Can I Choose the Bills I Want to Add to Experian Boost? - Experian (2024)

FAQs

Can I Choose the Bills I Want to Add to Experian Boost? - Experian? ›

When you enroll in Experian Boost^®ø, you decide which bill payment information to share, and you can add or remove bills anytime you choose. Adding payment history to your credit report by using Experian Boost can help lift the credit scores calculated using your Experian credit report.

On your account homepage, scroll down to the "Explore other actions" box and click the button marked "Add bills to Experian Boost." On the Experian Boost landing page, enter information on the checking or credit card account(s) you use to pay the bills you want added to your credit report.

Experian Boost scans your credit card and bank account histories for on-time utility bill payments (plus eligible rent and streaming service payments, if you'd like to add those). If Experian Boost finds on-time bill payments, it adds those to your credit account at Experian, which can improve your FICO^® Score.

Yes, Experian Boost is safe to use as it has multiple layers of technology protecting your personal information. You should create unique passwords, log in from your own device and avoid using public internet for additional security.

Paying cell phone, rent and utility bills can help you build credit if your on-time payments are reported to the credit bureaus. But even if they're not directly impacting your credit, it's a good idea to pay all your bills on time if you can.

If you don't have any real credit history of previous loans or credit agreements, you're probably wondering how you build up a good credit score. Something as simple as paying your existing bills such as water and energy on time will build up a good payment history and make it easier to obtain credit in the future.

Paying non-credit bills like rent, utilities, and medical expenses on time won't bump up your credit score because they're usually not reported to credit bureaus. But if they're very late or in collections, they'll likely get reported and affect credit scores negatively.

Can Experian Boost hurt my credit score? Connecting to Boost will never be the cause of your credit score going down – but while connected, your score could go down for the common reasons a credit score can drop.

Can Experian boost backfire? ›

In short—yes, Experian Boost is safe.

The main disadvantage of Experian is that, unlike FICO, it is rarely used as a stand-alone tool to make credit decisions. Even lenders that review credit reports in detail rather than go off a borrower's numerical score often look at results from all three bureaus, not just Experian.

These firms are Clydesdale Bank, EE, Nationwide, Santander, Three, Virgin Money,Vodafone and Yorkshire Bank. However, none of these ruled out the possibility of using Experian Boost when assessing customers in future.

With Experian Boost, you can link eligible bank accounts and credit cards and Experian Boost will analyze the accounts for bill payments. It can add your cellphone account and payment history to your Experian credit report as a new account, so your cellphone bill payments can improve your credit scores.

When your bank is disconnected from Experian Boost, Experian no longer receives a record of your payment history. This could result in losing any FICO Score point increases you've received so far from Experian Boost.

You can make sure your on-time rent payments are being reported to credit bureaus through rent reporting services. There are two ways that your rent can be reported through a rent reporting service: your property manager can report payments for you, or you can report payments yourself.

The Takeaway. With rent, phone bills, electric bills, and other utilities, on-time payments or one late payment won't make any difference to your credit score, because they're not considered credit accounts by the three major credit bureaus.