Average Credit Scores By State

The United States is a competitive country where striving to be the best garners attention and respect. After all, the U.S. started out as a group of competing colonies, and throughout its history as a country, its free market capitalist approach continued the precedent for internal competition among the states.

From the LendEDU.com blog.

As a financial leader in the world, it’s only natural that some people would be interested to see how each state in America stacks up financially.

One of the best gauges for financial health is the credit score, a widely used financial benchmark. It is a numerical value that represents a consumer’s history with credit, debt, and financial obligations, and it is relied on heavily by lenders and banks deciding whether to issue credit or a loan to a consumer.

On that note, we decided to compare all of the states (and Washington D.C.) by looking at their average credit scores. We wanted to see which states’ residents were doing well financially, and we wanted to see the difference between the top performing states compared to the rest of the country. Scroll down to see which states have the best credit scores, as well as a couple of key findings observed along the way.

In this report, you will find the national average credit score, each state’s average credit score, and average credit scores by region.

Interesting Finds

The national average credit score was 682. A total of 29 states had an above average credit score.

Minnesota ranked first in the U.S. with a credit score of 722, while Mississippi ranked last with a credit score of 648.

Regionally, the Northeast had the highest average credit score (694). The Midwest (693), Pacific (691), and Rocky Mountain (690) regions followed closely behind. The Southeast (668) and Southwest (662) regions had the lowest credit scores on average.

Top States Ranked By Average Credit Score

Rank	State	VantageScore® 3.0	% Difference from Nat’l Avg.
1	Minnesota	722	7.27
2	North Dakota	713	5.64
3	Vermont	713	5.64
4	New Hampshire	712	5.45
5	South Dakota	711	5.27
6	Wisconsin	710	5.09
7	Iowa	708	4.73
8	Massachusetts	706	4.36
9	Washington	704	4.00
10	Hawaii	702	3.64
11	Montana	702	3.64
12	Colorado	701	3.45
13	Nebraska	700	3.27
14	Oregon	700	3.27
15	Connecticut	698	2.91
16	Utah	698	2.91
17	Maine	697	2.73
18	Idaho	695	2.36
19	New York	694	2.18
20	Pennsylvania	694	2.18
21	Wyoming	694	2.18
22	New Jersey	692	1.82
23	Rhode Island	691	1.64
24	Virginia	690	1.45
25	Illinois	689	1.27
26	California	688	1.09
27	Kansas	684	0.36
28	Michigan	684	0.36
29	Ohio	684	0.36
30	Missouri	681	-0.18
31	Delaware	679	-0.55
32	Maryland	679	-0.55
33	Indiana	677	-0.91
34	Alaska	675	-1.27
35	District of Columbia	674	-1.45
36	North Carolina	673	-1.64
37	Florida	672	-1.82
38	Arizona	671	-2.00
39	Kentucky	669	-2.36
40	West Virginia	668	-2.55
41	Tennessee	667	-2.73
42	New Mexico	664	-3.27
43	Oklahoma	663	-3.45
44	Arkansas	662	-3.64
45	South Carolina	660	-4.00
46	Texas	660	-4.00
47	Alabama	657	-4.55
48	Nevada	657	-4.55
49	Georgia	656	-4.73
50	Louisiana	654	-5.09
51	Mississippi	648	-6.18

Showing 1 to 51 of 51 entries

Methodology

Using Experian’s Premiere Aggregated Credit Statisitcs^SM (PACS), Vantage Score®¹ 3.0 and ZIP Code™² data were pulled, and Onboard Informatics provided population, state name, and ZIP Code™ data.

Population statistics were used during processing, but they were not included in the report. The ZIP™ Codes were used to join the Experian and Onboard datasets, but they were not published in the report. Only state names, Vantage Scores, calculated percent differences, and ranks were published.

In order to find the average VantageScore® 3.0 for each state, an average of all the median Vantage Scores in a given state was calculated; the averages were weighted by populations of each Zip Code™ in their respective states.

The national average VantageScore™ 3.0 was calculated in the same way, but data was aggregated fully instead of being broken out by state. Regional averages were calculated in the same way, but they were broken out by region instead of state.

In order to figure out the percent difference between each state average and the national average, each average was converted to a hundred percent scale, then the percent difference was found through a simple percent change calculation.

Each state was ranked from highest to lowest according to VantageScore® 3.0.

Small Business