Too few accounts currently paid as agreed: What does it mean?

Checking in on your credit report is one way to stay informed of your finances. If your report says, “too few accounts currently paid as agreed," you may be confused or concerned. Let's learn more about what that means and what steps you might be able to take next.

Checking your credit report

If you want to check your credit report, you're able to request one free copy of your report annually from each major credit bureau — Experian™, Equifax^® and TransUnion^®. You can request your copy online, over the phone or through the mail, and you can ask for all three at once or space them out over time.

If you need to pull your reports additional times, you may have to pay a small fee. Checking your own credit report does not negatively affect your credit score the way it sometimes may when lenders do.

There are a few reasons why checking your credit report may be a good idea.

• Protect against fraud: Checking your credit report may help you catch fraudulent activity early. Keep an eye out for addresses, credit accounts or credit activity that isn't familiar.
• Catch errors: Though rare, errors on your credit report may sometimes occur in situations other than fraud. If you believe this is the case, it is possible to potentially dispute the mistake. It may be helpful to ask for further clarifications from the creditor or reporting agency first.
• Find ways to improve your credit: Being aware of what your credit report looks like to lenders may help you find areas for improvement to help boost your credit score.

If checking your report becomes routine, you may be more likely to spot anomalies, such as an alert for “too few accounts paid as agreed."

What does “too few accounts currently paid as agreed" mean?

There are generally two main reasons why “too few accounts currently paid as agreed" would show up on your credit report.

One reason is that you have not been making payments on time on many of your accounts. In this situation, “too few accounts currently paid as agreed" acts as a risk statement to lenders to alert them to your payment history.

If you have been paying your bills on time and still see this on your credit report, it may have more to do with the number of accounts in your credit file. If you don't have many accounts, your credit report may flag this to lenders to be aware of your more limited credit history.

Now that you know what too few accounts paid as agreed means, what could you do about it?

What to do next

There are a handful of steps you can take, depending on why the statement was included on your credit report.

• Make payments: Payment history is an important part of your credit score, so try and pay your credit card bills in full and on time to bring your account current. If you can't pay your credit card's full balance, try to at least make the minimum payment every month.
• Keep accounts open: If it's possible for you, you may want to keep your older credit lines open, even if you don't use a specific card very often. The length of your credit history is another important part of your score, so keeping older accounts open may help with that.
• Become an authorized user: If you're getting "too few accounts paid" because you simply have a limited number of accounts (possibly as you establish your credit), you could potentially see if someone like a trusted family member with good credit might be willing to add you as an authorized user to one of their accounts. This adds an account to your file, but requires a high level of trust between both parties.

Seeing changes to your credit report may take some time, so try to keep up good habits and have patience.

In summary

If you see “too few accounts currently paid as agreed" on your credit report, the first thing to do is figure out why. Whether you have a limited credit history or haven't been making payments on time, you can take steps that can remove this from your report.