Credit history or credit report is a record of an individual's or company's past borrowing and repaying, including information about late payments and bankruptcy. The term "credit reputation" can either used synonymous to credit history or to credit score.

This information is used by lenders such as credit card companies to determine an individual's or an entity's credit worthiness; that is, the means and willingness to repay an indebtedness. This helps determine whether to extend credit, and on what terms. With the adoption of risk based pricing on almost all lending in the financial services industry, this report has become even more important since it is usually the sole element used to choose the APR

In the USA, the Fair Credit Reporting Act entitles every taxpayer to one free personal credit report per year and per agency. The following website has been set up for this:

• www.annualcreditreport.com

Note that the name of the site is annualcreditreport and should not be confused with a somewhat similarly named commercial site whose "free" offers may have strings attached.

The free reports are available in all states as of September 1, 2005.

Although consumers are entitled to reports from all three major agencies at once, it is possible to request one at a time. Staggering the reports every four months allows the consumer to continue monitoring their credit throughout the year.