Can utility and phone payments count toward my credit too?

They can be considered under models built to use alternative data, but the same condition applies: the payments have to be reported. Utility and telecom accounts historically are only reported when something goes wrong, meaning a missed payment can hurt while years of on-time payments do nothing. Some free programs let you add eligible utility, telecom and streaming payments from your bank account to one bureau's file. It is worth doing, but treat rent as the priority since it is usually the largest and most consistent payment you make.

Can rent reporting ever hurt my credit score?

Yes, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. Once your rent is being reported, a late payment can be reported too. The newer scoring models also use trended data, meaning they look at roughly two years of behavior rather than a single snapshot, so a recent late payment or a rising balance pattern can carry more weight than it did under older scoring. If your payment history is steady, that works strongly in your favor. If you have had a rough few months, it is worth talking through the timing before you enroll.

Your Rent Payments Now Count Toward Buying a Home in South Carolina (2026)

Q: Does paying rent on time help you get a mortgage?

It can now, which is genuinely new. VantageScore 4.0 is accepted for mortgage lending alongside the Classic FICO score that had been the only option for about 25 years, and it can factor in alternative data such as rent, utility and telecom payments. There are two important conditions. First, your rent history only helps if it is actually being reported to the credit bureaus, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimates rental payment history appears in the credit reporting system for only about 1.7% to 2.3% of U.S. renters. Second, rent only affects scoring models that count rental tradelines; the widely used FICO 8 model ignores rent entirely. Getting your rent reported is the action item, not just paying it on time.

Q: How do I get my rent reported to the credit bureaus?

There are three common routes. First, ask your landlord or property manager whether they already report — larger apartment communities increasingly do, often through their online payment portal, and it may simply be a box you have to opt into. Second, use a third-party rent reporting service, which typically charges a modest monthly or annual fee and verifies your payments with your landlord. Third, if you pay rent electronically from a bank account, ask your loan officer about Fannie Mae's positive rent payment history feature, which can identify consistent rent payments directly from your bank statements during underwriting at no cost to you. Always confirm which of the three bureaus a service reports to before you pay for it.

Q: How long does rent reporting take to show up on my credit?

New reporting generally begins appearing within one to two billing cycles, so plan on roughly 30 to 60 days before it shows on a report. Some services can also add a limited amount of past rent history, which is why it is worth asking. Because scoring models weigh a sustained pattern, the benefit usually builds over several months rather than arriving all at once. If you are planning to buy, start now rather than the week you apply.

Q: How many points will rent reporting raise my credit score?

There is no guaranteed number, and claims of a specific point increase should be treated with caution. The only randomized controlled trial of rent reporting, published by the Urban Institute in 2025, found no statistically significant effect on the average credit score among participants who already had a score. Its measurable benefits were different: the share of participants with no credit score at all was cut roughly in half, and participants were meaningfully more likely to reach the near-prime range. Separately, of the renters enrolled through the government-sponsored enterprise rent reporting pilots, fewer than half showed any credit score improvement. Advertised gains of 100 points or more are outlier results rather than typical outcomes. Rent reporting is most valuable for consumers who are credit invisible or have a file too thin to score.

Q: Do all mortgage lenders use the new credit scores?

No, and 2026 is a transition year. Some lenders and loan programs have moved to the newer models, many still use Classic FICO, and some support both. Which score is used can depend on the investor, the program and the lender's own systems. That is why the most useful thing you can do is ask directly rather than assume — it is a short conversation, and it can change whether you qualify today or in six months.

Q: What credit score do I actually need to buy a house in South Carolina?

It depends on the loan program rather than on one universal number. FHA, VA, USDA and conventional loans all have different thresholds, and individual lenders can set stricter requirements than the program minimum. Fannie Mae also moved away from relying on a single minimum representative score, weighing a fuller picture of the file. The practical answer is that a score alone rarely decides your outcome — income, debt, down payment, reserves and the property all matter, so it is worth having your actual file reviewed before you rule yourself out.

By Christa Votaw · NMLS #1111313·Published August 17, 2026·7 min read

A young couple carrying moving boxes out of their apartment on a bright sunny morning

The quick answer

Yes — your on-time rent can finally help you qualify for a mortgage, and that is genuinely new. For about 25 years, mortgage lenders were limited to one credit score model that ignored rent entirely. In 2026, federal housing regulators cleared newer scoring models for mortgage use, and one of them can factor in alternative data — rent, utilities and phone payments.

Here is the catch, and I want you to have it before anything else: your rent only counts if someone is actually reporting it to the credit bureaus. The CFPB estimates rental history appears in the credit reporting system for only about 2% of U.S. renters. Paying on time for six years does nothing on its own — getting it reported is the whole action item, and it is something you can start this week.

And the honest other half, because I would rather you trust me than feel good for ten minutes: these newer models look at a two-year pattern, not a single snapshot. If you have been steady, that helps you a lot. If you had a recent rough patch, it can count against you harder than the old score did. Let's talk about timing before you enroll.

The hardest conversation in this job has never been about rates. It is telling someone who has paid rent — on time, every single month, for years — that as far as the mortgage system was concerned, none of it counted. I have had to say that more times than I want to admit, to people who had never missed a payment in their lives. That conversation is different now, and I do not think enough people know it.

Why rent never counted in the first place

It was never that lenders thought rent didn't matter. It is that the score we were required to use couldn't see it.

Mortgage lending ran for roughly 25 years on one credit scoring model — usually called Classic FICO. It was built around the accounts that report to credit bureaus by default: credit cards, auto loans, student loans, mortgages. Rent isn't one of those. Neither is your power bill or your phone bill.

So the largest, most consistent payment in most households — the one that most closely resembles a mortgage payment — was invisible. Meanwhile someone who opened a store credit card at nineteen and carried a small balance had a "credit history" and you didn't. I've always found that backwards, and I'm glad it's finally changing.

What actually changed, and when

This didn't happen in one dramatic announcement — it's been a slow rollout, which is part of why so few people know about it. The short timeline:

October 2022 — federal regulators validated and approved two newer scoring models, VantageScore 4.0 and FICO 10T, for eventual mortgage use.
July 2025 — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were cleared to accept VantageScore 4.0, effective immediately.
April 2026 — the guides were formally updated and VantageScore 4.0 began rolling out to lenders, with FHA announcing it will permit the newer models too.

Now, the part that matters to you. Only one of these two models does the rent thing, and this distinction gets blurred constantly:

VantageScore 4.0 is the one that can see your rent. It's built to consider alternative data — rent, utility and telecom payments — when that information is present in your credit file. That's the door that just opened for renters.
FICO 10T's headline feature is trended data. That means it reads roughly 24 months of behavior — whether your balances are climbing or falling, whether you pay in full or carry — instead of judging you on a single-month snapshot. Genuinely useful if you've been steady, but it's a different benefit than counting your rent.

There's a separate change worth knowing about too. In November 2025, Fannie Mae stopped relying on a single minimum credit score for loans run through its automated underwriting system, replacing it with a broader credit-risk assessment of the whole file. That's real, but please read the fine print with me: it applies to loans underwritten through that system, lenders still pull your credit scores, and individual lenders and mortgage insurers can still set their own minimums. It did not make credit scores stop mattering. It made them stop being the only thing that mattered.

The caveat that matters most — and almost nobody mentions it: which scoring model your lender pulls decides whether your rent counts at all. Rent can show up in VantageScore 4.0 and in FICO's newer versions, but FICO 8 — still one of the most widely used credit scores in the country — ignores rental tradelines entirely. You could report your rent to all three bureaus and watch a FICO 8 pull come back completely unchanged. That's not you doing something wrong. That's the model.

So please don't hear a promise in any of this. 2026 is a transition year — some lenders and programs use the newer models, many still use Classic FICO, and some support both. I can't tell you from a blog post which one applies to your file. I can tell you in one short conversation, and that's worth having before you decide you don't qualify.

Who this helps the most

If you're in one of these groups, this change was practically written for you:

Long-term renters with thin credit files. You pay your bills, you just never carried much debt. You've been penalized for being careful.
Young and first-time buyers who haven't had time to build a long credit history yet.
People rebuilding after a bankruptcy, a divorce, or a medical stretch — where recent, consistent payment behavior tells a truer story than an old event does.
Self-employed and cash-heavy earners whose financial life doesn't show up neatly in traditional accounts.
Anyone who was told "no" a few years ago and never came back to ask again. That last one is most of the people I'm writing this for.

How to get your rent reported — start this week

This is the part you can actually do something about. In order of what I'd try first:

Ask your landlord or property manager if they already report. Do this first — it's free and it takes one email. A lot of larger apartment communities now report through their online payment portal, and plenty of residents are simply never told. Sometimes it's a box you opt into. Ask specifically: "Do you report my on-time rent payments to the credit bureaus, and if so, which ones?"
If they don't, look at a rent reporting service. These verify your payments with your landlord and report them for you, usually for a small monthly or annual fee. Before you pay anyone, ask three questions: which bureaus do you report to, can you add past rent history, and what happens if I cancel? That first one matters more than people realize — reporting to one bureau does not put your rent on the other two, and Equifax, Experian and TransUnion each handle rental data differently. A lender pulling a bureau your service doesn't report to will see nothing.
Ask me about the bank-statement route. If you pay rent electronically from a checking account, there's an option in mortgage underwriting that can identify a consistent 12-month pattern of rent payments straight from your bank data — no enrollment, no monthly fee. It's not right for every file, but it costs you nothing to ask, and it's the option I find people have never heard of.
Then give it time. New reporting generally shows up within one to two billing cycles, and the benefit builds over months as the pattern lengthens. Start now, not the week you want to write an offer.

The mistake I'd hate for you to make: paying for a rent reporting service the same week you apply for a mortgage, and expecting it to change your approval. It won't work that fast. Rent reporting is a this-year move, not a this-week move. If you're six or twelve months out from buying, it's one of the highest-value things you can do with a free afternoon.

What rent reporting realistically does — and doesn't

You are going to see ads promising a 100-point jump. I'm not going to tell you that, because the research doesn't.

The only randomized study of rent reporting I'm aware of — from the Urban Institute in 2025 — found something more specific and, I think, more useful. Among renters who already had a credit score, it found no statistically significant change in the average score. What it did find was that rent reporting cut the share of participants with no score at all roughly in half, and meaningfully raised the odds of reaching the near-prime range.

Read that again, because it tells you who this is really for. Rent reporting is most powerful if you are credit invisible — if you have no score, or a file too thin to score. If you already have a 690 and you're hoping this pushes you to 760, please keep your expectations gentle. And in the government-backed rent reporting pilots, fewer than half of enrolled renters showed any score improvement at all.

That's not me talking you out of it. It costs little and the downside is manageable, and for the right person it is genuinely life-changing. I just refuse to let you spend money expecting something the evidence doesn't support.

The honest downside — this cuts both ways

I'd be doing you a disservice if I only gave you the good half.

Once your rent is being reported, it's being reported. A late payment can go on there too. And because the newer models read a two-year trend rather than a snapshot, a recent late payment or a pattern of climbing balances can weigh on you more heavily than it would have under the older scoring.

So the same feature that rewards you for six steady years can also make one bad recent stretch louder. That isn't a reason to avoid it — for most steady renters this is clearly a win. It is a reason to look at your actual timeline first instead of signing up because an article told you to. If the last few months have been hard, let's talk about sequencing before you enroll.

What this means around Charleston

Rents here are not small. When I look at what a Charleston-area household is paying every month to rent, and then look at that same household being told they have "no credit history," the disconnect is hard to defend. Around Summerville, West Ashley, North Charleston and James Island, I meet people constantly who have quietly proven they can carry a housing payment — they just had no way to show it.

That's what this change fixes. Not affordability, not rates, not inventory. It fixes the paperwork problem of proving something you were already doing.

And it stacks with things that already exist. If getting the down payment together is the wall you keep hitting, South Carolina's assistance programs are worth a fresh look — just know that the popular ones are first-come, first-served and do run out. If you're earlier than that, start with the first-time buyer programs that actually exist here, or the VA, USDA and FHA options on my loan options page.

The short version 🤍

VantageScore 4.0 is now accepted for mortgage lending and can factor in rent, utility and telecom payments.
Rent only counts if it's reported — and the CFPB estimates that's true for only about 2% of renters. Getting it reported is the action item.
Three routes: ask your landlord, use a rent reporting service, or ask about identifying rent from your bank statements in underwriting.
Check which bureaus a service reports to — reporting to one does not put your rent on the other two.
FICO 8 ignores rent completely — and it's still widely used. Which model your lender pulls decides whether any of this shows up.
Set expectations honestly: the strongest evidence shows the biggest benefit is for people with no credit score at all, not big jumps for people who already have one.
Give it 30–60 days to appear and months to build. This is a this-year move, not a this-week move.
It cuts both ways — the newer models read a 24-month trend, so a recent late payment can hurt more, not less.

Questions I get asked a lot

Does paying rent on time help you get a mortgage?

It can now, and that's new. VantageScore 4.0 is accepted for mortgage lending alongside Classic FICO, and it's built to consider alternative data like rent. Two catches: your rent only helps if it's actually reported to the bureaus — the CFPB estimates that's the case for roughly 2% of renters — and it only shows up in scoring models that count rental tradelines. FICO 8, still widely used, ignores rent entirely.

How do I get my rent reported to the credit bureaus?

Three routes. Ask your landlord first — many larger communities already report through their payment portal and just don't advertise it. If they don't, a third-party rent reporting service will verify and report your payments for a small fee; check which bureaus it reports to before you pay. Third, if you pay rent electronically, ask your loan officer about identifying a consistent rent pattern directly from your bank statements during underwriting, which costs you nothing.

How long does rent reporting take to show up on my credit?

Usually one to two billing cycles, so plan on about 30 to 60 days before it appears. Some services can add a limited amount of past history too — worth asking. Because the models reward a sustained pattern, the real benefit builds over several months, so start early rather than right before you apply.

How many points will rent reporting raise my credit score?

Honestly, there's no number I can promise you, and I'd be careful with anyone who does. The only randomized study I'm aware of (Urban Institute, 2025) found no statistically significant change in the average score among renters who already had one — the real, measurable benefit was helping renters with no score become scoreable, and improving the odds of reaching near-prime. In the government-backed pilots, fewer than half of enrolled renters saw any improvement. Big advertised jumps of 100 points are outliers, not typical. If you're credit invisible, this can genuinely change your life. If you already have a decent score, keep your expectations gentle.

Do all mortgage lenders use the new credit scores?

No. 2026 is a transition year — some lenders and programs have adopted the newer models, many still run Classic FICO, and some support both. Which one applies can depend on the program and the lender's systems. It's a two-minute question to ask, and the answer can change whether it makes sense to apply now or in six months.

Can utility and phone payments count too?

They can be considered by models built for alternative data, but the same rule applies — they have to be reported. Historically, utility and phone accounts only hit your credit when something goes wrong, which is genuinely unfair. There are free programs that let you add eligible utility, phone and streaming payments from your bank account to one bureau's file. Worth doing, but treat rent as the priority since it's the biggest and most mortgage-like payment you make.

Can rent reporting ever hurt my score?

Yes, and anyone who says otherwise is selling something. Once rent is reported, late rent can be reported too. And because the newer models look at roughly two years of behavior, a recent late payment can carry more weight than it used to. If you've been steady, this is a clear win. If the last few months were rough, let's talk about timing first.

What credit score do I actually need to buy a house in South Carolina?

There isn't one universal number — it depends on the loan program, and individual lenders can require more than the program minimum. Fannie Mae has also moved away from relying on a single minimum score in favor of a fuller view of the file. Honestly, a score by itself rarely decides your outcome; income, debt, down payment, reserves and the property all matter. Please don't rule yourself out based on a number you saw on an app.

If someone told you no before, ask again 🤍

I'll look at your actual file and tell you honestly whether the new scoring changes anything for you — and if it doesn't yet, exactly what would. No pressure, no obligation, no credit pull required to have the conversation. Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina & Tennessee.

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Hey, I'm Christa. I moved to Charleston in 2009 and haven't looked back — we've raised our three kids here and this community is genuinely home to me. Faith, family, and caring about people the right way are at the center of how I work. I want you to feel informed, comfortable, and never rushed — whether you're asking your first question or heading to closing. NMLS #1111313.

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Equal Housing Lender. Christa Votaw, NMLS #1111313. Clear Home Loans, a Division of Aspire Home Loans, LLC, NMLS #1955132. This article is for general educational purposes only and is not financial, legal, credit-repair, investment, or tax advice, and is not a legal interpretation of any statute or regulation. It is not an offer or commitment to lend. Descriptions of credit scoring models, including VantageScore 4.0 and FICO 10T, and of their approval for mortgage lending reflect publicly available information as of August 17, 2026; adoption timelines, implementation, and lender and investor requirements vary and are subject to change. Not all lenders, loan programs, investors, or automated underwriting systems use the newer scoring models, and availability may differ by program. Reporting rent, utility, or telecom payments does not guarantee any credit score increase, and reported late payments may lower your score. Individual results vary based on your complete credit profile. Third-party rent reporting services are independent companies not affiliated with or endorsed by Clear Home Loans, and may charge fees and report to fewer than all three nationwide credit bureaus; review their terms before enrolling. Loan approval is not determined by credit score alone. All loan programs are subject to credit approval, income and asset documentation, property eligibility, underwriting requirements, and program availability, all of which may change without notice. Down payment assistance programs are first-come, first-served, subject to funding availability, and may close without notice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of any government agency. All loans subject to credit and underwriting approval.