More than 43 million people in America pay rent, but you wouldn’t know it to look at their credit reports. In fact, most rent and utility payments are not reported to the credit bureaus, which means you may not be getting credit for bills that you regularly pay.
Your creditors—including your credit card issuer, loan issuer, utility provider, and landlord—are not required to report to the credit bureaus. In fact, they have to pay a fee in order to report to the credit bureaus.
We don’t want to sound arrogant, but ExtraCredit is one of the easiest way to get your rent and utility payments added as new tradelines on your credit reports with each bureau. One account with ExtraCredit allows you to add those payments, and so much more—for less than what many other services charge.
Experian Boost allows you to add utility and mobile phone payment history to your Experian credit report. Boost is free and will only add positive payment history, but it is only added to your Experian credit report.
There are other third-party services that can help you add tradelines to your report, like RentReporters and SimpleBills. But that means signing up for multiple accounts and keeping track of them separately—and without easy access to your credit scores and credit reports so you can see how those payments are affecting your credit profile.
Another option is talking to your landlord or other creditor directly and asking them to start reporting your payments to the bureaus. Remember, there’s a fee for them to do so, so they might not be interested.
Getting your rent and utility payments added to your credit report is far from the only way to build your credit. Your payment history accounts for 35% of your credit score, so the best way to build your credit is to pay all of your bills on time—every time.