A lot of people confuse these two for the same thing and use the terms interchangeably but they are actually different. In short, your credit report is your credit history. It has information about all of your past and current credit accounts, loans, etc. It also shows how long you’ve had each of these accounts, your payment history and how much you owe each of your creditors. It may also show items like bankruptcies and liens against you.

Your credit score uses all of the information in your credit report and gives you a grade, which in turn is your score. Scores range between 300 to 850. The higher your score the more likely you are to get more favorable interest rates and terms when applying for new credit.

There are three major credit bureaus that take the information on your credit report and generate credit scores for you. Therefore, you will have a credit score from each of these bureaus. They are Experian, Equifax, and Transunion.

You can receive your credit report for free once per year by going to www.annualcreditreport.com

There are a few different ways to get your credit score. There are companies that offer it for “free” but be wary and read the fine print. Some of these companies require you to sign up for a monthly subscription using your credit card and you have to cancel before a certain date to get your score for free, others don’t require a credit card but will send you ads. Another knock against getting your credit score this way is the score they provide you might not necessarily be the same score used by creditors when they are deciding whether or not to to offer you credit. It does however give you a good idea of where your credit score is.

The other way to get your credit score is to pay for it. You can go to one or all three credit bureaus and pay for them individually or go to www.myfico.com. It’s up to you which way you choose, however the price varies a bit between them so make sure to check them all out before buying.