What Is a Tradeline and How Do They Work on Your Credit Report?

Did you know you had more than one credit report? Each of the major credit bureaus—Equifax, TransUnion and Experian—maintains its own credit reports on consumers. 

Those reports are made up of similar building blocks, including:

• Personally identifying information, such as your name and address
• Various credit accounts in your name, such as credit cards or car loans
• Credit inquiries, which can occur when a lender checks your credit before approving you for a loan or credit card
• Public records, such as bankruptcies and collection accounts

Many, but not all, of these items are known as tradelines, and they play an important role on your credit report and in calculating your credit score. Learn more about tradelines below.

What is a tradeline?

Tradelines refer to the listings of various types of accounts on your credit report. For example, say you pull your credit report and you see:

• A car loan
• A credit card account
• A student loan account

That would mean you have three tradelines on your credit report. 

Tradelines can also show up if your original debt is sent to collections. In this case, the collection agency may begin reporting the debt, and it would show up as a new tradeline from that entity.

Typically, when tradelines are listed on your credit report, they include information such as:

• The name and address of the creditor or collection agency
• The type of account, such as revolving credit or auto loan
• Part, but never all, of the account number, so you can identify the account
• The status of the account, such as whether it’s open or closed
• The date the account was first opened
• Payment status, including the balance on the account, any credit limit and whether you’ve paid the account on time

How do tradelines on your credit report impact your credit?

Tradelines listed on your credit report can impact your credit in a number of ways. 

First, your payment history plays a critical role in determining your credit health. When the reported tradelines indicate that you pay your bills on time and have for a while, that’s good for your credit. However, if reported tradelines indicate the opposite, that can cause a negative impact on your credit.

The age of your credit also impacts your credit. Lenders like being able to see that you have been using credit for a while, so having a number of older tradelines will be beneficial for your credit. 

Your credit mix, which demonstrates that you can manage revolving and installment accounts, is also important. Managing a diverse mix of credit types will be better for your credit than managing just one type of tradeline.

How much credit you have available and how much of it you’re using—known as your credit utilization rate—also affects your credit significantly. Generally, the less you use of your total available credit across your revolving tradeline accounts, the better.

Do credit bureaus have to list all tradelines?

No, there’s no legal requirement that credit bureaus must list all tradelines. The Fair Credit Reporting Act does require that the credit bureaus make efforts to ensure the information on your credit report is accurate. But this mostly focuses on the fact that they shouldn’t report inaccurate information and they must investigate if you let them know something on your report is wrong.

This doesn’t cover missing information, as the credit bureaus can only report information that creditors report to them. Courts have confirmed in lawsuit decisions that the credit reporting agencies don’t have a specific duty to include every tradeline related to each consumer.

Do creditors have to report all tradelines?

Creditors also don’t have a specific obligation to report to the credit bureaus. A lender decides whether or not it will report to any credit bureau, and it doesn’t have an obligation to report to all three credit bureaus, either. This is why your credit report can differ from bureau to bureau.

Some lenders, such as those offering credit-building products, often advertise that they report to all three credit bureaus. This is meant to be an attractive feature, as those wanting to build better credit would want their positive payment and account history reported to all the bureaus. In these cases, the lenders may have some obligation to carry through with what they promise in marketing language or in agreements when borrowers apply.

How do you get more tradelines?

If you want to bolster your credit with more diverse positive tradelines, you have a few options. The first is to apply with lenders who say they’ll report to all three bureaus. You can also get added as an authorized user to someone else’s credit card account, assuming that credit card company reports tradelines for card holders and authorized users alike. If you’re in a credit-building season, you might also want to find out about getting tradelines such as rent or utilities added to your report.

If you want to check your credit report to get an idea of your current credit health, get your free credit assessment with Lexington Law today.