Credit scores and credit files before a home loan

Two credit bureaux now, not three

Australia has two consumer credit reporting bodies. illion’s credit reporting body merged into Experian on 1 April 2026, so the merged Experian file now holds everything from the old illion report plus material from the old Experian report, including credit enquiries. Equifax is the other. Any guide still describing three Australian bureaux is out of date, and an illion score you were tracking no longer exists as a separate thing — request the Experian report instead.

Two consequences matter before you apply. A credit ban placed on the pre-merger Experian file no longer applies to the merged file, so if you put one in place after identity theft, a lost wallet or a family violence situation, you need to place it again. And the merged bureau scores files on a new model, which means an Experian number calculated before 1 April 2026 is not comparable to one calculated after it.

Which score bands you can actually trust

Equifax runs 0 to 1,200 and its bands are stable enough to plan around: broadly 853 and above excellent, 735 to 852 very good, 661 to 734 good, 460 to 660 average, and below 460 below average. The average Australian sits in the mid-to-high 800s, which surprises people who assume the middle of the scale is the middle of the population. It is not, because most Australians never default.

Experian bands are a different matter and this is where published guides go wrong. Australian tables have not settled since the April 2026 model change and they contradict each other — some widened the good band downward by more than a hundred points, some still print the pre-merger ranges, and sources disagree even on the top of the scale. Read the band label printed on your own current report rather than converting your number through any table, including this one.

Experian’s own modelling suggests around half of Australians saw their number move at the merger, by an average of about 25 points down, with roughly 15 per cent shifting by more than 100 points in one direction or the other, on completely unchanged behaviour. If you have been tracking your score over time, treat 1 April 2026 as a break in the series rather than a change in your creditworthiness.

The file matters more than the number

Lenders read entries, not just a score. Repayment history information carries the most weight: for every consumer credit account the bureau holds 24 months of monthly status codes, so a single 30-day-late mark on a card or home loan is visible to every assessor for two years. Repayment history can only be reported by licensed credit providers, and only for the previous two years.

A default is separate and more serious. Generally it can be listed where an overdue amount of $150 or more has been unpaid for at least 60 days and the required notices have been issued, and it stays on the file for five years whether or not you later pay it. A paid default is annotated as paid, which most lenders read more favourably, but no one — including a credit repair firm — can remove an accurate listing.

Credit enquiries also stay for five years, and clusters read badly: five applications in three weeks is interpreted as either urgency or fragility. Requesting your own report is logged as consumer access rather than an enquiry and has no effect on the score. What is not in the model at all is your income, savings, assets, employer, suburb, or whether you rent.

What a mortgage assessor does with it

Most lenders run policy gates before anyone reads the number closely — no defaults in the last 24 months, no more than a set count of enquiries in the last six months, a minimum score for lending above 80 per cent of the property value. Hit a gate and the application stops there, however strong the income is. Those gates differ between lenders far more than the scores themselves do.

Past the gates, the score mostly decides how closely the file is read and occasionally which pricing tier applies. There is no separate official mortgage credit score in Australia. A clean file does not get a loan approved on its own; a messy one can stop one, which is why the order in which you do things matters more than the number does.

The ninety days before you apply

Pull both files. They are free every three months, and because a lender may pull either or both, checking one tells you half the story. Read the repayment history codes and the enquiry list first, since those two sections drive most score movement. A late-payment mark for a month you actually paid is the most common correctable error, and the correction runs through the credit provider and the bureau at no cost to you.

Then stop opening credit. Put every regulated account on autopay scheduled for the day after payday, reduce or close limits you do not use, and settle any small default if you can, because a paid default reads better than an outstanding one. Re-pull both reports at the end of the period to confirm the corrections processed and the codes for those months came through clean.

Hardship, and the mark you would rather carry

If you are struggling to pay a regulated credit account you have a statutory right to request a hardship variation, and the provider must consider it and respond within set timeframes. A financial hardship arrangement is reported on your file, but it is reported in a way that is generally less damaging than running into repayment history delinquency or a default.

That ordering matters for anyone planning a purchase a year or two out. Asking early leaves you with a hardship notation. Not asking leaves you with late-payment codes across the same months, and possibly a default that outlives them by three years.

Reading your file against real lender policy

The useful question is not what your score is but which lenders’ policy gates your file clears today, and what would change if you waited a quarter. Azure Home Loans goes through both reports with you before any enquiry is lodged, because an application that generates an avoidable enquiry and then fails a gate has cost you twice over.

The bands, retention periods and thresholds described here are general information current at September 2026, not a credit assessment and not a statement of any lender’s policy. Check them against your own current report and the bureau’s own material before you rely on them.