Marriage and credit scores: What you need to know

Getting married is an exciting milestone. But with so much to plan and do, you might not have thought about how marriage affects your finances. For example, what does marriage do to your credit?

Getting married doesn’t directly affect your credit scores, but financial decisions you make as a couple could affect your credit down the road.

What you’ll learn:

• Marriage doesn’t directly impact credit scores or credit reports.
• Changing your name doesn’t affect your credit either, but you should inform current lenders of the change. Some lenders may even contractually require you to do so. 
• If you or your spouse has less-than-perfect credit, there are things you can do to help improve your credit scores, like paying bills on time and keeping credit utilization low.
• You and your spouse can monitor your credit for free with CreditWise from Capital One.

There’s no such thing as a marriage credit score. Credit histories and scores don’t combine when you get married. Your credit history and scores are yours and yours alone, and your marital status isn’t included in your credit reports.

However, how you and your spouse choose to manage credit together could end up impacting both of your credit scores. Here are a few potential examples: 

• If you have a shared account or you’re an authorized user of your spouse’s account, how each of you uses the account could affect both of your scores. 
• Anytime you and your spouse apply for credit together, you could trigger a hard inquiry on each of your credit reports, which can temporarily lower your credit scores and stay on your credit reports for up to two years.
• If you take out any debt or lines of credit together, like a mortgage or a joint credit card, you’re both legally responsible for those accounts. If you and your spouse manage them responsibly, you could both improve your scores. But if either of you does things like make late payments, your scores could drop.

Keep in mind that these scenarios don’t exclusively apply to married couples. If you share debt or lines of credit with anyone, you could affect each other’s credit.

Marrying someone with bad credit doesn’t automatically hurt your credit scores. You may be merging your life with someone else’s, but you’re not combining your credit scores. 

But if your spouse has bad credit, it could affect things like loan applications after you get married. When you apply for a loan or line of credit together, lenders could look at both your and your spouse’s credit scores. Your spouse’s bad credit might stop you from getting the best interest rate. Or the application might even be denied.

However, if a person with less-than-perfect credit is applying for a loan, a spouse with good credit may be able to serve as a co-signer on the application. This means that the spouse who co-signs will be responsible for making payments if their partner can’t.

If you or your spouse has less-than-perfect credit, there are some things you can do to try to improve your credit scores over time:

• Pay your bills on time. It may seem obvious, but consistently paying your bills on time can improve your and your spouse’s credit scores. Credit-scoring companies FICO® and VantageScore® weigh payment history heavily in their credit-scoring models. 
• Stay below your credit limit. Your credit utilization ratio measures how much revolving credit you’re using compared to your total available credit across all accounts. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recommends keeping your credit utilization ratio below 30%. 
• Explore consolidating credit card debt. If you or your spouse has credit card debt, you might consider a plan to consolidate your debt so that interest charges don’t build up. Balance transfers, personal loans and debt management plans are some of the common ways to consolidate debt.
• Build credit with a secured card. There are credit cards designed for people with poor credit or no credit at all, like secured credit cards. To open a secured card, you pay a security deposit to the card issuer, which acts as collateral. Using a secured card responsibly over time is one way to help build good credit.

Changing your name after marriage won’t affect your credit. But you should inform your lenders of your new name as soon as possible. They may then report that change to the three major credit bureaus: TransUnion®, Experian® and Equifax®. You can also contact the credit bureaus directly and ask them to update your name. 

It could take 30 days or more for your name change to show up on your reports, so don’t panic if you don’t see it right away. One way to keep an eye on your credit is by requesting free copies of your credit reports through AnnualCreditReport.com. You can also use CreditWise to monitor your credit report and score anytime. CreditWise is free, even if you’re not a Capital One cardholder, so you and your spouse won’t have to add another item to your household budget.

Any activity on shared accounts will show up in both your and your spouse’s credit histories. And both of you are responsible for paying the debt.

Whether you’re responsible for any debt your spouse took on before you were married will depend on the property laws in your state.

According to the IRS, in most states, you’re unlikely to be liable for any individual debt your spouse takes on. But you should check your state’s laws or consult an attorney or qualified professional if you have any questions.

Getting married doesn’t automatically alter your credit scores. And there’s no such thing as a joint credit score. 

However, financial decisions you and your spouse make together could affect your credit in the future. If one of those decisions is getting a new credit card, you can see if you’ll be approved for a Capital One card with 100% certainty. It’s quick, and it won’t harm your credit scores.