Credit Score Basics > How to check your credit score for free

How to check your credit score for free

Your credit score is vital if you plan to get a loan or mortgage and want to get an idea of your loan approval chances and how lenders see you.

In the UK, your credit score is calculated by three agencies, called credit reference agencies, or CRAs: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion.

For this reason, you don't have a single credit score, but three: an Experian credit score, an Equifax credit score, and a TransUnion credit score.

To make things even more confusing, they don't all offer you an option to check your credit score directly on their website. If you want to check all three of your credit scores for free, you might need to use at least three tools: Experian, ClearScore, CreditKarma, or MoneySuperMarket.

How do I check my Experian credit score for free?

To get your Experian credit score straight from the source, go to Experian's homepage and click "Sign up".

You'll be offered two options: create a free Experian account or request your statutory credit report. If you want to check your credit score, click the first option.

To create your free account, you must provide Experian with your personal information, such as name and address history. The address history is especially important – if you've moved a lot in the past six years, you'll find that Experian might have trouble verifying your identity.

This is why it's essential to register to vote first at your current address and keep updating your electoral roll registration every time you move. This makes it much easier for Experian to verify that you are who you say you are, which they must do to keep fraudsters away.

Once you've created an account and logged in, you'll be shown a few things:

• Your Experian credit score: a number between 0 and 999;
• Your Experian credit score band: which ranges from "Very Poor" to "Excellent";
• And how much your score has improved or dropped since last month.

If you want to see more information—for example, why your credit score dropped or improved and what is influencing it—you'll need to sign up for the paid Experian CreditExpert subscription.

This costs £14.99 a month, but it does have a 30-day free trial, during which you can see exactly why your score went up or down and what you can do to improve it.

How do I check my Equifax credit score for free?

To get your Equifax credit score for free, you have two options:

• Try Equifax's £14.95 subscription—it has a 30-day free trial. This paid subscription is very similar to the one from Experian, except it shows you the Equifax credit score.
• Sign up for ClearScore. This service shows you your Equifax credit report and credit score completely for free. In exchange, it earns a commission when you purchase a financial product (like a credit card) from one of its partners.

How do I check my TransUnion credit score for free?

TransUnion, the UK's youngest credit reference agency, is even more restrictive about showing you your credit score. The only options to get your TransUnion credit score are through third-party websites like Credit Karma and MoneySuperMarket's Credit Monitor.

They work just like ClearScore, except that they use TransUnion data instead of Equifax:

• sign up;
• Check your TransUnion credit score for free;
• They earn a commission if you purchase any financial product (credit cards, loans, insurance, etc.) from their partners.

Can you check all three credit scores at once for free?

For free? No. But you can try CheckMyFile, which combines all your credit scores into a "CheckMyFile Credit Score". This is a combination of these three scores, not a separate one. CheckMyFile is not a CRA.

This also means that because it's a combined score, it won't show you your Experian score, Equifax score, or other scores.

It also has a £14.99 monthly price tag, but it offers a 30-day free trial during which you can use all the features for free.

Which option should I choose?

This is up to you, but our recommendation:

• Start by creating a free account with Experian, ClearScore, Credit Karma, or MoneySuperMarket. This will, at the very least, give you a monthly credit score update from all three credit reference agencies.
• Then, try the 30-day free trial for Experian, Equifax, and CheckMyFile. This will give you much more detail, help you understand why your score might drop, and help you figure out what to do next.
• You can cancel the free trial if you can't afford to continue to pay.

The important part is not which tool or service you use to check your credit score but that you do it. Improving your credit score is one of the most critical things you can do to improve your loan approval chances.

Some of the things you can do to improve your credit score:

• Register to vote using your current address so CRAs can verify your identity.
• Sign up for Experian Boost. It's free, and allows you to connect your bank account to Experian and count some of your regular subscriptions towards your Experian credit score.
• Consider downloading a credit-building app like Wollit. Wollit reports your monthly subscription as loan repayment, helping you build your credit history and potentially boosting your credit score even further.

• Credit Reference Agencies