for free wasn’t so easy — at least until now.
Credit Karma Free Credit Score
I first heard about getting a free credit score online from Credit Karma via Lazy Man And Money. However, I wasn’t impressed when I first tried it because Credit Karma didn’t use the standard FICO credit score. Fortunately, Credit Karma listened to their users feedback. Right now, the Credit Karma score is on the 300-850 scale based on TransUnion credit score.
When I last checked my credit score was 785. Here’s a screen shot of credit score.
Credit Compare
In addition to free credit score, Credit Karma also gives you some comparison information. For example, I learned that I am among 15.9% of the population that has FICO credit score between 750 and 799.
My score is in the 91% percentile of the U.S. population.
And having a score of 785 is considered to be very good.
This new free credit score web site is a great addition to your personal finance management toolkit. And monitoring your credit score and credit reports from all three agencies (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) on a regular basis is a good way to give you an edge against identity theft. If you don’t know your credit score, check out Credit Karma.
Other Ways To Get Your Credit Score
Since Credit Karma only offers score from TransUnion and each agency score you slightly different, you may want to consider a fee-based service that also offers free credit score when you sign up for a free trial.
Equifax is currently offering a 30-day free trial for the Equifax Credit Watch Gold™ with 3-in-1 monitoring and free FICO® Score, where you can get your free 3-bureau credit report and FICO® score. After the 30-day free trial, you’ll be charged a monthly payment of $14.95 if you do not cancel your membership.
MyFICO lets you access 2 Free Equifax FICO® scores and credit reports when you sign up for a free trial membership in Score Watch®. After the 30-day free trial, you’ll be charged an annual payment of $89.95 if you do not cancel your membership.
Add Another Layer Of Protection
ID Watchdog is currently offering 30 day free trial. Registering will give you access to a free Identity Report. The service provides identity monitoring and reporting each month. Should your identity be compromised, ID Watchdog provide full resolution services, included the membership fee. If you do not cancel your membership within 30 days of initial registration, your card will be charged $19.95 per month.
This article was originally published on September 9, 2008 and updated on May 22, 2009.
This article was featured in the Carnival of Financial Learning #16 – Ike Addition.
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FICO Score, personal finance management, free fico score, fico credit score, Identity Theft, equifax credit watch gold, Credit Karma, Credit ScoreRecommended articles
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I’m thrilled with where I am now, considering 15 years ago my credit was a MESS due to late payments (sometimes as late as 120 days) and financial troubles that included almost getting my car repo’d.
My credit score is 762, which ranks in the middle of “good” and “very good” and I am in the 83% percentile of the national distribution.
WOO HOOO!!!
This is a great service…I just checked my score and it’s 761. Is that good for a 23-year old? I like to think it’s pretty good.
Congrats to Jaynee for the 762 and to the author for the 785!
Do you think that checking this service frequently (once a week or so) will have a negative effect on a credit score? I’ve heard that too many inquiries by other companies can be bad…
@Jaynee — That’s a good turnaround story and a great score. Congratulation.
@Ryan — That’s a great score for your age. I believe it’s a soft pull so it will not affect your score. There’s no need to check your score that often though. Once a month is more than enough.
Pinyo – No offense to you and your readers, but nobody impresses me with their credit score. Anyone living paycheck to paycheck with no assets but lots of headroom on their credit cards can still have a high FICO score. Show me the Net Worth Karma then we will talk.
By the way, monitoring your credit score has little to do with identity theft. That information is in your credit report.
I totally agree Mr. TML!
“Woo Hoo! My “I LOVE DEBT” score is really high, look at me.”
This drives me crazy!
Pinyo, I really enjoy reading your blog, but this one really disappointed me. Especially the comment about your credit score and identity theft.
@ToughMoneyLove — No offense taken. I understand that FICO is not an indication of wealth, financial superiority, etc. It’s an indication of credit worthiness (and even that’s a rough measure — i.e., you could have someone with bad credit score that would not default on the loan, but a person with a good credit that would).
Yes, credit score will not prevent identity theft — it’s not 100% preventable — but it could be used as a monitoring tool. If you see a spike (or a dip) and you haven’t done anything to cause it, it could be an indication that you should go an check your credit report to see if something is up.
@LRG — I am not sure why you’re disappointed.
Per my response to TML, credit score could be used in conjunction with your credit report. Knowing your credit score cannot prevent identity theft, but it allows you to monitor for any suspicious activity — i.e., “oh, there’s a big dip in my score, let me go check my credit report, and possibly take corrective actions.”
And as I mentioned to TML, FICO is just a measure (and it’s far from perfect). It’s a tool in your financial management portfolio, and it isn’t a reflection on who you are as a human being. However, it is widely used to judge your level of financial responsibility (whether that’s good or bad, it’s a subject for another discussion).
A tool for financial management?
I don’t get it. Maybe it’s just me and my personal choices and strategies, but if I execute my current plans for financial management, then my FICO score is going to go DOWN. So how is that a tool?
Disappointed…well it’s just going from a great, educational article on asset allocation to one about how high your FICO score is just disappoints me. Won’t discourage my reading of your blog, just wanted wanted to share my feelings.
@LRG — If your financial strategy is sound, there is nothing wrong with having your FICO score go down. It a misconception that having highest possible FICO is a good thing.
As for being a tool, yes I consider the ability to check your credit score a good tool. I guess you can compare it to a thermometer. Knowing the temperature is a nice thing to be able to do — but hotter and colder don’t always correlate to better or worse.
PS: Thank you for the compliment on the asset allocation article. I spent almost a week writing that one.
I didn’t use the free tools, but my credit score was 801 when we applied for our mortgage.
I personally don’t use my credit score as a financial management tool, because I’m too lazy. But knowing your credit score is really useful when shopping around for something like a mortgage. If you know your score, different mortgage companies can give you a general idea of what you qualify for without pulling your score, possibly lowering it.
I don’t see the problem with knowing your credit score, or having a high credit score. If you are in good financial shape, but not a debt-free wannabe, then you should be looking for a high FICO score, and a decline would be a problem.
If on the other hand you have resolved never to use debt again, then your FICO score is not important and may well drop as you get closer to debt free.
Pinyo,
I like the thermometer analogy. Maybe I can use this free “tool” to see what direction my score is actually going, i.e. it should go up before is starts to go down.
from your prior comment:
“It a misconception that having highest possible FICO is a good thing.”
Maybe I was looking for this statement somewhere in the article, instead of just giving the allusion that higher is better.
At any rate, keep up the good work!
747 – I don’t use credit much.
I heard that the more you check your credit score the more it decreases? Is that true?
@Lynnae — That’s great. 801 should give you the best mortgage rate available.
@Plonkee — Good point –> “If on the other hand you have resolved never to use debt again, then your FICO score is not important and may well drop as you get closer to debt free.”
@LRG — I’m glad that clear things up
@Jackie — This is from Credit Karma FAQ:
Will using Credit Karma lower my credit score?
No. Credit Karma is making the credit score request on your behalf. Inquires made on your behalf will not be shown to creditors and will not affect your credit score.
Also, Cash Money Life has a good article on hard pull versus soft pull credit inquiry — soft pull doesn’t affect your score.
Thanks Pinyo!
So I hesitated for awhile and waited to see what users’ reactions would be to CreditKarma, and it seems like it’s largely positive for the most part. I went ahead and signed up today and the process was really simple. At 20, I was actually afraid to see my score (I’ve never seen it before) but it turned out to be around what I thought it would be (730).
Well thanks for the review again!
@EN – You’re welcome. That’s a good score for a 20 years old. Just remember that it’s just a tool and sometimes the right financial decision will cause it to go down — absolutely nothing is wrong with that.
Pinyo,
Thanks for the heads up on this service.
-1MansMoney
@1MansMoney – You’re welcome.
So how much information do you have to give them? I hate signup processes where you have to give them a bunch of personal information but they don’t tell you how much you’ll have to give them until you’ve completed most of the process. On this site you have to go through two steps before they tell you how much info they want. I’d like to know what I have to give them BEFORE I go through the first two steps.
This is a Great article with great advice. If you have errors or problems on your credit report, make sure you get them fixed to help your credit score. Always know what is on your credit report and how you can improve your score.
This is a huge help for those of us who do not know where to start when it comes to improving our credit score. I want to purchase a home on the distant horizon, so I was thinking I should start doing stuff now to boost my score.
@Terry — I don’t recall at this point, but I don’t remember it being long or objectionable when I did it.
@Karel — Thank you. Just remember that Credit Karma only gives you the score. You’ll need AnnualCreditReport.com for your report.
I’m glad that you mentioned that Credit Karma wasn’t an official FICO score. Still anything that is free and lets you track your credit performance over time is extremely valuable. And thanks for the mention.
Woah! This showed up in my reader and I thought it was new article but then I saw a comment I made months ago. lol.
Anyways, 8 months later, I still use Credit Karma to check my score but not very often (maybe once a couple of months). In that span, I turned 21 and my score went from 730 to 765. I guess those on time, full monthly payments have continued to help.
@EN – Thank you for stopping by. When I don’t have an article written for the day, I occasionally update an older article to make sure it’s current, add new info, and republish them.
you have an excellent “I love debt” score
Any idea how does someone get their “official” credit score–the one mortgage companies actually use to determine your interest rate, etc.? What is the cheapest (one-time) way to get this without having to sign up for a monthly program?
@Tim — there is no “official” credit score per se. It really depends on what your lender uses. The score will come from either Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion. Using my credit score comparison chart, you can get Experian score free from Quizzle.com and TransUnion score from CreditKarma. To get FICO score from Equifax, you’ll have to pay.