How to Build Credit With No Credit History: First Steps for a Thin or Empty File

If you have no credit history, start by opening one account that reports to the nationwide credit bureaus, such as a secured card or a credit builder loan, and pay it on time. Once that account has been open and reporting for about six months, you can usually get a FICO Score for the first time [1][2].

Having no history isn’t the same as having bad credit. It just means lenders have nothing to go on yet. You’re also not alone: millions of adults are in the same spot.

No file, or a thin one?

There are two different situations, and the first step depends on which one you’re in.

• Credit invisible : the nationwide bureaus have no file on you at all [3].
• Unscored: a file exists, but there isn’t enough recent information in it to calculate a score. This is often called a thin file. It can happen if your only account is brand new, or if you haven’t used credit in a long time [2][3].

To find out which applies, request your free reports. If a bureau has no file, it can’t produce a report. If it has one, look at what’s on it: maybe an old student loan, a closed card, or a collection you didn’t know about. Free Credit Reports: Weekly From All Three Bureaus, and the Only Official Site walks through how to order them.

What the research says about starting from zero

The CFPB has studied credit invisibility for a decade. Its first estimate, published in 2015, put the number at about 26 million adults as of 2010 [5]. In June 2025, the CFPB corrected that figure after finding data problems: it now estimates 5.8 percent of adults were credit invisible in 2010, not 11.0 percent, and 2.7 percent in December 2020 [3]. Over the same decade, the share of adults with a scored record rose from 81.6 to 87.5 percent [3].

The CFPB’s research on how people first get a credit record found [4]:

• Almost 80 percent of people who leave credit invisibility do it before age 25.
• Credit cards start more first records than any other product. Student loans are next, mostly for younger people.
• About 15 percent opened their first account with a co-borrower, and another 9.6 percent got their first record as an authorized user on someone else’s card.
• People in lower-income neighborhoods were more likely to get their first record from something negative, such as a collection account or public record.

That last point matters. If your first entry is an unpaid bill sent to collections, you start with a mark against you. Opening a positive account on purpose is better than letting a file get created by accident.

Your first account: the main options

For most people, a single secured card or credit builder loan is enough to start. The CFPB notes that you can generally build credit with a secured card, but you should confirm the issuer reports to the credit reporting companies [1]. Credit builder loans are typically offered by credit unions and run six to 24 months [1][6].

If a parent or partner offers to add you as an authorized user, it can give your file a head start, because their account history can show up on your report [4]. Only agree if they reliably pay on time and keep the balance low.

Things that feel like credit but don’t count

Paying cash, using a debit card or loading a prepaid card doesn’t put anything on your credit report, because you aren’t borrowing and repaying [6]. Payday loans usually aren’t reported to the nationwide bureaus either, even when you pay on time [6].

Rent can count, but only if your landlord or a rent-reporting service sends it to a bureau, and only in newer FICO Score versions such as FICO Score 9 and 10 [7]. FICO says on-time rent may help more when your history is limited [7]. Ask your landlord whether they report before paying for a service.

Your first six months

1. Open one account that reports to all three bureaus if you can.
2. Put one small, regular bill on it, such as a streaming plan, and pay the full statement balance each month.
3. Turn on autopay so a busy month never turns into a late payment. Payment history is 35 percent of a FICO Score [8].
4. Hold off on more applications. Opening several accounts quickly is riskier when your history is short [8].
5. Check your reports after a couple of months to confirm the account appears.

Lenders use different score versions, and some may have slightly different minimums [2], so a lender may see you as scoreable a little earlier or later than six months.

Where credit repair fits

A brand-new file usually has nothing negative on it, so your first job is adding positive history. Credit repair becomes useful if your reports turn out to have problems: an old collection you didn’t know about, an account that isn’t yours, or a balance or date that’s wrong. A credit repair company can review all three reports, spot items that may be inaccurate, incomplete, outdated or unverifiable, and file and track disputes with the bureaus and the companies that reported them while you build. If you hire one, federal law protects you: it can’t charge before it has performed the services it promised, and you have three business days to cancel [9][10].