There are five factors that impact your credit score—payment history, amount of debt, length of credit history, credit mix and new credit. To improve your score, you can pay your bills on time, pay debt down, maintain your current accounts, get different types of credit and avoid applying for new credit frequently.

Beyond these five factors, your credit reports could contain negative items that are unfair or inaccurate, which can stay on your reports for up to seven to 10 years. If you don’t want to wait that long to build your credit, you can try repairing your credit. Learn more on building credit or chat with an agent here to get started.