Credit Score Basics > How to check your TransUnion credit report

How to check your TransUnion credit report

Wollit Team2 minute read · Updated 1st July 2024

Checking your credit report is important for keeping track of your financial health and making sure you're not a victim of identity theft. Checking your credit report is also important to understand how lenders see you.

That’s because a credit report, being a detailed record of your financial history, is used by lenders to decide whether to lend you money and at what interest rate.

In the UK, there are three main credit reference agencies (CRAs): Equifax, TransUnion, and TransUnion. Each of these agencies keeps a record of your financial history and credit usage.

This article will guide you through the process of checking your TransUnion credit report and explain how it affects your credit score.

How can I check my TransUnion credit report?

To check your TransUnion credit report, you have two options:

Request a Statutory Credit Report directly from TransUnion, either by post or online. This report will show the information TransUnion has about you, but it won't include your credit score or extra educational features (like how much impact each credit report entry has on your credit score).
Or sign up to one of the TransUnion partner services. TransUnion partners with several organisations, such as Credit Karma, TotallyMoney, MoneySuperMarket, and MoneySavingExpert, to offer you your full credit report through them, for free. This is a much better option than your statutory report since these services provide your credit score as well, plus additional educational tools.

Unlike Equifax or Experian, however, TransUnion does not offer a premium subscription through which to access your full credit report straight from their website.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing – TransUnion’s partners give you access to your full report for free, which Experian, for example, doesn’t.

However, both the Experian and Equifax premium subscriptions provide additional features which TransUnion doesn’t, like faster credit report updates or the ability to lock your credit report and prevent fraudsters from taking loans in your name.

What’s included in my TransUnion credit report?

Your TransUnion credit report contains essential information that lenders use when reviewing your loan application. It includes a mix of details about your credit accounts, payment history, financial associations, and address history.

Here's what you can expect to see when you check it:

Your name, address, date of birth, and voter registration status;
Your credit cards, loans, mortgages, and other credit agreements, including account numbers, credit limits, balances, and payment history;
A record of every time you applied for credit and when lenders checked your credit report. This includes both hard checks (made by lenders) and soft checks (made by yourself);
Information about any county court judgments, individual voluntary arrangements, bankruptcies, or debt relief orders registered against you in the past six years;
And any financial connections you have with other people, such as joint accounts or shared credit agreements.

However, your TransUnion credit report does not include things like:

Whether you're employed, your job title, or if you're self-employed;
Your income, savings, or investment account values;
Any criminal convictions;
Who you voted for;
Or any medical information.

While some of these details might be requested during a loan application (like your employment history, which lenders often want to see), they are not recorded on your credit file. Only your credit history and address history (for identity verification) are included in your credit report.

Why should I check my TransUnion credit report?

Regularly checking your TransUnion credit report can help you identify errors or signs of fraud. If you find anything suspicious, you can dispute it directly with TransUnion to get it corrected. This is just one way to improve your credit report by removing errors that might be harming it.

However, the most important thing you can do for your credit report’s health is to consistently work on your credit history.

One tool that can help you do this is Wollit. Wollit works by reporting a fixed monthly subscription fee as a loan repayment to credit reference agencies (TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian). This helps you build or improve your credit history by showing that you have the ability to make credit payments on time, which is the most significant factor in calculating your credit score. Over time, this will help you improve your TransUnion credit score and increase your eligibility for the financial products you want.