Does SoLo Funds Report to Credit Bureaus or Build Credit?

No, SoLo Funds does not report to credit bureaus. The company sends no loan or repayment information to Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion, and according to a 2024 federal complaint filed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, SoLo “reported zero information to the credit bureaus, and it was never equipped to furnish consumer credit information.”¹ On-time SoLo payments will not raise your credit score, and SoLo itself will not lower it. An unpaid loan that gets handed to a third-party collector, however, can still land on your credit report through that collector.

On-Time SoLo Payments Will Not Build Your Credit

Because neither timely nor missed payments are transmitted to any of the three nationwide credit reporting agencies, a spotless history on SoLo carries no weight when you apply for a mortgage, an auto loan, or a credit card. The CFPB confirmed in its complaint that SoLo had a practice of never reporting any information to the bureaus and was never set up to do so.¹

Traditional lenders like banks and credit unions report your payment activity to the bureaus, and that is how consistent payments gradually strengthen a credit profile. SoLo operates outside that system entirely. If building credit is the reason you’re borrowing, SoLo is the wrong tool.

Some borrowers ask whether services like Experian Boost can capture SoLo repayments. Boost covers categories such as phone bills, internet service, utility payments, and streaming subscriptions. Peer-to-peer loan repayments like those on SoLo are not an eligible category.

An Unpaid SoLo Loan Can Still Reach Your Credit Report

SoLo handles collections itself for roughly the first 60 to 90 days after a missed payment, contacting borrowers by email and text.¹ Once a loan is 35 or more days overdue, a late fee of about 10% of the principal is charged, and SoLo adds its own recovery fee on top of that.

After approximately 90 days without payment, SoLo places the unpaid loan with a third-party collection agency.¹ That agency operates independently. While SoLo has never reported to credit bureaus, a third-party collector generally has the legal authority to report an unpaid debt after providing you with proper notice, typically a written validation notice followed by a 14-day waiting period.²

If a collection account does appear on your credit report, it can remain there for up to seven years from the date of the original missed payment.³ Federal law prohibits credit reporting agencies from including collection accounts older than seven years.⁴ A collection entry can meaningfully lower your credit score and signal to future lenders that you defaulted on a past obligation, even one for only a few hundred dollars.

The practical takeaway: SoLo won’t touch your credit file directly, but ignoring a loan long enough for it to reach outside collections can produce the same result as if SoLo reported it itself.

The SoLo Score Is Not a Credit Score

Instead of pulling your FICO score, SoLo evaluates borrowers using an internal metric called the SoLo Score, which runs from 20 to 99. The number is based primarily on your cash flow. SoLo connects to your bank account through Plaid and reviews your income, spending patterns, current balance, transaction history, and any past insufficient-funds fees.⁵ The platform also gathers information about your mobile device and considers your history of prior SoLo loans.¹

Lenders on the platform, who are individual people rather than banks, see your SoLo Score alongside your loan request and decide whether to fund it. A higher score generally makes funding easier and may lead to better terms. That score, however, exists only inside SoLo’s ecosystem. No mortgage lender, credit card issuer, or auto financing company will ever see it.

When you first sign up, SoLo does run a soft credit inquiry, not a hard pull.⁶ A soft inquiry does not affect your credit score and does not appear to other lenders reviewing your file.

SoLo Previously Sent False Credit Reporting Threats

If you received a collection email from SoLo warning of credit damage, that warning was not backed by any actual reporting. Between at least 2020 and 2022, SoLo’s collection emails told borrowers that unpaid loans “could negatively affect your credit score for up to 7 years” and that “reporting our members to the credit bureaus is used as a last resort.”¹ According to the CFPB’s complaint, these threats were false; SoLo never took any such action and had no intention of doing so.

The CFPB filed a federal lawsuit against SoLo in May 2024, alleging violations of both the Consumer Financial Protection Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The federal case was dismissed in February 2025 under new CFPB leadership, though the dismissal did not address the underlying factual allegations. Several state regulators, including those in California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C., have separately reached settlements or issued consent orders against SoLo over its lending practices.

Better Options If You Want to Build Credit

If your goal is a stronger credit file, use a product that reports to the bureaus. A secured credit card, a credit-builder loan from a credit union or community bank, or an installment loan from a reporting lender each creates a verifiable payment history that future lenders can see. These options carry their own costs and qualification requirements, but they produce the outcome SoLo cannot: a record on your Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion reports that grows with every on-time payment.

1
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB v. SoLo Funds Inc. – Complaint
2
Federal Trade Commission. Debt Collection FAQs
3
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Long Does Information Stay on My Credit Report?
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
5
SoLo Funds. What’s SoLo’s Risk Measure?
6
SoLo Funds. Terms of Service