What Bills Help Build Credit?

You pay your bills on time every single month, that should help your credit right? Not necessarily. 

Only bills that appear on your credit report can help you build good credit. This usually includes payments for loans and credit cards, while other types of bills, like rent payments, aren’t normally a part of your credit history. 

For bills that aren’t reported, you can subscribe to services that will report them to the credit bureaus for you, which can boost your credit score. 

There are also other steps you can take towards achieving a good credit score. 

What Bills Help Build Credit?

Bills issued by a lender will have the biggest impact on your credit (student loans, auto loans, etc.).

This type of bill will have an impact on several aspects of your credit, which include payment history, amounts owed, length of credit history, and more.

Other types of bills, like utility bills, phone bills, etc. do not often have an impact on your credit. This is because many of these bills are only reported to the credit bureaus on a voluntary basis. 

This means that in order to have an impact on your credit, either the provider or creditor has to send your payment information to the credit bureaus, or you have to pay a 3rd party service to send the information to the credit bureaus. 

Bills That Are Usually Reported

The bills that are most often reported to the credit bureaus are those issued by a bank or other type of lender. This includes: 

• Auto loans
• Student loans
• Mortgages
• Credit card payments
• Personal loans (i.e. debt consolidation, installment loans for large purchases, etc.)

Banks and other large companies need to use credit reports to determine if an individual is creditworthy or not. Because they are so dependent on credit reports, they already have an incentive to report your payment activity to the credit bureaus. 

Banks and other large companies also have an easier time meeting the stringent reporting standards that the credit bureaus enforce. 

Along with your payment information, the lender will report other account details. Which include when you opened the account, when you closed the account, what the current balance is, and what your credit limit is or what the original loan value was. 

All of these reported details will have an impact on your credit score. Debit cards don’t usually build credit, but you can check out details on this special debit card that does just that: Debit Cards That Build Credit, Extra Debit Card Review, and Does a Debit Card Build Credit?.

Bills That Are Usually Not Reported

The majority of the bills you pay each month are unfortunately not reported to the credit bureaus. The most common types of bill payments that are not reported include: 

• Cable 
• Utility (electric, gas, etc.)
• Phone 
• Rent 
• Medical 
• Insurance premiums
• Internet 

These companies don’t report the payments because they’re not lenders. Historically, only lenders report payments to the credit bureas.

With all of these types of bills, the provider may pull your credit report when you are setting up your account, which means you could see a hard or soft inquiry on your credit, but that will likely be the last time they appear on your credit report. 

The exception is if you stop paying a bill altogether. In this situation, they may send you to collections, which will definitely appear on your credit report.

Services to Report Your Bills to the Credit Bureaus

You can build credit through non-loan-type bill payments if you (or your provider) use a 3rd party reporting service. 

These services often work with you as well as your provider or landlord to get your positive payment history reported. 

StellarFi

StellarFi is a great new service that will report all of your recurring payments as one bill.

It connects to your bank account allows you to link the bills that you want to pay through it. This includes any recurring bill: rent, utilities, cell phone, streaming services, whatever. 

Then it reports your payments to the credit bureaus. Here are three things that I really like about StellarFi:

1. It reports as a revolving credit account (similar to a credit card)
2. It automatically regulates your credit utilization, so that it reports low (<10% – this is huge!)
3. There are no upfront fees, deposits or interest charges. 

It’s only $5 per month. You can cancel at any time.

All of these things make StellarFi one of the hottest credit-building tools on the market. 

If you’re looking to use your bills to build credit, start with StellarFi.

Try StellarFi

 

BoomPay

One of the most common types of credit-building services is rent reporting services. These companies work with renters and landlords to get your payment history and ongoing payments reported to the credit bureaus. 

BoomPay is Digital Honey’s best pick for rent reporting services. There are other providers as well.

BoomPay stands head and shoulders above it competitors for three reasons:

1. It is the only rent reporting service that reports to all three major credit bureaus.
2. It does not require landlord verification. 
3. It’s the cheapest service on the market, starting at just $3/month.

All you have to do is show BoomPay a copy of your lease agreement and connect your bank account to their app. They’ll automatically report your rent payments from there.

Try BoomPay

 

Grow Credit

Like StellarFi, Grow Credit helps you report your bills to build credit. But they do it a little differently.

Grow Credit approves you for a virtual credit card that can only be used to pay for certain pre-approved bills. These include streaming services, internet, and cell phone service providers. It does not include rent or utility bills.

They have a free plan that comes with a small deposit. Their paid plans start at just $3.99 per month.

Try Grow Credit

 

Experian BOOST™

Experian BOOST^™ links directly to your bank account to find recurring payments for utility bills, phone bills, and even streaming services. They then add this information to your Experian credit report. 

Experian’s service won’t give you as much of a credit score boost as the other two services here, but it has two things going for it. It’s 100% free, and it’s quick.

Just like StellarFi and BoomPay, you must connect your bank account to their system. Once you do, it will ask you the bills that you want to report. 

Doing so will give your Experian-based FICO scores an immediate boost! On average, Experian BOOST^™ users see a 13-point score increase. 

The whole process takes about 5 minutes, and it’s easy to do.

Try Experian

 

Can Late Bill Payments Affect My Credit Score?

A late payment can negatively damage your score. But this only applies to bills that get reported to the credit bureaus. 

For credit purposes, a payment is considered late once it is 30 days overdue. A bill that is only a few days overdue, if paid promptly, will not be reported to the credit bureaus as a late payment and therefore will not negatively impact your credit score. 

A bill that is reported 30+ days late will impact the payment history portion of your credit score, which at 35%, is the most important aspect of your credit. 

Loan-type bills and credit card bills will immediately report a 30+ late payment. 

Other bills types, ones that don’t normally report to the credit bureaus, could also end up on your credit if they get sent to collections or if you are using a reporting service. 

It is important to always pay your bills on time as even one 30-day late payment can negatively impact your score for years. 

Other Ways to Build Credit

Having your bill payments reported to the credit bureaus isn’t the only way to build credit. There are many alternative options for building credit. You can even use many of these along with bill payment reporting to give your credit score a bigger boost.

Use Credit Strong

One easy, secure way to build your credit is to use a credit builder loan. 

This type of installment loan lets you make monthly payments to build your credit and gives you a way of building your savings at the same time. 

One such company that offers this type of secured loan is Credit Strong. You can take out a loan ranging in value from $1000 to $10,000 with repayment terms ranging from 12 months to 10 years. And, there is no credit check. 

The loan funds are locked away in a savings account. And as you make payments on the account, Credit Strong reports those payments to all three of the credit bureaus. At the end of the loan term, you get all of the loan money in that savings account returned to you.

To learn more about Credit Strong and the credit builder loan, check out their website.

Try Credit Strong

 

Apply for a Secured Credit Card

Another great way to build credit is by opening a secured credit card account. 

Secured credit cards have less stringent requirements when compared to unsecured credit cards. This is because the credit limit on a secured card is backed by the security deposit you are required to put down. 

Even those with bad credit can usually qualify for a secured card, and the low limits offered by many of these cards can be a great way to protect you from going into too much debt. 

When it comes to reporting to the credit bureaus, secured cards are reported just like regular credit cards. 

And, once you’ve held the credit card long enough, the credit card company or card issuer could offer you a credit limit increase or transition you to an unsecured card.

Follow this link to find our top picks for the best secured credit cards to build credit.

Pay Off Any Existing Debt

If you have poor credit due to an overwhelming amount of debt, the best way to improve your credit score is to start paying down that debt.

Having too much debt decreases your credit score because it raises your credit utilization ratio. As you pay off your debt, your credit utilization ratio decreases and this decrease can raise your overall credit score. 

For example, let’s say you have $8000 worth of debt on your revolving credit accounts and $10,000 worth of credit limits. This gives you a utilization ratio of 0.8, meaning that you are currently using 80% of your available credit. 

If you pay down $2000 worth of credit card debt, this drops your ratio to 0.6. This should raise your credit score by a few points. 

The ideal credit utilization rate to aim for is 10% or less of your available credit (ratio of 0.1). 

Make On-Time Payments Each Month

The most important part of your credit score is your payment history. You want to make sure that you are always paying your statements on time every month. 

Being one or two days late won’t impact your credit, but it may result in late fees charged or a penalty interest rate. 

A payment that is more than 30 days late is officially reported to the credit bureaus and will severely damage your credit. 

If you already have late payments appearing on your credit reports, once you’ve paid the late payment, the only way to improve this portion of your FICO score is to make sure you pay all of your bills on time in the future. 

One late payment is bad enough, but if you begin acquiring several, your credit score will tank, and it will likely take you years to repair it.

Conclusion

When you have bad credit or a thin credit profile, having your monthly bills added to your credit history can really help improve your score.

You are already paying these bills, so why not let your credit benefit from them? The downside is that you usually have to pay a fee for the reporting. 

If you are unwilling or unable to use a rent reporting or bill reporting service, there are still other ways to improve your credit. The most important thing is just to be actively working towards building good credit. 

Also read:

• How to Add Utility Bills to Your Credit Report
• Does Paying Utilities Build Credit?
• What Cell Phone Companies Report to Credit Bureaus?
• Does a Cell Phone Bill Build Credit?
• How To Get a Free Tradeline 
• Grow Credit Review
• Is Experian BOOST^™ Worth It?