Don’t confuse this with Payment History, though the two go hand-in-hand. Most of the score for Payment History is recent history, the last year or two. Length of Time looks farther back into your past. Length of Time considers both the age of your oldest account and the average age of all your accounts. Have you been faithful, or have you jumped around?

How long have your accounts been open?
Most creditors will look at your oldest accounts to get a long-term view of how you use credit. The older the account is, the more history it provides.

How active are your accounts?
The better scores come from active accounts. Weaker scores come from old accounts that may be inactive, even if they are all in good standing.

What Gets Ignored?
Your credit score ignores all of the following information:

• Race, Color, Religion, National Origin
• Age, Gender, Marital Status
• Salary, Occupation, Title, Employer, Date Employed
• Where you live
• Interest rates charged by your creditors
• Items related to child support obligations (Except wage attachments)
• Information not reported to the credit reporting agencies (Unless part of the public record)
• Information, “not proven to be predictive of future credit performance.”

Actions for Better Credit:

• If you have only had credit for a short period of time, do not open a lot of new accounts too rapidly. This will lower your average account age and your FICO score.
• People with no credit cards tend to be higher credit risks than people who have managed credit cards responsibly.
• Use older accounts consistently. Don’t let them go dormant.
• Clear up old collections and other derogatory items. They won’t go away if you ignore them. They will drag down your Length of Time score.