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Average Credit Statistics
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As a company that helps the nation's largest banks and financial institutions assess credit risk, Fair Isaac is often asked to describe the credit use of a typical consumer. In researching the answer, we discovered that consumers vary immensely in what types of credit they use and how they use it.

By analyzing a representative national sample of millions of consumer credit profiles, Fair Isaac was able to survey the panorama of credit activity across the U.S. The following statistics reflect the average use of credit by today's consumers.
Number of Credit Obligations

On average, today's consumer has a total of 13 credit obligations on record at a credit bureau. These include credit cards (such as department store charge cards, gas cards, or bank cards) and installment loans (auto loans, mortgage loans, student loans, etc.). Not included are savings and checking accounts (typically not reported to a credit bureau). Of these 13 credit obligations, 9 are likely to be credit cards and 4 are likely to be installment loans.
Past Payment Performance

On average, today's consumers are paying their bills on time. Less than half of all consumers have ever been reported as 30 or more days late on a payment. Only 3 out of 10 have ever been 60 or more days overdue on any credit obligation. 77% of all consumers have never had a loan or account that was 90+ days overdue, and less than 20% have ever had a loan or account closed by the lender due to default.
Credit Utilization

About 40% of credit card holders carry a balance of less than $1,000. About 15% are far less conservative in their use of credit cards and have total card balances in excess of $10,000. When we look at the total of all credit obligations combined (except mortgage loans), 48% of consumers carry less than $5,000 of debt. This includes all credit cards, lines of credit, and loans-everything but mortgages. Nearly 37% carry more than $10,000 of non-mortgage-related debt as reported to the credit bureaus.
Total Available Credit

The typical consumer has access to approximately $19,000 on all credit cards combined. More than half of all people with credit cards are using less than 30% of their total credit card limit. Just over 1 in 7 are using 80% or more of their credit card limit.
Length of Credit History

The average consumer's oldest obligation is 14 years old, indicating that he or she has been managing credit for some time. In fact, we found that 1 out of 4 consumers had credit histories of 20 years or longer. Only 1 in 20 consumers had credit histories shorter than 2 years.
Inquiries

When someone applies for a loan or a new credit card account - in short, any time one applies for credit and a lender requests a copy of the credit report - this request is noted as an “inquiry” in the applicant's credit file. The average consumer has had only one inquiry on his or her accounts within the past year. Fewer than 6% had four or more inquiries resulting from a search for new credit.

Credit Inquiries
What is a credit inquiry?
A credit inquiry is an item on a credit report that shows a business with a "permissible purpose" (as defined under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act) has previously requested a copy of the report.

Not all inquiries count toward your FICO score.
When you check your credit report, you may notice that a number of credit inquiries have been made, sometimes from businesses that you don’t know. But the only inquiries that count toward your FICO score are the ones that result from your applications for new credit.

* Inquiries that count toward your FICO score.
There is only one type of credit inquiry that counts toward your FICO score. When you apply for a mortgage, auto loan or other credit, you authorize the lender to request a copy of your credit report. These types of inquiries, prompted by your own actions, appear on your credit report and are included in your FICO score.
* Inquiries that don’t count toward your FICO score.
Your own credit report requests, credit checks made by businesses to offer you goods or services, or inquiries made by businesses with whom you already have a credit account do not count toward your FICO score. Credit checks by prospective employers also do not count. These types of inquiries may appear on your credit report, but they are not included in your FICO score.

Your FICO score is not affected when you check your credit.
Checking your credit reports regularly to be sure they are accurate and error-free is a good idea. In fact, maintaining accurate credit reports is a part of good credit management, which can help to improve your FICO scores over time.
You can order more than one of your credit reports with FICO scores right here at myFICO.com. Checking your score at myFICO does not count as an inquiry and will not hurt your FICO score.

How inquiries are factored into FICO scores.
There are five types of information used to calculate a FICO score at any given point in time. Each type of information counts as a percentage of a total FICO score:
Payment history = 35%
Amounts owed = 30%
Length of credit history = 15%
New credit = 10%
Types of credit in use = 10%
These percentages are based on the importance of the five categories for the general population. For particular groups, such as people with relatively short credit histories, the importance of the categories may differ.
Inquiries are a subset of the "new credit" category shown above, which accounts for 10% of the total FICO score. Their importance depends on the overall information in your credit report. For some people, a given factor may be more important than for someone else with a different credit history. In addition, as the information in your credit report changes, so does the importance of any factor in determining your score. What's important is the mix of information, which varies from person to person, and for any one person over time.

Inquiries may or may not affect your FICO score.
A FICO score takes into account only voluntary inquiries that result from your application for credit. The information about inquiries that can be factored into your FICO score includes:

* Number of recently opened accounts, and proportion of accounts that are recently opened, by type of account.
* Number of recent credit inquiries.
* Time since recent account opening(s), by type of account.
* Time since credit inquiry(ies).

A FICO score does not take into account any involuntary inquiries made by businesses with whom you did not apply for credit, inquiries from employers, or your own requests to see your credit report.
For many people, one additional credit inquiry (voluntary and initiated by an application for credit) may not affect their FICO score at all. For others, one additional inquiry would take less than 5 points off their FICO score.
Inquiries can have a greater impact, however, if you have few accounts or a short credit history. Large numbers of inquiries also mean greater risk: People with six inquiries or more on their credit reports are eight times more likely to declare bankruptcy than people with no inquiries on their reports.

What happens when you apply for credit.
When you apply for credit, you authorize the lender to ask for a copy of your credit report. This is how voluntary inquiries appear on your credit report.
The inquiries section of your credit report contains a list of everyone who accessed your credit report within the last two years. The report you see lists both voluntary inquiries, spurred by your own requests for credit, and involuntary inquiries, such as when lenders order your credit report to offer you a pre-approved credit card.

Will my FICO score drop if I apply for new credit?
If it does, it probably won't drop much. If you apply for several credit cards within a short period of time, multiple inquiries will appear on your report. Looking for new credit can equate with higher risk, but most credit scores are not affected by multiple inquiries from auto or mortgage lenders within a short period of time. Typically, these are treated as a single inquiry and will have little impact on the credit score.

What to know about "rate shopping."
Looking for a mortgage or an auto loan may cause multiple lenders to request your credit report, even though youre only looking for one loan. To compensate for this, the score ignores all mortgage and auto inquiries made in the 30 days prior to scoring. So if you find a loan within 30 days, the inquiries won't affect your score while you're rate shopping. In addition, the score looks on your credit report for auto or mortgage inquiries older than 30 days. If it finds some, it counts all those inquiries that fall in a typical shopping period as just one inquiry when determining your score. For FICO scores calculated from older versions of the scoring formula, this shopping period is any 14 day span. For FICO scores calculated from the newest versions of the scoring formula, this shopping period is any 45 day span. Each lender chooses which version of the FICO scoring formula it wants the credit reporting agency to use to calculate your FICO score.

Improving your FICO score.
If you need a loan, do your rate shopping within a focused period of time, such as 30 days. FICO scores distinguish between a search for a single loan and a search for many new credit lines, in part by the length of time over which inquiries occur.
Generally, people with high FICO scores consistently:

* Pay bills on time.
* Keep balances low on credit cards and other revolving credit products.
* Apply for and open new credit accounts only as needed.

Also, here are some good credit management practices that can help to raise your FICO score over time.

* Re-establish your credit history if you have had problems. Opening new accounts responsibly and paying them on time will raise your FICO score over the long term.
* Check your own credit reports regularly, and before applying for new credit, to be sure they are accurate and up-to-date. As long as you order your credit reports through an organization authorized to provide credit reports to consumers, such as myFICO®, your own inquiries will not affect your FICO score.

A FICO score can range from 300 to 850. The very best rates go to people with scores above 760, but a score of 700 is considered good (the average score is somewhere around 725)

A better FICO score can result in huge savings on a new loan.

My last FICO was 830.