Study reveals which U.S. cities have the best, worst credit scores

With research showing that last year the average credit score didn't go up for the first time in over a decade, the personal-finance website WalletHub analyzed the median credit scores of residents in 2,568 cities and today released its report on 2023's Cities with the Highest and Lowest Credit Scores, as well as expert commentary.

For the full report and to see where your city ranks, please view the full report.

Expert Commentary

What tips do you have for a person trying to increase their credit score quickly?

"The fastest way to increase your credit score is to consistently make on-time payments and adjust your debt balances to ideal credit utilization ratios. Payment history is generally the most important factor in calculating a credit score. Accordingly, making payments on time is crucial. If you've outstanding late payments, bringing those accounts 'current' will increase your score, all things constant. Also, maintaining a low credit utilization percentage, which refers to how much credit you are using relative to the total amount of credit extended to you, improves your score. For example, if you have one credit card with a $1000 credit limit and you have a $500 balance, you have a 50% credit utilization ratio because you are currently using 50% of that credit line. Ideally, you want to maintain a credit utilization of less than 30%, and the lower, the better."
Vaneesha Dutra, Ph.D. - Associate Professor, Howard University

"I believe improving credit score is part of being financially prudent and reigning in purchasing impulses. To increase one's credit score quickly, first, try to limit spending to only necessities, and to live below their means so there will be a possibility of saving money either to pay off credit card debt or to put into a bank account. A person should limit owning and using just one to two credit cards, payoff their balances each month, and not have any balances to carry forward into the next billing month. When paying off credit card balances or other types of debt, try to tackle the smaller amounts first to reduce the number of debts from different financing sources. This reduces the number of bills to pay each month. While this might not be the conventional financial expert advice, think of this as a spring cleaning where you are getting rid of clutter in your mind to deal with paying off multiple bills. It is like a loan consolidation for your mind."
Joanne Guo, Ph.D. - Assistant Professor, St. Joseph's University, New York

What is the best way for a young person to build credit?

"Credit scores are not really in my area of expertise, but I will say as a parent of 3 young adults in college that one way for young people to build credit is for parents to add them as authorized users on the parents' credit card accounts. A recommendation I have for this is to use a credit card that creates different card numbers for each authorized user so that if one card is lost, they do not all have to be canceled while waiting for replacements."
Andrea J. S. Stanaland, Ph.D. - Professor, Radford University

Which are the most common mistakes people make when trying to improve their credit score?

"Consumers wanting to improve their credit score by lowering their overall credit utilization percentage may attempt to do so by opening multiple new lines of credit. This practice can actually work against you if it is done over a short time. Credit scores can take a hit with the increased number of hard inquiries and the rapid accumulation of new credit lines. Both are seen as a sign of risk for these credit scoring algorithms thus generally harming credit scores."
Vaneesha Dutra, Ph.D. - Associate Professor, Howard University

"The most common mistakes people make when trying to improve their credit score are having a high credit card balance, and not reading and monitoring their credit report."
Joanne Guo, Ph.D. - Assistant Professor, St. Joseph's University, New York