How to Check Your Credit Score for Free, in 2 Minutes

3:02 AM

Posted by: John S Kiernan

You can check your credit score for free in less than two minutes on WalletHub, the only site with free daily updates. Just quickly confirm your identity, and you’ll get access to your latest VantageScore 3.0 credit score, based on your TransUnion credit report.

Get My Credit Score - 100% Free

From free credit score websites like WalletHub to credit card companies that offer free monthly credit scores to their customers or the general public, there are plenty of places to do a credit check these days.

So the problem is not how to check your credit score. That’s the simple part. You can check your score for free at any time, on any device – including your smart phone and tablet. Where you should get it and whether you’re seeing the latest information are a lot less clear. Some free credit scores are updated far more frequently than others. The services you get along with free scores vary, too.

Here’s Where You Can Check Your Credit Score:

Credit Score Provider	Cost	Scores Updated…	Free Credit Report?	24/7 Credit Monitoring	WalletHub User Rating
WalletHub	Free	Daily	Yes	Yes	5 Stars
Credit Sesame	Free	Monthly	No	Yes	4.5 Stars
Capital One	Free	Monthly	No	Yes	4.0 Stars
Credit Karma	Free	Weekly	Yes	Yes	4.5 Stars
Discover	Free	Monthly	No	No	4.0 Stars
Mint	Free	Every 3 Months	No	Yes	4.5 Stars
Experian	$21.95/mo.	Monthly	Yes	Yes	4.0 Stars
Equifax	$19.95/mo.	Monthly	Yes	Yes	4.5 Stars
MyFICO.com	$19.95/mo.	Monthly	Yes	Yes	4.5 Stars
AARP	$12.99/mo.	Monthly	Yes	Yes	No Rating

Note: Some providers with paid services offer free trials. For simplicity, we did not list that information in the table above.

For more information about where you can get your credit score, check out our complete list of the best credit-score sites.

Why You Should Check Your Credit Score

It’s always good to brush up on the benefits of checking your credit score. And in short, checking your credit is important because it:

Gives you a good sense of your financial fitness, providing a numerical grade for the contents of your credit reports;
Helps you get the best possible credit card and loan terms, and reduces the likelihood of rejection;
Makes comparing financial products easier, as most offers list a minimum level of credit (e.g., Excellent, Good, Bad) needed to qualify; and
Tells you how closely you need to review your credit reports. A score that is much lower than you’d expect is an obvious red flag, perhaps indicating potential fraud.

Finally, it’s important to remember that virtually everyone has room for credit-score improvement. And a better credit score could be worth thousands of dollars per year. Plus, tending to your score doesn’t have to cost you a dime or much time. So check out our handy credit-improvement tips to get started. And if you’d like advice tailored to your specific situation, sign up for a free WalletHub account to get your personalized credit analysis. That’s just another reason why you should check your credit score on WalletHub.

Which Credit Score Should You Check?

Most people don’t know it, but we each have many different credit scores — more than 1,000, according to some estimates. But the truth is it doesn’t really matter which one you check, as long as it’s free and from a reputable source.

There are a couple of important reasons for that:

Similar Results: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found a 90% correlation among a selection of the most common credit-score models. So if you get credit scores from two different providers, the numbers are likely to be extremely close, if not identical.

Hard to Get a Lender’s Exact Score: It’s often impossible to predict exactly what type of credit score a lender will use, especially since many lenders customize over-the-counter credit score models to suit their particular needs. And if you can’t get the specific type of score your lender of choice is going to use to evaluate your application, there’s really no reason to be picky.

You can learn more about all of this from our article on why there is no “real” credit score. For what it’s worth, WalletHub’s free credit scores are based on the VantageScore 3.0 model. VantageScore 3.0 is one of the most popular types of credit scores among lenders. And it is considered by some to be the most predictive credit score available.

Ask the Experts: Credit-Checking Tips

Checking your credit score is easier than ever. But people still don’t do it enough. Why? We posed the following questions to a panel of personal finance experts to find out as well as to get tips for saving money while staying on top of your score. You can see what they said below.

How much easier is it for people to check their credit scores now than it was 5-10 years ago?
Is there ever a reason to pay to check your credit score?
Which benefits a consumer more: daily credit score updates based on one bureau’s credit reports or weekly updates based on two bureaus’ reports?
What is the biggest mistake that people make in regards to checking their credit scores?

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