Your record isn’t bad. It’s incomplete.
You’ve already made these payments, on time, every month. We help the credit bureaus, and the lenders who read them, finally see that.
What actually happens.
No bank login, no new debt, nothing to change about how you pay. Most members see their history on their report within 3 to 10 days.
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You tell us what you pay
Your rent, or a phone, electric, gas or water bill. Whichever you want reported.
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We verify it independently
Directly with your landlord or property manager, or through an approved resident payment portal. We’re confirming a payment happened, not collecting banking credentials.
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We attach your full payment history
Every on-time payment you’ve already made gets added, not only the new ones going forward.
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We furnish it to the bureaus
Rent reports to TransUnion and Equifax. Utility bills report to TransUnion. It typically appears within 3 to 10 days.
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You keep building
Reporting continues each month while you’re enrolled. If a payment becomes late, we close the account rather than report negative history.
What shows up on your report.
A normal account, listed next to your cards and loans, carrying the full history behind it.
- Rent
- Appears as RK/RESIDENCE, reported to TransUnion and Equifax. The one pictured carries 12 years and 7 months of history.
- Utilities
- Appear as RKUTIL accounts, reported to TransUnion, like the phone and water accounts at the top of this page.
These are real TransUnion reports from the Rental Kharma team’s own credit files, shared with permission. How much history you can add depends on how long you’ve been paying, and what it does to any one score depends on the rest of that credit file.
Not credit repair. Credit recognition.
Credit repair companies
- Dispute and try to remove negative items
- Don’t add anything new to your file
- Results can be temporary, and items often return
- Focus on hiding history, not building it
Rental Kharma
- Adds real payment history you’ve already earned
- Independently verified, then reported to the bureaus
- Permanent, because it’s your actual payment record
- Focuses on building history, not hiding it
Why it matters when a lender pulls your file.
A fuller, verified payment history gives a lender more to work with, especially if your credit file is thin. We report rent to TransUnion and Equifax, and utility payments to TransUnion, under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).
How any individual lender weighs rent or utility history against the rest of your file is up to that lender’s own underwriting model.
Is this right for you?
A good fit if you…
- Pay rent to a landlord, property manager or family member
- Have a phone, electric, gas or water bill in your name
- Want a longer, fuller credit history than your accounts show today
- Have little or no established credit history yet
It won’t do much if you…
- Just moved in or just opened the account, so there’s no history to add yet
- Want to report a commercial or self-owned property
- No longer live at the address, or no longer hold the account
These situations aren’t covered by our guarantee. See what is covered
What members have seen.
Average VantageScore 4.0 increases for Rental Kharma members, by where they started, when one 2-year-old rent account is added to their report. More history adds more points.
The largest increases
- Many years of rent history
- 0 to 3 open accounts on your report
- Any negatives are more than 2 years old
- No new accounts in the last 3 months
Average increases
- About 2 years of rent history
- 3 to 5 open accounts
- Any negatives are more than 1 year old
- 1 or fewer new accounts in the last 3 months
Smaller increases
- Less than 6 months of rent history
- 7 or more open accounts
- Negatives in the last 6 months
- 2 or more new accounts in the last 3 months
Your result depends on your full credit file. Some lender scores, like classic FICO 8, don’t include rent. Every plan comes with our 90-day money-back guarantee. Independent research: TransUnion rent reporting insights and the U.S. HUD study on rent reporting.