Is a credit score of 702 good enough?

Last Modified 16th of February 2021

The question “is a credit score of X good?” is pretty common, but very hard to answer. Firstly, it depends on who has given you that score and secondly it depends on what you want to do with it. In general, the higher your score the more likely you are to be able to get credit when you need it.

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Who has given you the score?

There are two big credit reference agencies and both will give you a score as an indication of how good they think your credit history is. They each have their own scoring systems and your score with one will be much different than your score with the other.

With Experian, a credit score of 702 is considered poor, but is almost within the ‘fair’ category. On the other hand, with Equifax a score of 702 is well within the ‘excellent’ category. If you got your score of 702 from Equifax then it will almost certainly be good enough for any form of credit you may want (assuming you can afford the debt). On the other hand, if your Experian credit score is 702, it may or may not be good enough to get credit.

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What type of credit do you want?

Whether your credit score is good enough depends on what you want to borrow. A score of 702 with Experian will likely only be good enough to get fairly low levels of credit. For instance; getting a mortgage will probably be very hard, whereas getting a sim-only phone contract or getting a store card should be doable.

Whether or not you get credit will also depend on affordability; with a poor credit score you will have to have a strong income in order to be accepted for any larger forms of credit and even then you may have to shop around carefully before making any applications.