How Often Do Fico Scores Change?

Your Fico score is a snapshot in time of your credit report. The credit bureaus don’t generate Fico scores according to a given schedule, nor do they keep a database of Fico scores.

Your fico score is generated every time a potential lender asks for it (i.e. makes an inquiry). The score is generated on-the-spot, and thus represents your up-to-date credit status.

Theoretically, your Fico score can change 3 times in a given day, or remain unchanged for a whole month. It all depends on the stream of information flowing into your credit report.

Lenders typically report to the credit bureaus every month. Each lender has its own dates, and so thousands of lenders create a steady stream of information flowing into the credit bureaus. Additionally, every time a lender inquires about you – it generated an inquiry and recorded immediately on the credit bureaus’ database.

Once again, theoretically, your score can change from one day to the other, as data in your file keeps changing. That however is rarely the case. Although information on your file may change few times in a given month, often this doesn’t change your Fico score, or changes it by only a few points.

Statistic shows that in a given three-month time period, only about one in four people experience a 20-point change in their FICO score.