Over the years, readers have asked me how to get their credit score without a credit card. What they want to avoid is signing up for a free trial of credit monitoring service to get their score, and then having to cancel the service to avoid being charged. And in some cases, folks don’t have credit cards to begin with.
There are several ways to get your free credit score without a credit card. We’ll cover them below, but first let’s talk about getting your free credit report. Remember that a credit score and credit report are different. A credit report lists information about you and your credit history, such as what loans and credit cards you have, and your payment history. By federal law, you can get your credit report for no charge through AnnualCreditReport.com. But the report you get doesn’t include your credit score.
To get your credit score, you basically have three options:
- Buy it: If you just want to buy your official FICO score and be done with it, myFICO is the answer. myFICO is run by the Fair Isaac company, which created the FICO credit scoring model. Through myFICO, you can buy your credit score and report for a one-time fee.
- Free Trial: There are several services that offer your credit score for free when you sign up for a trial of their credit monitoring service. My personal favorite is GoFreeCredit, which I’ve found to be very easy to use, and it offers tools to help improve your score. Other options include CreditReport.com and Equifax.
- Scores Without Cards: And the third way to get your free credit score is through services that offer scores for free with no credit card required. So what’s the catch? We’ll look at the two primary services below, Credit Karma and Quizzle, but there really is no catch. They make money through advertisements on their site, but we haven’t found that to be a problem. And the scores are not official FICO scores, but we’ll talk about that below
Credit Karma
Credit Karma provides you with a credit report card (not credit report) and your credit score as calculated by Trans Union. One of the nice features is that the report card explains those factors that are either helping or hurting your credit score. No credit card is required and you don’t have to sign up for a free trial. For more details, you can check out our Credit Karma review.
Quizzle
Quizzle provides a service similar to Credit Karma, except that the credit score comes from Experian. In addition to your credit score, Quizzle provides a budget tool and even helps you track and build an emergency fund. You can get more details in our Quizzle review.
FICO Score vs. Other Scores
As noted above, Credit Karma and Quizzle do not provide FICO credit scores. The scores are derived from credit information on file with two major credit agencies, but they do not use the FICO formula. The reason has to do with licensing the formula from Fair Isaac. That said, the scores do provide a good indication of your credit score and how to improve it. And it’s hard to do better than free. Even if you want your official FICO score through myFICO, it’s worth checking out the credit tools and scores from Credit Karma or Quizzle.
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I would like to see my credit score
The main purpose of the official site at annual credit report is to check that the information used to calculate your score is accurate. It also shows any bad items on the list and you can work out how long it will be before those entries expire. You may find that waiting a few months longer before applying for a loan may make a significant difference to the interest rate you are offered.