In this article:
- Does Getting Married Affect Your Credit?
- Does Getting Married Combine Your Credit Reports?
- Will Changing Your Name Impact Your Credit?
- Does Marrying Someone With Bad Credit Affect Your Credit Score?
- Do You Share Debt When You Get Married?
- How Do Joint Credit Accounts Impact Your Credit?
- How Married Couples Can Improve Their Credit
Getting married has no direct impact on the credit standing of you or your spouse. Your eligibility to borrow as a couple will depend on both of your credit histories, however, and management of joint debt will influence both your credit score and your spouse's going forward.
Does Getting Married Affect Your Credit?
No, getting married does not have any affect on your credit. Credit reports do not record marital status. Credit scoring systems, which calculate scores using credit report data, therefore do not and cannot factor marital status into your scores.
Does Getting Married Combine Your Credit Reports?
Getting married does not combine your credit reports. There's no such thing as a couple's credit report: Your credit report and your spouse's report will remain separate after marriage.
If, as many couples do, you apply for joint loans or credit cards together after marriage, identical information about applications and payment history on those accounts will appear on both of your credit reports.
Will Changing Your Name Impact Your Credit?
Changing your name will not affect your credit. Your name doesn't factor into how your credit score is calculated, so it has no direct impact.
If you change your name when you get married, you'll need to notify creditors with whom you have active loan or credit card accounts. Within a month or two of those creditors updating their records, your new name should start to be reflected in the "personal information" section of your credit reports at the national credit bureaus (Experian, TransUnion and Equifax).
The contents of the personal information section of your credit reports may be used to verify your identity, but they do not factor into credit scores. Information that does impact your credit score includes:
- Your debt payment history
- Your total outstanding debt and how much of your available credit you're utilizing
- Recent hard inquiries
- Accounts in collections
- Bankruptcies
Learn more >> How to Report a Name Change to a Credit Bureau
Does Marrying Someone With Bad Credit Affect Your Credit Score?
No, your spouse's credit history does not affect your credit score. If, however, you and your spouse apply for a mortgage or other loan jointly as a couple—a common strategy that allows both parties' incomes to be used when determining the amount of the loan—both of your credit scores will be used to determine loan eligibility and to help set the interest rate on the loan.
Learn more >> Does Marrying Someone With Bad Credit Affect Your Credit?
Do You Share Debt When You Get Married?
Debts you and your spouse assumed before marriage remain your own responsibility after the wedding. Laws in the state where you live largely determine whether you share responsibility for debt you take on after marriage.
In all states, you and your spouse are equally responsible for debts you apply for and obtain jointly, but in states with community property laws, both spouses are held equally responsible for all debts (and assets) acquired during marriage—even if only one spouse is listed as borrower, and whether or not the other spouse is aware of them.
As of 2024, community property states are: Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin. Laws in five additional states—Alaska, Florida, Kentucky, South Dakota and Tennessee—enable couples to opt in to community property status.
The remaining states (and couples in Alaska, Florida, Kentucky, South Dakota and Tennessee who don't choose community property) apply common law rules to post-marital debt. They allow spouses to acquire joint debts for their mutual benefit (and the good of their children, if any), but also allow the assumption of individual debts, such as credit cards, during marriage.
Learn more >> When You Get Married, Do You Share Debt?
How Do Joint Credit Accounts Impact Your Credit?
When you and your spouse (or any other co-borrower) obtain a loan or other credit account jointly, you are both equally responsible for making payments on the loan. The account and its payment history will appear on both of your credit reports, with on-time payments tending to benefit your credit scores over time, and any payments that are late by 30 days or more potentially doing major harm to your scores.
How Married Couples Can Improve Their Credit
If you and your spouse are considering a joint application for a mortgage, car loan, credit card or other form of personal credit, consider taking the following actions at least six months to a year beforehand. That will give you time to beef up both of your credit scores before applying.
Building up both of your credit scores can mean access to better borrowing terms and lower interest rates, which can save thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars over the life of a loan.
- Check your credit scores. You can get your FICO® Score☉ free from Experian and check your VantageScore® credit scores free from multiple online sources. Knowing your scores, and understanding how favorably lenders are likely to view your creditworthiness, can help you know where you stand and if it's necessary to take further action.
- Review your credit reports. Check to see that you recognize the accounts and other information listed there. You have the right to dispute any credit report inaccuracies that could hurt your credit scores, such as misattributed late or missing payments or accounts inaccurately listed in collection.
- Pay down high balances. Excessive balances on credit cards and other revolving credit accounts can hurt your credit scores. That's because credit scoring systems are sensitive to credit utilization ratios, which measure your debt balances relative to your credit limits. If either spouse has high credit balances, consider pooling funds and focus on paying them down as efficiently as possible. (The avalanche and snowball methods are both proven approaches.)
- Consider paying off accounts in collections. If legitimate collection accounts are listed on either of your credit reports, you may be able to reduce their negative impact on credit scores by paying them in full. They'll still appear on your credit reports for seven years, dated from the first missed payment that led to the debt being sent to collections, but newer versions of the FICO® Score and VantageScore ignore paid collections when calculating scores.
- Take advantage of authorized user accounts. If your credit history is significantly stronger or more established than your spouse's (or vice-versa), an authorized user account can help promote the credit score of the less experienced spouse. When you make your spouse an authorized user on your credit card, the card's payment history is added to their credit report. As long as the account reflects a strong payment history and you avoid running up excessive balances, it will tend to promote credit score improvement for the authorized user.
- Work together to build and maintain good credit. Strong marriages require a team effort, and you and your new spouse can get off to a good start by sharing responsibility for each other's credit standing. Have regular discussions about your budgets and debt management; decide together which credit card(s) to use for significant purchases; use shared funds to target high balances on all accounts, whether they're in both of your names or one individually; and develop a system to ensure that all loan and credit card payments are made on time every month.
Learn more >> Married Consumers Have Higher Credit Scores and Debt Than Single Adults
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some suggestions for helping address a spouse's bad credit and issues that might have prompted them:
- Know where things stand. When you check your credit scores, you'll typically receive a list of risk factors that describe which information in your credit report is most responsible for lowering your scores. These can help you prioritize your efforts to bring up scores. If, for instance, your credit card account balances are too high, you can focus on paying them down. If your credit history is too brief, becoming an authorized user could add to the age of your accounts.
- Make a plan. Once you understand your situation, take steps to reverse the damage to your spouse's credit scores. If need be, put credit cards aside to enable paying down high balances or collection accounts. If there's a pattern of late payments, devise a strategy for making sure all bills are paid on time. Try to be supportive and nonjudgmental, taking a team approach to shore up your financial future.
- Regroup and review regularly. Schedule regular financial check-ins and use the time to review outstanding debts, check your credit scores and track their improvement. If you stick to your plan, you could see gradual score increases begin within just a few months.
- Get at the root of the problem. Once you've begun working on the problem, have an honest discussion about what led to the credit missteps. Potential causes include bad luck, such as ill-timed car breakdowns and household emergencies. But with other underlying factors, such as habitual overspending, insufficient emergency savings or confusion over what influences credit history and credit scores, you can and should address them. As appropriate, consider seeking help from a certified credit counselor or a professional therapist.
- Consider Experian Boost®ø. Another potential way to shore up your spouse's credit history is to enroll them in Experian Boost, a feature of a free Experian account that lets you add payments on a variety of expenses that aren't traditionally reported to their Experian credit report. Timely payments of cellphone and utility bills, streaming subscriptions and online rent payments in their name can help increase FICO® Scores based on their Experian credit data. (Late payments on those bills are ignored.)
It's often advantageous for spouses to open a joint checking account to simplify management of household funds and payments for everyday expenses. It's also advisable to establish accounts for utilities and other household services in both spouses' names, so either one can address billing matters, change service options and take additional actions.
When it comes to personal credit such as loans and credit cards, however, a true merging of existing accounts may be difficult: Adding a co-borrower to a mortgage or car loan typically requires refinancing to a new loan. This can bring significant origination fees on the new loan and, if the existing loan was obtained before the 2021 upsurge in interest rates, could add substantial interest costs.
Few credit card issuers offer joint accounts to spouses, and among those that do, fewer still allow you to add a spouse as co-owner to an existing account.
If your card issuer won't let you make your spouse a full co-owner on your account, making them an authorized user gives them many of the same practical benefits. If you seek and obtain new joint credit card accounts moving forward, don't automatically decide to close older accounts, since doing so could hurt your credit scores.
If you live in a community property state (or have opted into community property in a state that allows it), debt incurred during your marriage, even if it's a loan or credit card in your name only, may be considered your spouse's responsibility as well as your own. Under those circ*mstances, a creditor or debt collector could pursue both you and your spouse for payment or bring suit against you both.
In common-law states, liability for payment on a debt rests with the borrower or borrowers named on the loan or credit agreement. If only one spouse is the borrower of record, the lender cannot pursue payment from the other spouse. If both spouses are both named as borrowers, however, the creditor can pursue both for payment.
The Bottom Line
You and your spouse will not combine credit histories when you marry, but your debt management habits—in the past and moving forward—could influence your ability to borrow money as a couple. Just as trust, communication and cooperation are elements of a good marriage, they can help you and your spouse enjoy many years of sound credit management.
