How do authorized user accounts impact the FICO Score?

Authorized user accounts can appear on your credit report and impact your FICO® Score. This means that both positive and negative information can impact the authorized user's score. This can be beneficial if the account is managed well, as it can help build a positive credit history. However, if the primary account holder misses payments or has high utilization, it could negatively impact the authorized user's FICO® Score.

It's important to note that as an authorized user, you are not legally responsible for the debt on the account. If the account becomes delinquent, you can request to be removed as an authorized user, and the account will be removed from your credit report.

In recent versions of the score, authorized user accounts have less impact to your FICO Score than primary accounts. So while being an authorized user can help build credit history, it's also important to have credit accounts where you are the primary account holder to show that you can manage credit responsibly on your own.

In older versions of the FICO® Score, authorized user accounts are treated the same as the primary account holder's.

How do I determine the score impact associated with each reason code I receive?
To protect the intellectual property of the FICO Score and prevent reverse engineering, FICO does not output more information beyond the score, reason codes, and exclusion codes.

Does the FICO Score consider disputed accounts?
Disputed accounts are considered by the FICO Score, although in older versions, some disputed accounts are bypassed from certain characteristic calculations.