Q&A: Why Does My Credit Score Change From Month to Month?

Credit scores are based on information from your credit reports. They can go up or down each month depending on normal changes in your reports. That could be your balances increasing or decreasing, hard inquiries added or removed, or just your accounts getting older.

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There are also dozens of types of credit scoring models, so you could have two different credit scores based on the same credit report. It may sound confusing, but if you are looking at the same credit score every month, expect some minor fluctuation (within a range of about 25 points).

Editor’s Note: This answer is from an in-depth video Q&A with John Ulzheimer, which you can see in full on our YouTube page.

“This is one of those questions that has a lot of answers. So I’ll limit it to just the most common ones.

First off, your credit score is not a permanent part of your credit report, meaning that if you pull your credit report, there’s no credit score on it. You have to go to one of the different services that include your credit score. 

Sometimes you may have to even buy a credit score, even though there are a lot of places to get them for free. But if you look at the definition of a credit report or consumer report, [your] credit score is not included.

A credit score is what’s referred to as an ancillary product. It’s like the leather interior of a car. It’s an optional add-on that a creditor has to buy from a credit bureau. 

FICO vs. VantageScore Ranges
FICO Score Categories	Score Range	VantageScore Categories	Score Range
Exceptional	800-850	Excellent	781-850
Very Good	740-799	Good	661-780
Good	670-739	Fair	601-660
Fair	580-669	Poor	500-600
Poor	Below 580	Very Poor	300-499

It doesn’t come with the base model, which is just the credit report. So that’s why you don’t see the credit score kind of going up and down [drastically] over time, like, for example, a thermometer going up and down as the temperature changes. 

As the information changes on your credit report, there’s no guarantee that your credit score is going to be the same every single time it’s calculated.

It should be similar, unless some sort of “black swan” event occurs, and all of a sudden a new collection hits your credit report, you just defaulted on something, you just filed for bankruptcy, or you just had an account get charged off.

So [if] you don’t have one of those types of events, then your credit score should stay in a relatively tight band — usually plus or minus 25 points. That’s kind of the normal organic movement of a score over time.

How Long Negative Items Stay On Credit Reports
Item Type	Time on Credit Reports
Hard Credit Report Inquiry	2 Years
Delinquent Payment (30+ Days)	7 Years
Vehicle Repossession	7 Years
Defaulted Account	7 Years
Foreclosure	7 Years
Bankruptcy Discharge	7-10 Years

But there’s no guarantee that your score is going to be the same because every single month, everything on your credit report changes. Number one, it’s all 30 days older than it was 30 days ago, so everything is now one month older, and that is influential in a credit score.

And balances on credit cards may be different, balances on loans may be different. You may have inquiries that have been added, you may have inquiries that have aged off, you may have delinquencies that are new, you may have delinquencies that have aged off.

FICO Score 8 Factors	VantageScore 4.0 Factors
Payment History: 35%	Payment History: 41%
Amounts Owed: 30%	Utilization: 20%
Credit History: 15%	Age/Credit Mix: 20%
Credit Mix: 10%	New Credit: 11%
New Credit: 10%	Balance: 6%
Only uses five factors	Available Credit: 2%

So your credit report is kind of like this living, breathing, dynamic thing that goes through a series of changes every single month because that’s generally how often your creditor reports it, once a month.

And it doesn’t happen on the same day, and it doesn’t necessarily happen on the same day across credit reports. So it’s not uncommon for consumers to have different credit reports over time and across credit reporting agencies.

So that’s the primary reason why your scores are going to change month over month.

The second is, it’s kind of an apples-to-oranges type of discussion. There are literally dozens of different types of credit scores, and they’re not all the same.

So just because you may have two identical credit reports, they may have different credit scores because the brand, and the variety of score may be different. One may be a FICO Auto Score, and one may be a FICO Bankcard Score.

Types of FICO Scores by Credit Bureau
Experian	Equifax	TransUnion
Widely used versions
FICO® Score 9 FICO® Score 8	FICO® Score 9 FICO® Score 8	FICO® Score 9 FICO® Score 8
Versions used in auto lending
FICO® Auto Score 9 FICO® Auto Score 8 FICO® Auto Score 2	FICO® Auto Score 9 FICO® Auto Score 8 FICO® Auto Score 5	FICO® Auto Score 9 FICO® Auto Score 8 FICO® Auto Score 4
Versions used in credit card decisioning
FICO® Bankcard Score 9 FICO® Bankcard Score 8 FICO® Score 3 FICO® Bankcard Score 2	FICO® Bankcard Score 9 FICO® Bankcard Score 8 FICO® Bankcard Score 5	FICO® Bankcard Score 9 FICO® Bankcard Score 8 FICO® Bankcard Score 4
Versions used in mortgage lending
FICO® Score 2	FICO® Score 5	FICO® Score 4
Newly released version
FICO® Score 10 FICO® Auto Score 10 FICO® Bankcard Score 10 FICO® Score 10T	FICO® Score 10 FICO® Auto Score 10 FICO® Bankcard Score 10 FICO® Score 10T	FICO® Score 10 FICO® Auto Score 10 FICO® Bankcard Score 10 FICO® Score 10T

It’s still a FICO score, but they’re not the same scoring system, and so the score output is going to be different, even though it looks at the same exact credit report.

This is nothing to be concerned with as a consumer; your scores will change over time. What you don’t want to see is your score going from 800 to 710 to 740 to 680. That’s unhealthy.

So if you think of it as an EKG, it’s an unhealthy EKG. We want to see it stay within a relatively tight band. And the primary reason why the score is going to change over time in a normal environment is: Your credit card balances are going to change, and your utilization ratios are going to slightly change.

They may be a little higher one month, maybe a little lower one month, and so your score is going to respond accordingly, but it should not be this radical difference in scores month over month.

No cause for alarm unless it goes from something really, really good … to something really bad, which means something negative probably hit your credit report.

And you should go to one of the places that gives away credit reports at no cost and check that credit report to see if something new, possibly negative, has hit that report, which is causing the scores to be so much lower this month relative to last month.”