Here’s The Average Credit Score By Age In The US

Your credit score is often the determining factor when evaluating a loan or credit card application and unlocking lower interest rates. You might be wondering how to achieve a good credit score, and how your score measures up against everyone else’s?

Based on 2023 data from Experian™ and VantageScore^®, the average FICO^® credit score in America is 715, and the average VantageScore 4.0^® stands at 701. These are two of the most widely used scoring models in the country, and both range between 300 – 850. That gives you a bar for comparison in terms of average credit score.

While age, region and demographics are not factored into your credit score, it’s often helpful to gauge your own financial health in comparison to your peers. Let’s dig deeper into where your score might land within specific age groups and locations.

Average Credit Score By Age

You may have guessed that credit score tends to increase with age – and you’re right! For Gen Z Americans (ages 18 – 25), the national average credit score is 680, while the average score for the Silent Generation (age 77+) jumps to 760. Building good credit takes time (among other things). If you’re wondering what a good credit score for your age is, compare your score against the average for your generation.

Here’s a breakdown of the average FICO^® Score by age group.

How Does My Age Affect My Credit Score?

Technically, age is not a factor in determining your credit score. You can be young and have a high credit score and vice versa. The reason credit scores tend to trend upward as you age is tied to the length of your credit history. The longer your credit history, the better your credit score.

Average Credit Score By Region

Let’s break down the USA into the four regions used by the U.S. Census Bureau: Northeast, Midwest, West and South. As of 2023, the Northeast has the highest average FICO^® Score at 728. All the states in this region fit into the first two columns on the map above.

The next highest is the Midwest at 726. The Midwest has a wider dispersion than the Northeast but has five states listed in the highest column: Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

The West comes in at 724 with the widest dispersion of the three regions. On one side, you’ve got Washington at 735, and on the other, there’s Nevada and New Mexico at 702.

Rounding out the regions, the South has an average FICO^® Score of 702. Thirteen of the South’s 16 states fall into the bottom two columns. The only states in those columns that aren’t southern states are Indiana, Nevada and New Mexico.

What Factors Affect My Credit Score?

Here are the six factors that are directly tied to your credit score:

• Payment history: Whether you’ve paid past credit accounts on time
• Total debts owed: The amount of money you owe to creditors
• Credit utilization: The percentage of available credit you’ve borrowed
• Length of credit history: How long since you first opened a given credit account
• New credit: How many credit accounts you’ve opened within the past 12 months
• Credit mix: The types of accounts that make up your credit report

Average Credit Score By State

So now you know where your score lands based on your age and region, but what if we get more granular by location? We know the average FICO^® Score in the U.S. is 715, as of 2023.

To be clear, where you live doesn’t factor into your credit score, but it can be useful to understand how your score compares to the average in your state.

Average Credit Score By Income

In general, the lower your income, the less willing lenders may be to extend you credit. While income might be a factor in securing a loan, it doesn’t directly affect your credit scores.

However, credit utilization – meaning the percentage of available credit you use – does factor into a credit score. If you have a lower credit limit and use most or all of it, it can negatively impact your score.

Building credit is also hard if you don’t have the income to get credit extended to you. Consequently, those in lower income brackets tend to have lower scores.

7 Tips For Improving Your Credit Score

Knowing the factors is a start, but understanding how to move the needle in the right direction on each of them is what really matters. Let’s take a look at 7 ways to get you on the path to climbing the credit score ladder.

1. Check Your Credit Report Regularly

In order to set smart personal finance goals, you have to know your starting point.

Typically, you’re legally allowed one free credit report per year. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers have been able to get a free credit report on a weekly basis. Visit annualcreditreport.com to view your credit report today.

2. Make All Your Credit Card Payments On Time

Late payments mean your credit card company changes its focus from giving you credit to collecting a debt. This can result in them taking a pretty punitive approach, which can include charging you late fees, hiking up your interest rate and even closing your account.

3. Reduce Your Total Debt

The amount of debt you have is one of the biggest factors that affects your credit score. Carrying a lot of debt, especially credit card debt, is a score killer that can make it hard to get approved for new cards or other loans. Debt on a “maxed out” credit card or debt that goes over your credit card limits can have a larger negative impact on your score.

4. Keep Your Credit Utilization Ratio Low

This is a good indicator of how you manage your finances and what your overall financial capabilities are, so it’s a big influence on your credit score. Getting your utilization rate below 30% is a good way to improve your overall score.

5. Build Your Credit History

The longer you build up your credit history, the better. This gives credit card companies more data points in determining how responsible you are when it comes to credit. Paying your bills, credit card debts and other loans on time year after year is a good way to make your credit history shine.

6. Minimize The Frequency Of New Credit Applications

The first thing a bank does when you apply for credit is a hard credit inquiry, which will temporarily hurt your credit score. However, if you keep these hard credit inquiries to one or two over a 12-month period, the impact will be minimal.

7. Strive For A Diverse Credit Mix

Having a variety of credit types isn’t a huge factor in determining your credit score, but every bit helps when you’re working toward making yours better. When lenders see you using credit responsibly in several different ways – credit card loans, student loans, home loans, auto loans, etc. – it gives them a little more peace of mind.

Average Credit Scores FAQs

Credit scores are an important part of your financial life, and a lot of questions can come up as you learn about how to understand and improve your score. Here are the answers to a few commonly asked questions about credit scores.

What’s a good credit score for a 20-year-old?

Consider yourself in “good” shape if your credit score is above the average for people in your age group. Given that the average credit score for people aged 18 to 26 is 680, a score between 680 and 690 (the average for people aged 27 to 42) could be considered “good.”

Why are credit scores trending upward?

As of 2023, credit scores are at an all-time high average of 715, up one point from the previous year. That said, a year-over-year upward trend of rising credit scores is the norm. In fact, 2022 was the first year since the Great Recession that the national average didn’t increase.

Which generation has the lowest credit score?

As of 2023, the generation with the lowest credit score is Gen Z (18 – 26). That said, the generation with the lowest credit score is almost always going to be the youngest generation of adults. That’s because length of credit history is an important factor in credit scoring.

The Bottom Line: The Importance Of Monitoring Your Credit

The best advice when it comes to your credit score is simply to pay attention to it. Not only does this ensure you understand your score as it ebbs and flows, but it also allows any factual errors that could be affecting your score to be remedied.

You have three different credit reports to monitor – Equifax^®, Experian™ and TransUnion^®. Make credit report monitoring easy with the Rocket Money^SM app, which gives you access to your complete credit report and history, alerts you to important changes that impact your score, and offers you insights to understand what it all means.