670 Is the Line: See the 3 Ranges Before You Apply, what is a good credit score?

Byline: Consumer Credit Educator, Fix My Credit — Published: 2026-11-08 — Last reviewed: 2026-11-08

You see a score on your phone. It says 652. Or 701. Or 588. Is it good? Is it bad? Can you rent a home or buy a car with it? This post tells you what the number means. A credit score is not a grade on you as a person. It is a short code that tells a lender how you have paid bills in the past. Once you know the ranges, the bands of numbers, you can read your score like a road sign: where you stand, and what step comes next.

What is a credit score, in plain words?

A credit score is a number built from your credit report. Your credit report is a file that lists your loans, your cards, and how you paid them. Three big firms keep these files. They are called bureaus. A bureau is a firm that collects credit facts about you and builds your report. The three big bureaus are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.

A lender is a bank, card firm, or loan firm that may lend you money. Before it says yes, it wants to guess one thing: will you pay on time? Your past is the best clue it has. The score turns your past into one number it can read fast.

Think of it like a weather report. It does not make rain. It reads the sky and gives a short sign: sun, clouds, or storm. Your score reads your past bills and gives a short sign. Or think of a school report card. One test does not set the whole grade. Many small marks add up: bills paid on time, bills paid late, cards kept low, cards maxed out. The number is the sum of the marks, not a judge of your worth.

What are the 5 FICO bands, from low to high?

FICO scores run from 300 to 850: 550 points of room, split into 5 bands. A band is a group of scores that share one name.

Here are the 5 bands:

• 300 to 579: Poor. 280 points wide. Your past shows real strain: late bills, missed bills, or debts you could not pay.
• 580 to 669: Fair. 90 points wide. Some bills went wrong, but you are not at the floor.
• 670 to 739: Good. 70 points wide. You pay on time most of the time and keep debts in bounds.
• 740 to 799: Very good. 60 points wide. Your record is strong and clean for a long run.
• 800 to 850: Exceptional. 51 points wide. The top: long, clean, and steady.

Now group the 5 bands into the 3 ranges in this post's title. Range 1 is below good: poor plus fair, 300 to 669. Range 2 is good: 670 to 739. Range 3 is above good: very good plus exceptional, 740 to 850. Plan with the ranges: get out of range 1, hold range 2, then climb into range 3 if you want. Note: these are FICO's bands for its base score. A different score type can use different bands.

Why does 670 count as the good line?

The line at 670 is not magic. At 670 and up, your past shows that you pay on time as a habit, not by luck. Lenders read that habit as lower risk. Risk is the chance that a loan does not get paid back. Do the math: 670 sits 370 points above the floor of 300, and 370 out of the full 550 is about 67 out of 100. You have done most of the climb.

Worked case: Ana has 640 (fair) and Ben has 685 (good). The gap is 685 minus 640, which is 45 points, and those points cross the good line. Ben is more apt to be told yes and charged a lower rate. Rate means interest rate, the price you pay to borrow, shown as a percent per year. The score did not lend the money. The lender did. The score just changed how the lender read the risk. And note: 669 and 670 are one point apart but sit in two bands. Bands are guides. Use them to plan, not to fear a single point.

What can each band mean when you ask to borrow?

Bands do not make the choice. Lenders do. But bands shape the odds and the price.

Poor, 300 to 579. Many lenders will say no. Some will say yes at a high price: a high rate, a big down payment, or a small loan cap. A down payment is cash you pay up front. The work here is repair: pay on time, fix errors, and let bad marks age.

Fair, 580 to 669. Some lenders will say yes, but the price is still high more often than not. You may get a card, but with a low limit and a high rate. A limit is the most the card firm lets you owe at once. The work here is to cross 670: keep balances low and miss no due dates.

Good, 670 to 739. Most lenders will talk to you. You can often get fair rates, though not the best rates on the ad. Hold the line, and push toward 740 if a big loan is near.

Very good, 740 to 799. You are apt to get strong rates and good terms. Terms are the rules of the loan: rate, length, and fees. Guard the record. One missed bill can cost a lot of points at this height.

Exceptional, 800 to 850. You are apt to get the best rates a firm gives. But note the honest limit the video names too: you do not need 850 to get good rates. Past a point, more points add little.

Why can you have more than one score?

This part shocks most people. You do not have one score. You have many. Here is why.

First, each bureau holds its own file on you. One file may miss a card or hold an error the others do not, so a score built from one file can differ from a score built from the next.

Second, FICO is not the only score maker. VantageScore is a score built by a firm the bureaus set up. Its bands differ from FICO's bands. When you check a free app, ask which score it shows you.

Third, FICO itself makes more than one type. Base scores are for general use. Scores tuned for car loans and for cards can run from 250 to 900. If a car lot quotes a score that tops 850, that is why. It is a tuned score, not an error.

Fourth, scores move. Each time a bill is paid or a balance shifts, the score can shift. A score is a photo, not a statue. So do not chase one exact number from one app. Watch the band, and watch the trend over months. Trend means which way the number drifts: up, flat, or down.

What 5 parts build your FICO score?

FICO tells the public the 5 parts and how much each part counts. The parts add to 100 out of 100. Here they are, with the math shown.

1. How you pay, 35 out of 100. The biggest part. Do you pay on the due date? Late bills hurt, and a bill 30 days late (30 days past the due date) hurts more than a bill 1 day late.
2. How much you owe, 30 out of 100. This part looks at balances, and at how much of each card limit you use. Use is a share: a $900 balance on a $1,000 limit is 900 out of 1,000, or 90 out of 100. High use reads as strain. Low use reads as calm.
3. How long you have had credit, 15 out of 100. Old accounts help. This part looks at your oldest account and the mean age of all of them. Mean means the average.
4. New credit, 10 out of 100. Each ask for new credit can leave a mark. Many asks in a short time can read as strain.
5. Mix of credit, 10 out of 100. A mix of types — a card, a car loan, a home loan — can help a bit. Never take a loan just to feed this small part.

Add them up: 35 plus 30 is 65, plus 15 is 80, plus 10 is 90, plus 10 is 100. The two big parts make 65 out of 100. That is why the first fixes are always the same: pay on time, and pay card balances down.

Think of the score as a stool with 5 legs, two thick and three thin. If a thick leg cracks, the stool tips fast. Guard the thick legs first.

Told a new way, as a soup: how you pay is the broth, most of the bowl, and bad broth spoils the soup. The last three parts are spice. Spice helps, but spice can not save bad broth.

How do you find your score and your reports?

Your score and your report are two different things. The report is the full file. The score is the number built from the file. You need both. Do it in this order:

1. Go to AnnualCreditReport.com. That is the site set up so you can pull your reports from all three bureaus for free.
2. Save all three reports. Read them slow. Look for errors: a bill marked late that you paid, a card that is not yours, a balance that is wrong.
3. Check your score. Many card firms show a free score in their app. Free score apps exist too. Note which score type the app shows: FICO or VantageScore.
4. Write down your band, not just your number. "685, good, checked this week" tells you more than "685" alone.
5. If a report has an error, dispute it. A dispute is a formal note that says, "This fact is wrong. Please check it."

Check on a calm schedule, like once a month for the score. Daily checks add stress and teach little, since most facts update about once a month.

How do you move up one band, step by step?

You can not buy points. You can only build habits the score reads well. No firm can promise you a set rise, and a firm that vows one is a firm to avoid. The law for credit repair firms, called the Credit Repair Organizations Act, bars such vows and bars firms from taking your money before they do the work. Here is the honest path, step by step.

Step 1: Miss no due dates. Set a pay alert on your phone for each bill. An alert is a note the phone shows you before a date. Pay at least the minimum due, the smallest pay the firm asks for that month. On time and small beats late and big, for the score.

Step 2: Pay card balances down. Pick the card with the highest use share first. Worked case: your limit is $500 and you owe $450 — 90 out of 100 in use. Pay $200 and you owe $250, or 50 out of 100. Pay $200 more and you owe $50, or 10 out of 100. Same card, same limit. The use share fell from 90 to 10.

Step 3: Do not close your oldest card on a whim. Its age feeds the length part. If the card has no yearly fee, keep it open, use it for one small bill, and pay it in full.

Step 4: Space out new asks. When you shop for a car loan or home loan, do your rate asks in a tight block of days, not spread over months. Score models group rate asks for the same loan type made close in time. Asking for 5 new cards in one month is a different act, and it can hurt.

Step 5: Let time do its part. Late marks fade as they age. A late mark from last month weighs more than the same mark from 5 years back. You can only stack new on-time months on top of it. 12 clean months in a row is a strong stack. 24 is stronger.

Set your goal as a band, not a date. "From 640, fair, to 670 plus, good" is a real goal. "Plus 50 points by June" is a guess no one can back.

What can a good score not do?

Honest limits, up front. A good score can not promise you a loan. A lender also looks at your income, your job, and your debts next to your income. Income is the money you earn. A lender can say no to a high score with low income for a big loan, and yes to a fair score with strong income and a big down payment. A good score also can not fix a wrong report. If your file holds an error, the score built on that file is off too. Fix the file first. The score follows the facts. And a good score is not a prize you win once. It is a state you keep, with the same habits that built it.

Your free tool for this step: the Score Damage Analyzer

Before you guess which mark hurts you most, look. The Score Damage Analyzer on Fix My Credit is the free tool for this step. It helps you sort the marks on your report and see which ones may do the most harm, so you fix the worst marks first. Pull your three reports, list each bad mark, run the marks through the tool, and write your fix order on paper — worst harm first. Then work the list: pay on time, pay use down, dispute what is wrong. Check your band next month.

The bottom line

A FICO score runs from 300 to 850. The bands are poor (300 to 579), fair (580 to 669), good (670 to 739), very good (740 to 799), and exceptional (800 to 850). In 3 ranges: below good, good, and above good — and 670 is the good line. You have many scores, not one, so watch your band and trend. Two parts build most of your score: how you pay (35 of 100) and how much you owe (30 of 100). Guard those two, fix errors free, and let clean months stack. No score vows a loan, and no firm can vow you points.