You do not have a credit score. You have several
Credit bureaus in South Africa are registered with the National Credit Regulator, and the four main consumer bureaus are TransUnion, Experian, XDS and VeriCred. You will still see Compuscan listed in older guides; Experian bought it in 2019, and its data is now reached through Experian's own consumer portal. Dozens of smaller, specialist bureaus are registered too, but these four are the ones most lenders use.
Each holds its own record of you, each uses its own scoring model, and each produces its own number. Those numbers are not on the same scale and will not agree. A TransUnion consumer score runs from 0 to 999; other bureaus use different ranges. Comparing a score from one bureau against a score from another tells you nothing useful, which is the first thing to know before panicking about a number someone quoted you.
What the bureaus share is the source of their data: banks, retailers, insurers, cellphone networks and other credit providers report your accounts and payment behaviour to them. Because not every provider reports to every bureau, the underlying records differ too.
What the bands mean
Using TransUnion's published bands as the example, because they are the most commonly quoted:
- 767 to 999: excellent
- 681 to 766: good
- 614 to 680: favourable
- 583 to 613: average
- 527 to 582: below average
- 487 to 526: unfavourable
- 486 and below: poor
The practical effect of a band is not simply approved or declined. It is the price. Two people can both be granted the same vehicle finance and be quoted materially different interest rates, and over a six-year term that difference is worth tens of thousands of rands. The score is not a report card, it is a pricing input.
Your free reports, which almost nobody claims
The National Credit Act entitles you to one free credit report a year from each credit bureau. For the four main bureaus that means four free reports a year, requested from transunion.co.za, experian.co.za, xds.co.za and vccb.co.za. You register with your ID number, verify your identity and download it. Several of them, and a few third-party apps built on their data, now show you a score more often than once a year at no cost.
It is worth pulling all four rather than one, for a specific reason: an error or a fraudulent account will often sit at one bureau and not the others, because of who reports where. Checking a single bureau and assuming the rest match is how errors survive for years. While you are in there, look at the enquiries section. An enquiry from a lender you never applied to is often the first sign that someone is using your ID.
Checking your own report does not damage your score. This is a persistent myth. A consumer viewing their own record is not the same thing as a credit provider running an enquiry because you applied for something.
What actually moves the number
Models differ, but they weigh broadly the same behaviour, and it is more mundane than most people expect.
- Payment history. The heaviest factor almost everywhere. Paying the full instalment on time, every time, on even a small account, is what builds a record.
- How much of your available credit you use. A credit card sitting permanently near its limit reads as strain, even if you never miss a payment.
- How long your accounts have been open. Closing your oldest account can shorten your history and work against you.
- Applications. Several credit applications in a short period leave a trail of enquiries that reads as distress.
- Judgments, defaults and administration orders. The heavy negatives, and the slowest to fall away.
Two things notably do not feed the score: your income, and your savings. A high earner with no credit history can score worse than a modest earner who has serviced a clothing account for six years, because the model measures repayment behaviour and has nothing to measure on someone who has never borrowed.
How long negative information stays on your record
Bad marks do not stay forever. Regulation 17 under the National Credit Act sets the maximum time a bureau may keep each type of information, and knowing the clock tells you what is worth fixing and what will simply age out.
- Enquiries: one year.
- Adverse classifications such as "slow paying", "default" or "handed over": one year.
- Payment profile (your month-by-month repayment history): five years.
- Civil court judgments: five years, or sooner if rescinded. A judgment you have paid in full must be removed from your record; you do not have to wait out the five years.
- Administration orders: five years.
- Sequestration: five years, or until you are rehabilitated.
- Debt review: until the clearance certificate is issued.
There is also a warning built in before anything lands. A credit provider has to give you at least 20 business days' notice before it reports certain adverse information to a bureau. That letter or SMS is the cheapest point at which to act, because settling the arrears then is far easier than repairing a listing afterwards.
Fixing what is wrong
A thin file and a damaged file need different treatment, and for either one building a buffer on a tight income does more for your borrowing position than any quick fix sold to you.
If your report contains something incorrect, dispute it with the bureau directly. It costs nothing. The bureau has 20 business days to investigate: it must either give you credible evidence that the entry is correct or remove it. Lodge the dispute in writing and keep the reference number. If the bureau does not resolve it, you can escalate to the Credit Ombud.
What you cannot do is pay someone to remove accurate negative information. Services promising to clear a legitimate default or judgment from your record are selling something they cannot lawfully deliver. Accurate adverse data falls away on the timelines above, or when a paid-up judgment is removed; it does not get deleted because you paid a fee.
The genuine repair path is slower and duller: settle what is in arrears, keep one or two accounts running perfectly, keep utilisation low, and stop applying for things. The number follows behaviour with a lag of months, not days.
The check your score does not cover
A good score does not guarantee credit, because it is not the only test a lender applies. The National Credit Act separately requires a credit provider to do an affordability assessment before granting credit, and that looks at something different: your actual income, your existing obligations, and your reasonable living expenses.
This is why a high earner with an excellent score can still be declined for a bond. The score says they repay reliably. The affordability calculation says that after their existing instalments and household costs, there is not enough left to service another one. Lending anyway would be reckless lending, which carries real consequences for the provider.
In practice a lender will ask for payslips and three months of bank statements, and will read them. Transfers to a second account, gambling debits and existing debit orders all appear there whether or not they appear on a credit report. It also means the fastest route to a better borrowing position is often not score repair but cutting committed monthly obligations, because that changes the affordability side directly.
Quick answers
Does checking my own credit score lower it?
No. Viewing your own report is not a credit enquiry. You are entitled to one free report a year from each bureau, and checking it does not affect your score.
Why is my score different at each bureau?
Because each bureau uses its own scoring model and holds slightly different data, since not every credit provider reports to every bureau. The scales are also different, so the numbers are not directly comparable.
How long does a judgment stay on my credit record?
Up to five years, unless it is rescinded sooner. If you pay the judgment debt in full, the bureau must remove it, so settling it is usually the fastest way to clear it.
The habit that does the actual work
Most damage to a credit record comes from a payment missed because the money was not there on the day, not from a decision to default. A debit order that hit before payday, an instalment forgotten in a month with unusual costs, a store account that quietly rolled over.
Budget Hub gives debt and credit repayments their own expense categories, so you can see exactly how much of your income is already committed before you take on anything new. That figure feeds straight into your financial health score, which specifically looks at how much of your income goes to debt and flags it as it climbs towards the point lenders start to worry about. If you are weighing which debt to clear first, save or pay off debt first works through that, and buy now pay later covers the easiest way to add instalments without noticing.