Also known as credit bureaus, credit reporting agencies collect, maintain, and sell information about you and your credit history (subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act).

The agencies regularly receive information about your accounts and payments from financial institutions with which you've opened an account or taken out a loan. Lenders, credit card companies, potential employers, landlords, utility companies, and others with a permissible purpose buy this information from the credit reporting agencies in the form of a credit report. Credit reporting agencies don't make credit decisions -- the company that requested your credit report determines how your information is interpreted and used. The agencies' practices are regulated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. For more information, see your credit rights.

How do the agencies differ?
The three national credit reporting agencies -- Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union -- process the vast majority of credit reports. They operate very similarly, but due to errors and to financial institutions' inconsistency in reporting information, discrepancies may exist among the versions of your credit file maintained by the three agencies. There are more than a thousand local and regional credit bureaus, but most are owned by or affiliated with one of the three major agencies.