Improving your credit can be a relatively quick process if you're not looking for drastic progress. A few points can be gained in as little as a few weeks. Bigger change, however, takes more time and depends on your starting point.

Your Starting Point Matters

When you begin your credit improvement journey, the time it takes to make gains can depend on your credit score when you start. Building credit from scratch also takes a lot less time than repairing a damaged credit score. The higher your credit is to begin with, the slower the rebuilding process can be. At the same time, the higher your credit score, the more it drops for negative behavior.

According to myFICO, this is because lower credit scores already reflect a person's riskier credit past. Therefore, adding one or two more risk factors to someone with this credit profile isn't as significant as it is for someone with very good to excellent credit and a spotless credit history.

Let's compare two people with different credit scores:

Beginning Score

Adverse Action

Severity Consideration

Point

Drop

Resulting

Score

Average Time To Recover

680

Maxed Out Credit Card

Moderate

10-30

650-670

3 months

780

Maxed Out Credit Card

Moderate

25-45

735-755

3 months

680

30-day Late Payment

Severe

60-80

600-620

18 months

780

30-day Late Payment

Severe

90-110

670-690

18 months

680

Bankruptcy

Major

130-150

530-550

5 years

780

Bankruptcy

Major

220-240

540-560

7 – 10 years

As you can see, higher scores see more impact from adverse actions against their credit. So, if you're suffering from lower credit, it stands to reason that it doesn't take as long for you to gain back the points you lost as it would be if your credit was better. This doesn't mean you shouldn't strive for excellent credit, but it does mean that you need to be more diligent about keeping your credit score in good standing once you get it there.

How Fast Can You Raise Your Credit Score?

The recovery times listed in the table above are averages. This means that your credit improvement may not come in that given time frame. But, you can accomplish it by creating healthy credit habits and sticking to them. Occasionally making payments on time doesn't have an impact – consistent on-time payments does. On the flip side, a single credit misstep is easier to recover from than multiple mistakes on an otherwise clean credit history.

How Long Does it Take to Improve Your Credit Score?To help speed the recovery of your credit score try these helpful tips:

  • Make on-time bill payments.
  • Get current on delinquent accounts, and stay that way.
  • Keep your credit card balances low, and keep your overall credit utilization at or below 30 percent.
  • Responsibly open a new line of credit to add diversity to your credit mix.

You can keep track of how these behaviors affect your credit score by monitoring your score on a regular basis, and looking at your credit reports. Checking your credit score and reports yourself doesn't hurt your credit score.

You can get a free copy of your credit reports every 12 months from each of the three national credit bureaus by visiting annualcreditreport.com. Scores are available from many sites, but most lenders use the FICO credit scoring model when determining approvals, so be sure you're looking at the right score.

Improving Your Credit with a Car Loan

An auto loan can be a wonderful tool for credit improvement. It not only adds a new line of installment credit to your credit reports, but each on-time payment adds to your payment history in a positive way. If getting a car loan is your goal, don't fret over low credit – there are lenders available all across the country that help people who suffer with credit issues get the vehicles they need.

These lenders only work through special finance dealerships, and here at Auto Credit Express, we want to help you find a local dealer near you. The process is fast, free, and simple – just fill out our no-obligation auto loan request form today, and get on your way toward credit improvement!