Make Your Rent Count for a Credit Boost 

Like it or not, you need an excellent credit score to achieve many financial goals, including buying a new car or qualifying for a mortgage. 

The easiest way to build credit is to make on-time monthly payments, which in the past has meant that you need a credit card bill or loan. But now your rent payments can count toward building your credit history, too. 

Your monthly rent bill doesn’t automatically boost your credit score; you and your landlord must be enrolled in a rent-reporting service. The good news is there are many available services — most free or affordable. 

Do All Landlords Offer Rent Reporting?

Not all landlords offer rent reporting. It depends on your landlord or the size of the property management company. 

Some companies will even cut the check for you, so you won’t need your landlord to sign up for a new program. 

Before you sign up for a rent-reporting company, you will need to talk to your landlord and figure out if they are:

1. Already using a rent-reporting service: If so, using their service could save you on monthly and enrollment fees. 
2. Open to using a rent-reporting service: Unfortunately, this is not a requirement for landlords, so they might refuse. It doesn’t hurt to show them that they will receive your rental payment automatically through the service versus waiting for a physical check in their mailbox. 

For landlords that are open to the idea, it is a good idea to know if missed or late rental payments will be recorded too. You don’t want to negatively impact your credit score if you have a habit of paying late. 

Top Rent-Reporting Companies 

Once you have your landlord’s go-ahead, these are some companies and apps to consider. 

When choosing which company to try, look at fees and how many credit bureaus they report to. 

Bilt Rewards

Bilt is designed differently from the other rent-reporting services, and you won’t need to rely on your landlord’s approval. 

With Bilt Rewards, if you're living in a property that's part of Bilt's network, you can make payments directly in Bilt's resident portal. If your home is outside that network, you can still earn points on your rent by using Bilt's BillPay system or via Venmo or PayPal.

The cool thing with Bilt is that you can also earn rewards for paying your rent, which you can then redeem for things like travel or fitness classes. You can even redeem your points to help cover certain student loan payments (for loans serviced by Nelnet, MOHELA, Sallie Mae, Aidvantage, and Navient).

While you can link your own debit or credit card to the Bilt app, you'll get the most value if you also get a Bilt credit card to earn more points.

READ MORE: How To Transfer Your Bilt Points for Maximum Value

RentReporters

RentReporters reports to all three credit bureaus and can back-report up to 24 months of rent payments, offering a potentially significant boost to your credit score. 

It does come with a $94.95 one-time enrollment fee and a $10.95 per-month charge ($8.75 per month if you sign up for an annual plan). 

You can include a spouse or roommate for an additional fee. 

Rental Kharma

Rental Kharma reports to two credit bureaus (TransUnion and Equifax) and can backdate up to 24 months. 

Individual renter reporting costs $75 to sign up (often there is a promo code to make this less) and $8.95 per month. 

You can include a spouse or roommate for an additional fee. 

Self

With Self+Propel rent reporting, your rent payments are reported to all three credit bureaus, and you can track your credit score for free. 

For a monthly fee, you can also add your cellphone and utilities payments to your TransUnion credit report, and get credit monitoring and identity theft coverage.

Experian Boost

Experian Boost is a free option that allows you to report your rent, utility bills, insurance payments, and more. 

Not all bills are eligible, and it only works with Experian. This means if a future lender does not use FICO Score 8, there is a chance they will not see your credit score improvement with Experian Boost. 

Can I Pay for Rent With a Credit Card?

If your landlord accepts credit card transactions — i.e., they use a credit card processing system or app — you can charge your rent to your card. Not all landlords like this idea because of the transaction fees. 

Also, while putting your rent on a credit card can help boost your credit score and earn you reward points, these are only worthwhile if you can pay off your card each month. 

If you cannot afford to pay off your rent charge each month, then putting your housing bill on credit can put you in a bad spot financially. Any rewards you earn are overshadowed by the extra money charged in interest. 

Not only will you pay a lot more for your rental with the interest charges, but you can also lower your credit score if your credit utilization ratio is too high. 

Your credit utilization ratio is your total credit card debt divided by your total credit limit across all cards. You want to keep this number under 30% — the lower, the better.

For example, if you put $2,500 of rent on your card, but only have a $4,000 credit limit, then your utilization ratio would be 63%. But if your rent is only $1,000 or if you have a $10,000 credit limit, then your utilization ratio would be just 25%.

READ MORE: Best Credit Cards to Build Credit

FAQs

• Consistently paying bills on time
• Reducing outstanding debt
• Keeping credit card balances low
• Avoiding opening too many new accounts in a short period
• Regularly checking your credit report for errors

TL;DR: How Your Rent Can Help Your Credit Score

It used to be that your credit score was only impacted by credit cards and loans, but now there are services that will report your rent and other bills to the credit bureaus. 

This way, you can boost your score without needing a mortgage or risking credit card debt.

For more tips on managing your money and staying debt-free, check out these episodes of the Erika Taught Me podcast:

• How To Budget For Beginners
• Atomic Habits You’ll Actually Stick To
• Money & Investing Pitfalls To Avoid