Finding out and knowing your credit score is important before you apply for any loan or credit. Unfortunately there are a lot of snake oil salesman out there that use a variety of little tricks to get you to pay for a “free credit score”. Below we’ve listed ways to get a free score, along with what score they actually offer. This page does not contain any offers that will result in you having to pay for your scores in any way what so ever.
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Free FICO Score
Read our full article describing each method in detail
FICO scores are the scores that lenders actually look at. In fact they are used in 90% of lending decisions in the United States. It used to be almost impossible to get access to one of these scores for free, but it’s now becoming increasingly common under the FICO open access program.
With Credit Cards
The following credit card issuers currently give their cardholders access to their TransUnion 2008 Classic FICO Score:
- Barclaycard
- Discover
- Walmart
- FNBO
- PSECU
- Merrick Bank
After You’ve Applied For Credit
You can also receive a free FICO score after you apply for credit. For example you’ll receive a free score when:
- You apply for a mortgage (you’ll receive your FICO score from all three credit bureaus)
- You’re denied for credit (e.g you’re denied for a credit card)*
- You don’t receive the best terms (e.g you receive an interest rate of 14.5% when the advertised interest rate is 12%)*
*You won’t necessarily receive your FICO score. You may actually receive a different credit score. Lenders are required to give you any credit score they used in the lending decision, along with the range of that credit score.
With Some Bank Accounts
Some credit unions provide their members with access to their FICO scores. Usually they require you to opt for paperless statements to receive the free score or have selective membership. The following unions offer a free FICO score:
- DCU
- Partners 1st
- Save & Invest (active military only)
- Unitius Community Credit Union
Free FAKO Scores
A FAKO score is simply any credit score that isn’t a FICO score. There are a lot of these different scores out there and when you see advertisements for free credit scores, they are almost always a FAKO score. These aren’t the same scores that lenders look at, but because they are based on the same data and use similar scoring algorithms they are usually fairly close (although this isn’t always the case. I’ve personally had score differences of over 80 points – which is massive when it comes to credit scores).
All three of the credit monitoring websites listed below are free and do not require a credit card to sign up. They make money by selling financial products to you that have been personalized based on your credit profile. Some of them (e.g credit sesame & quizzle) also make money by trying to upsell you and get you to purchase your credit report multiple times per year. Always keep in mind that you’re able to access your credit report for free once per year per credit bureau from the government supported site: annualcreditreport.com
Credit Karma
This is probably the most well known reputable site to get a free credit score from at the moment. You might’ve seen their advertisements recently or heard in the news that Google ventures recently gave them a large amount of money in their latest capital fundraising.
They provide you with a variety of different credit scores, including VantageScore V3 & TransUnion TransRisk Credit score. The upside of Credit Karma is that the VantageScore they provide you with is actually used by some lenders (but only in about 4% of lending decisions), the downside is that they use TransUnion data which is probably the least used credit bureau when it comes to doing hard pulls on credit reports.
They’ve also recently been in the news for their lax security on their mobile app.
Credit Sesame
Similar to Credit Karma, but instead of using TransUnion they use Experian. This company provides consumers with access to their “Experian National Equivalency Score” which isn’t used by lenders. On the bright side, Experian is more used than TransUnion.
Quizzle
Incredibly similar to both of the other credit monitoring sites listed above. It offers it’s members access to version 3 of their Equifax VantageScore. Equifax is arguably the most used credit score and lenders do use VantageScore somewhat for their lending decisions.
What’s your favorite way of getting your credit score for free? Let us know in the comments below.
I get my credit score at Credit Karma. I’m not sure how accurate it is, but it’s close enough for me.