Credit report

A record of your credit accounts and payment history, kept by the credit bureaus.

Your credit report lists your credit cards and loans, their balances and limits, whether you paid on time, and any collections. In the US, three bureaus keep reports: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

You can get free reports from all three at AnnualCreditReport.com, the official site. Checking your own report doesn't hurt your score, and it's worth looking for mistakes or accounts you don't recognize.