Here’s how rent can make or break your credit, experts say

Key Points

• Rent reporting services provide tenants the opportunity to grow their credit history through monthly payments.

• However, landlords could also report late or unfulfilled payments to debt collectors.

• Here’s what tenants need to know about how their rent can affect their credit.

  
  

Rent payments don’t typically affect your credit — but they can in a few circumstances. The consequences can be significant.

Rent doesn’t show up in your credit history, experts say because landlords don’t usually report payments to credit bureaus as credit card issuers and other lenders do.

When rent payments do appear, it’s generally because a tenant — or a property manager on a tenant’s behalf — has enrolled in a so-called rent reporting program. These services are meant to provide tenants with the opportunity to grow their credit history through on-time rent payments.

“The good news is that there are a lot of them out there,” said Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree. “It’s certainly been a growing space over the last few years.”

If you fall behind, however, those services can also hurt your credit, experts say. And whether you report your rent to the bureaus or not, debt collection efforts for late or unfulfilled rent payments can also be a black mark on your credit.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau began accepting complaints about rental debt collection in August 2023. Since then, there have been roughly 10,960 consumer complaints about rental debt collection in the U.S., per CFPB data through Feb. 21.

If you’re a renter or plan to be, here’s what you should know. 

Rent reporting can help the ‘credit invisible’

Rent reporting can especially help those who are “credit invisible” or do not have any credit history. If you’re looking for ways to grow your credit, such platforms can be a helpful tool.

Those who have enrolled typically see their credit scores increase. When rent payments are included in credit reports, consumers see an average growth of 60 points to their credit score, according to a 2021 TransUnion report.

But if you fall behind on your rent payments, that activity could be also reflected in such tools, and in turn, your score, experts say.

What’s more, rent reporting services are not always free and do not always report the data to all three major credit bureaus, experts say. For example, rent reporting platform Rental Kharma charges $8.95 a month after an initial setup fee of $75. The service reports the data to two of the three bureaus: TransUnion and Equifax. 

How rent can appear as a debt collection

Even if you don’t use a rent reporting service, your landlord has the ability to report late or unpaid rents to the credit bureaus via a debt collection service, said Chi Chi Wu, a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, a nonprofit headquartered in Boston. 

Rent delinquencies sometimes appear in credit reports if a tenant leaves a unit and the landlord claims the tenant owes back rent or damages, she said. The landlord in this situation will then send that amount to a debt collector.

The addition of any paid or unpaid collections tradeline — amounts of allegedly past-due accounts appearing on consumer credit reports — of at least $100 to a credit report will reduce a score of 680 by more than 40 points and a score of 780 by over 100 points, according to a 2014 report by the CFPB, citing the FICO 8 scoring model.

But the impact of a collection tradeline will depend on variable factors like your current score, the score model and even how recent the collection is, experts say. It could be less impactful once paid. 

“If the debt collection items are a few months old, that’s going to hurt a lot more than if it’s a few years old. It’s very variable,” Wu said.

Here are some key factors to keep in mind about how your track record as a tenant could affect your credit history, according to experts:

Rent reporting services

1. Do you actually need it? Check out if you would truly benefit from reporting your rent payments, Wu suggests. Experts point out that it’s more of an advantageous tool for those with weaker credit history. 

“It’s not the same value for everyone,” said Adam Rust, director of financial services at the Consumer Federation of America.

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“For some people, their credit may already be good. So it won’t make much of a difference, whereas for others, particularly those who have no credit history or a thin file, it could be very important,” Rust said.

2. Does the service cost anything? Some rent reporting services are free of charge, others require a fee that can range from $6.95 to $9.95 a month, according to Apartment List. Some services charge a one-time enrollment or setup fee that can cost from $25 to $95, the site found. See if it would come at an additional cost to you or if your landlord covers any of the fees.

3. Does the service report to all three major bureaus? It makes sense to confirm that the rent reporting services report your payment history to all three credit bureaus, Schulz said. Sometimes the service will report to one or two of the bureaus, but not all three — which can mean a limited or uneven effect on your credit.

“It’s something that people don’t always think about,” he said.

4. What data does the service report? Some only share on-time, in-full rent payments to credit bureaus while others might include late-payment activity, experts say. And even if they only report positive history, if you’ve paid on time for eight consecutive months and all of a sudden the record is blank, future landlords and lenders might be able to connect the dots, Wu said.

Also remember that “life happens,” she said. “Look at all of these federal employees that are out of a job right now. They didn’t think they were going to be late on rent either, and they had secure jobs.”