Your credit report is a history of your what you've done with the credit you already have. The information contained in a credit report includes details such as who you owe money to, if you've been late or delinquent in making payments, if you have overdrawn accounts, etc. A credit report also contains personal information including your address, name, past addresses, phone numbers (even those that are unlisted), your Social Security number, birth date and details about your past employment. Your credit report also shows matters of public record like tax liens, bankruptcies and civil judgments.
Presently, three large national credit bureaus dominate the credit reporting industry: TransUnion, Equifax and Experian. These credit bureaus run nearly 1.3 billion credit reports annually, and each of the three bureaus has approximately 225 million personal credit files on record.
Even though there are small differences between the way you credit score is calculated, the basic formula is as follows:
You can access the credit bureau-operated annualcreditreport.com to obtain a free copy of your credit report from each credit reporting agency. In the United States, a federal law called the FACT Act, which stands for the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, entitles each legal U.S. citizen to a free copy of their credit report from each credit reporting agency once per twelve-month period. But it should be noted that these reports don't contain your credit "score".
It's a good idea to periodically check your reports for errors like your name being wrong (i.e. maiden name listed but not married name), wrong addresses both present and past, correct social security numbers and so on. Make sure you review the financial data for such things as loans with a balance due even though you've paid them off in full a well, and report any inaccuracies immediately to the respective bureau.