What is a good credit score in Canada, by goal

Short answer: A good credit score in Canada is 660 or higher on the 300–900 range Equifax Canada uses, and 725 or higher is where the best pricing starts. The more useful answer is by goal: an insured mortgage needs one borrower at 600, most prime lenders want 680, prime car financing starts near 670, and many landlords screen around 650. The number you need is set by what you are applying for.

What is a good credit score in Canada?

660 and up. According to Equifax Canada, 660 to 724 is good, 725 to 759 is very good, and 760 and above is excellent, on a scale that runs from 300 to 900. Below 660 is fair, and below 560 is poor. Lenders generally read 660 and up as acceptable or lower-risk, which is why that number is the one to aim at first: it is the threshold where mainstream products stop being out of reach.

A credit score is a three-digit number that estimates how likely you are to repay borrowed money on time. It is calculated from five weighted factors: payment history at 35%, utilization at 30%, length of credit history at 15%, credit mix at 10% and new credit at 10%. Nothing else on the file is scored — not your income, not your savings, not your employer. If you want the arithmetic behind each factor, we set out the five factors that decide a Canadian credit score separately.

Industry estimates for 2026 put the average Canadian score near 672 — barely inside the good band, and well below where the best rates live, which is why even a 680 clears most lenders’ bar without buying the best rate. If your number is in the 600s, you are typical rather than an outlier, and the distance between typical and well-priced is roughly sixty points.

What do the Canadian credit score bands actually mean?

They are lender shorthand for risk, not a grade. Each band describes what a file at that level tends to be offered, and the jump between bands matters far more than a ten-point move inside one.

Band	Equifax range	What it usually means in practice
Poor	300–559	Declines are common; approvals come with deposits, co-signers or subprime pricing
Fair	560–659	Approvable, but on the worst terms on the board
Good	660–724	Mainstream cards, car financing and most mortgages open up
Very good	725–759	Best-tier pricing at most lenders; little left to gain from here
Excellent	760–900	No meaningful pricing advantage over very good in most products

Two things people get wrong here. There is no prize above roughly 760 — a file at 780 and one at 840 are quoted the same rate almost everywhere. And these bands are Equifax Canada's: TransUnion Canada runs its own model, so your number will differ between them, and between the apps that show them, sometimes by thirty or forty points. There is a fuller explanation of why your credit score is different on each app if the gap is bothering you. Our guide to the differences between the two Canadian bureaus covers which lenders pull which.

The bands also say nothing about why a file sits where it does. A 610 built from two clean accounts and a short history, and a 610 built from a collection and three late payments, are the same number and opposite problems.

What score do you need, by goal?

Below is the bar for the things Canadians actually apply for. Treat these as the level at which the answer is usually yes on normal terms, not as hard cutoffs; every lender sets its own policy and looks at income and debt load alongside the score.

What you want	Workable score	Comfortable score	What the score is deciding
Insured mortgage (CMHC)	600	680+	Whether the insurer will back the loan at all
Uninsured mortgage, A lender	680	720+	Rate tier and how much documentation you face
Car loan at prime rates	670	720+	Whether you are priced at 5–9% or 10–20%
Mainstream unsecured credit card	660	700+	Approval, then limit size
Apartment with a property manager	620	650+	Whether you need a guarantor or extra deposit
Phone plan on contract	600	650+	Whether a security deposit is required
Home or auto insurance discount	660	720+	Eligibility for credit-based pricing, where permitted

Read the first two columns together. The gap between workable and comfortable is where the money is: at 600 you can buy a house, and at 720 you buy the same house for noticeably less per month. That gap is the whole argument for spending twelve months on the file before a big application rather than after one.

What credit score do you need for a mortgage in Canada?

600 for an insured mortgage, and 680 is the number most prime lenders actually want. According to CMHC, at least one borrower on the application must hold a minimum credit score of 600 — a threshold that came down from 680 — and that applies to purchases under $1.5 million with a down payment below 20%.

Meeting the insurer's floor is not the same as getting a good mortgage. Below 680 you are usually looking at a B lender, an alternative lender or a credit union, which means a higher rate, a lender fee, and often a one- or two-year term instead of five. Above 720 you are in the tier where lenders compete on price rather than deciding whether to say yes.

The rest of the insured-mortgage arithmetic is fixed regardless of your score: 5% down on the first $500,000 and 10% on anything above it, a maximum gross debt service ratio of 39% and total debt service ratio of 44%, and a 30-year amortization available to first-time buyers and buyers of new construction. Those numbers decide how much house; the score decides the price. If a mortgage is the goal, the score a mortgage underwriter wants to see covers the full file review.

One timing rule worth more than any score tactic: do not open anything new in the 90 days before you apply. Fresh inquiries and brand-new accounts are exactly what an underwriter flags, and a file that has been stable for a quarter reads better than a file that improved last week.

Which is why the twelve months before a mortgage application are worth more than the three weeks before it. AvenaCredit members gain an average of 71 points after 12 months, which is roughly the distance from the national average to the very good band.

What score do you need for a car loan, and what does the gap cost?

Around 670 for prime rates, 620 to 669 for near-prime, and below 620 puts you in subprime. Auto lending in Canada is tiered more sharply than any other consumer product, and the tier you land in is set almost entirely by the score.

1. Prime, roughly 670 and up. Typical rates run about 5–9%, and manufacturer promotional financing is usually restricted to this tier.
2. Near-prime, roughly 620 to 669. Rates land around 8–14%. Approval is rarely the issue here; the price is.
3. Subprime, below 620. Rates of 10–20% or more, frequently with a larger down payment and a shorter list of vehicles you are allowed to finance.

The cost is concrete. On a $30,000 loan over 72 months, the difference between 7% and 16% is more than $120 a month and over $8,500 in extra interest across the term — for the identical car. That is the clearest illustration in Canadian consumer credit of what a score band is worth, and it is why the score a car lender prices you on is worth checking before you walk onto a lot rather than after.

Rate-shopping does not wreck your file, either. Multiple auto or mortgage inquiries inside a short window are generally treated as one shopping event by Canadian scoring models. Spreading six applications across four months is what hurts.

Renting, phones and insurance: where the bar sits lower than you think

There is no legal minimum credit score to rent, buy a phone plan or hold insurance in Canada. These are private policy decisions, and far more negotiable than a mortgage.

Property managers commonly screen around 650, but a large share of Canadian rentals are owned by individuals who never pull a report at all. Where one is pulled, the landlord is usually looking for collections and prior evictions rather than a number, and a guarantor or proof of stable income frequently closes the gap. Provincial rules differ on what a landlord may ask for, which our page on credit checks and tenant screening under Ontario's rules sets out for the largest rental market in the country.

Insurance is the one with real legal variation. Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador prohibit insurers from using credit information for auto insurance entirely. Alberta, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick permit it with your consent. For home insurance, most Canadian insurers request a soft credit check nationwide, you must consent to it, and you cannot be refused coverage for saying no — though declining may cost you a credit-based discount.

Consent is not a formality in any of these cases. According to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, under PIPEDA an organization needs your knowledge and consent to collect and use your credit information, and in Quebec, Law 25 adds its own consent and transparency requirements on top. If a landlord, dealer or insurer pulls your file without asking, that is a complaint you can actually make.

When a good score is not what is standing in your way

Some people reading this do not have a score problem. Three situations where working on the number is the wrong move:

Your file is thin, not damaged. If you have one or two clean accounts and a short history, your score is low because there is little to measure, and the fix is time plus a second reported account, not repair. That is a different problem from a file carrying late payments or a collection, and the two are treated in opposite ways. Adding a reported account to a thin file is the right answer; adding one to a damaged file is not.

Your debt load is the binding constraint. An underwriter runs your debt service ratios before the score matters, and if those fail, an 800 does not rescue the application. Paying a card down helps twice; adding a tradeline helps once and worsens the ratio.

You have negative information that simply has to age out. Most negative entries stay on a Canadian credit report for about six years from the date of last activity, and nobody — no company, no service, no lawyer — can remove accurate information early. If a collection from last year is the reason your score is 580, the honest plan is to keep everything else clean while it ages, not to buy anything.

If your file is short on reported history rather than damaged, the shortest route to the good band is another account rating your payments every month. That is what Starter at $24.99/mo does: it reports a $1,000 tradeline to Equifax Canada, so payment history at 35% and credit mix at 10% both start accumulating from the first payment. If you also rent, Build at $34.99/mo reports a $1,500 tradeline plus your rent and utility payments, and Boost at $84.99/mo adds a $4,000 tradeline, a two-year rent backdate, 1-on-1 guidance and the secured card free — that last one is for people with a deadline, not for people starting early. The secured card can be added to any plan at $9.99/mo with a refundable deposit of $250 to $5,000, reported to Equifax as a second tradeline. Compare what each plan puts on your file and pick by what your report is missing.

How do you move from fair to good?

Three levers, in order of speed. Utilization moves first, payment history moves steadily, and length of history moves on its own schedule and cannot be rushed.

Utilization is the share of your available credit you are using on the day the lender reports. It is 30% of the score and the only factor that can change in a single billing cycle. On a $1,000 limit, paying a $900 balance down to $200 before the statement date moves reported utilization from 90% to 20%, and that can show on the next monthly update. Paying in full after the statement prints does not, because the balance already went to the bureau.

Payment history is 35% and is built one month at a time. On a Canadian report each account carries a rating on the R1 to R9 scale, where R1 means paid as agreed within 30 days of the due date and R9 means written off or in collections. A run of R1s is what turns a fair file into a good one, and there is no way to generate that run faster than monthly. Two reporting accounts generate twice as many ratings as one, which is the real reason a second tradeline shortens the climb rather than merely padding the file.

Length of credit history is 15% and is measured from your oldest account. It is the one factor you cannot accelerate, only protect — which is why closing your first card is usually a mistake.

One change worth marking on a calendar if you live in British Columbia: from August 2027, BC residents get free monthly access to both their credit report and their credit score, plus free security alerts and credit freezes. The score has historically been the part you had to pay for.

Common questions

Is 650 a good credit score in Canada?

It is fair, not good. Equifax Canada's good band starts at 660, so 650 sits just underneath it. At 650 you will be approved for most things and priced above the best tier — a mainstream card is realistic, prime car financing usually is not, and a prime mortgage lender will likely want more.

What is the highest credit score in Canada?

900, on both the Equifax Canada and TransUnion Canada consumer scales. Almost nobody reaches it and there is no reason to try. Pricing at most Canadian lenders stops improving somewhere around 760, so the practical ceiling is well below the theoretical one — the arithmetic of what an 800 score actually gets you, and whether 900 is reachable works it through step by step.

Why is my credit score different on Equifax and TransUnion?

Because they are separate companies holding separate data. Not every lender reports to both, updates arrive on different cycles, and each bureau runs its own scoring model. A thirty- to forty-point gap between them is normal. Check the one your lender pulls, which in Canada is most often Equifax.

Does checking my own credit score lower it?

No. Checking your own report or score is a soft inquiry. It is recorded for you, invisible to lenders, and has no effect on the number, no matter how often you do it. Only a hard inquiry from a credit application is visible to others and counted in the 10% new-credit factor.

How fast can a credit score improve in Canada?

Utilization changes can show within one monthly reporting cycle. Payment history improves over months, and length of history over years. A realistic expectation for a clean file with a new reporting account is meaningful movement between months three and twelve, with no guaranteed number at any point.

The number to remember is 660, and the question to ask is what you are trying to do with it. If you are applying for something in the next year, work backwards from the bar in the table above and give yourself twelve months rather than three. If you are not sure whether your file is thin or damaged, start there — the difference between a thin file and a damaged one decides what to fix first, and the timeline for building from nothing tells you how long the honest version takes. Then compare the three plans and choose the one that reports what your file is short of.