Applying for a loan? It’s important to have a good credit score if so. It determines your creditworthiness or your ability to repay the loan and impacts the interest rates offered or whether the loan is approved at all. While the credit score depends on a number of complex factors like credit and payment history, current employment status, and such, certain other things can also harm it. Some of the surprising things that hurt your credit score the most are:

• A single late payment
  It’s not necessary that you continuously default on payments for it to show up in the form of a bad credit score, a single missed payment is enough to do that. If you make payments later than 30 days after the due date, the credit card company will notify the credit-reporting agencies, which causes your score to drop. Also, payment history constitutes about 35 percent of your credit score, so it can harm your score significantly.
• Unemployment
  If you have been through periods of unemployment, it might affect your credit score as unemployment is likely to make you miss out on timely payments. Sometimes, even receiving unemployment benefits can lead to a slight drop in credit score.
• Not checking your credit report
  One of the most surprising things that hurt your credit score the most is ignoring any potential inaccuracies in your credit report. Although they are considered infallible by many, credit reporting agencies can make mistakes. You should always check your credit score once a year to ensure that there are no discrepancies.
• Lack of credit diversity
  Having just one or no credit card can also impact your credit score negatively. In fact, a credit card or a loan account that is at least 6 months old is necessary to qualify for FICO scores. Plus, it is recommended to have a variety of revolving and installment credit to improve your score.
• Applying for too many credit channels
  If you make too many credit requests, especially within a short period, it can negatively impact your credit score. This is because of the number of hard inquiries into your account.
• Canceling credit cards
  At first glance, this may seem surprising. Shouldn’t closing a credit card, especially one with zero balance, improve your score? It actually reduces the total credit amount extended to you and shortens the timeline of your credit history. This leads to an increase in your credit utilization ratio.
• Not paying all your bills on time
  While most people know that defaulting on loans and credit card bills can lower their credit score, you may not understand that not paying all the other bills are among the things that hurt your credit score the most. It is essential to pay your utilities and phone bill and make your rent payments on time to maintain a good credit report.