Your credit can determine everything from whether you get a loan to whether you get a job. That’s why it’s important to keep tabs on both your credit report and your credit score.
In recent years, there have been changes to how credit reporting companies do business. While most of these benefit consumers, some could have a negative impact on your score.
Here’s what you need to know about recent changes that affect your credit.
1. Medical bills can no longer affect credit
After years of slowly phasing out the impact of medical bills on consumer credit — first by eliminating paid bills from credit reports and then eliminating reporting for small bills — creditors are now officially prohibited from using them to make lending decisions.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau handed down that rule in January 2025, and it will go into effect in March 2025. The bureau says in a press release:
“The CFPB’s action will ban the inclusion of medical bills on credit reports used by lenders and prohibit lenders from using medical information in their lending decisions.”
2. Installment purchases may factor into scores
Buy Now, Pay Later offers have surged in recent years. Commonly known as BNPL, these allow consumers to make a purchase and then pay for it over a period of several months.
As they become more popular, you may soon see these payment plans appear on your credit report. In 2024, Experian announced its reports now include “pay-in-4” loan information from Apple Pay Later. It could be just a matter of time before other companies follow suit.
3. Credit reports are free weekly
One silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic is that you can now access your credit report for free each week.
By law, all three of the major credit reporting companies are required to offer consumers one free credit report each year. This provides consumers an opportunity to see what is reported about them and whether there are errors that need to be corrected.
However, once the pandemic hit, companies began offering free reports weekly so people could keep better tabs on their credit during a tumultuous time. In 2023, it was announced that the free weekly reports would continue indefinitely.
You can request your free reports on the official site: AnnualCreditReport.com.
4. Home loans are changing to a new model
In 2022, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced that mortgages originated with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would begin using newer credit scoring models, FICO Score 10 T and VantageScore 4.0. These replace the classic FICO scoring models that have been used for nearly two decades.
Beyond looking at “trended data,” the new scores may incorporate rental data when calculating a credit score. While it may take another year before this change is implemented for all conforming mortgages, some mortgage lenders are already using the FICO Score 10 T for non-conforming loans. These include Liberty Home Mortgage, Movement Mortgage and CrossCountry Mortgage.
“Conforming” mortgages meet stricter guidelines than nonconforming ones. Nonconforming loans are also usually bigger than traditional mortgages.
5. Track record matters more than ever
It may surprise you to hear that you don’t have just one credit score. Instead, you have many credit scores, each calculated using a slightly different formula.
One of the newer credit scores available is the FICO Score 10 T. Rather than calculating a credit score based on the most recent month’s data, the FICO Score 10 T looks back about 24 months to see how your finances are trending. Specifically, it is concerned with whether your outstanding account balances are trending up, down or staying the same.
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