YourVoice.Now Summary
Your MoneyCivil LibertiesCorporate BenefitsTransparency & AccountabilityOn-time rent and utility payments could start building your credit — missed ones could hurt it, and you could opt out.
Your Money
Most landlords and utility firms do not send payment records to credit bureaus today. The bill would clear the way for them to do it, so bills you already pay could help your score. Reporting stays the company's choice, not a duty.
If you owe a past-due balance and set up a payment plan, your gas or electric firm could not report you as late while you keep up. That covers plans that stretch out, manage, or forgive the balance. The firm decides whether you are keeping up.
The permission covers your payment record, good or bad, not just the on-time parts. If a landlord or utility chooses to report, a late payment could reach the bureaus the same way an on-time one does.
Civil Liberties
You could opt out by sending a written request to the company that reports the information. There is no single place to do it, so a renter with several utilities would have to write to each one. Nothing stops a company from reporting until you send that request.
Your gas or data use can show when you are home and how you live. Only how you paid, and the terms of your service — deposits, discounts, shutoff rules — could be reported. Usage on its own could not.
The bill says these records may be shared even if another law would block it, so state limits on utility and rent reporting would give way. Your permission would not be asked for first — the burden is on you to say no afterward.
Two parts of credit law let people sue a company that reports wrong information. Those parts would not cover this new reporting, so a consumer could not take a furnisher to court over it. State officials could still bring their own case.
Corporate Benefits
Companies that send these records would not face private lawsuits if they break the new rules. That removes the main way consumers police bad credit reporting, and leaves enforcement to government officials.
Transparency & Accountability
The Government Accountability Office, the agency that audits federal programs, would have to study how this reporting affects consumers. It would send that report to Congress within two years of the bill becoming law.
The same report would have to analyze what reporting everyday cash-flow records does to people's credit scores. Lawmakers would get a read on whether rent, utility, and phone records actually raise or lower scores in practice.
More about this bill
If you pay rent, gas, electric, or phone bills on time, that record usually never reaches your credit report. Landlords, utility firms, and phone companies would be free to send those payment records to the credit bureaus. Public housing agencies could send them too. For a renter with thin or no credit history, months of on-time payments could start counting toward a score. State laws that block this kind of reporting would be pushed aside. Nothing would force a company to report. But the record it may send is the whole record, not just the good parts. A missed payment could reach the bureaus the same way an on-time one does. You could stop it by sending the company a written request to opt out. You would have to send one to each company that reports on you. Utility customers get one guardrail. Say you owe a past-due balance and set up a payment plan. Your gas or electric firm could not mark you late while you keep up. The firm decides whether you are keeping up. Only how you paid may be reported, not how much power or data you used. Companies could not be sued for breaking these new rules, though state officials could still act. A government watchdog would report to Congress within two years on how all this hits people and their scores.
Congressional Summary
Credit Access and Inclusion Act of 2025This bill allows for the reporting of certain positive consumer-credit information (such as the on-time payment of rent or utilities) to consumer reporting agencies.Specifically, a person or the Department of Housing and Urban Development may report information related to a consumer's performance in making payments either under a lease agreement for a dwelling or pursuant to a contract for a utility or telecommunications service. However, information about a consumer's usage of any utility or telecommunications service may be reported only to the extent that the information relates to payment by the consumer for such service or other terms of the provision of that service. Furthermore, an energy utility firm may not report a consumer's outstanding balance as late if the firm and the consumer have entered into a payment plan and the consumer is meeting the obligations of that plan.Specified provisions that establish civil liability with respect to furnishers of information to consumer reporting agencies shall not apply to any violation of the bill.The Government Accountability Office must report on the consumer impact of such reporting and the effect of reporting consumer cash flow data to consumer credit agencies.
Legislative Subjects
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- House
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Introduced in House
- Action Date
- 2025-09-16
- Date Added
- 2026-08-27
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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