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An individual has a corporate credit card under their own name where the company reimburses them for expenses into their personal bank account. Corporate credit card bills are paid by the individual's personal bank account. If the corporate card's credit limit needs to be increased for a given month due to higher company expenses, does this affect the individual's personal credit score?

The answer intuitively seems to be "no" but I've heard that if the individual does not pay their corporate credit card bill on time, their personal credit score would be negatively impacted. Credit limit increases seem like they may be related. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not a credit score expert. Hence why I'm asking this.

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    It depends on the card issuer and the nature of the account (authorized user vs employee applied), some don't report commercial accounts to consumer credit bureaus, some only report negative items.
    – Hart CO
    Oct 2, 2017 at 3:30

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The credit score formulas are proprietary secrets, but the inputs to the formulas are known. Credit scores are based solely on the information in your credit report.

Therefore, to answer your question, all you need to do is look at your credit reports. If you do not see the corporate card reporting on your credit report, then things like credit limits and utilization from that account are not currently affecting your credit score, positively or negatively. If your corporate credit card is reported on your credit report, then realize that late payments and utilization on these cards might affect your credit score. (Note that even if the corporate card is not reporting now, they may begin reporting at some point in the future.)

In my limited experience (in the U.S.), I've had one corporate credit card in the past from a previous employer. Although they told me that I was jointly responsible for the card with the company, the card was never reported on my credit report. For that I am grateful: there was at least one time when the company was late with a payment.

The other thing that can (temporarily) affect your credit score is a "hard pull" credit inquiry. When you got the corporate card, did a credit inquiry appear on your report? If so, then it is possible that they might pull your report again before increasing the limit. However, I doubt they would do this. Your employer has a very high corporate-wide limit with the bank. Individual limits on the cards are not very important, and the bank would typically just increase an individual card limit on request from the company.

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    I question your 2nd sentence and entire 2nd paragraph. Do you have any resources that suggest those claims are true? My understanding is that a number of issuers only report negative items from corporate cards to consumer bureaus, so you don't see the card on your personal credit report unless there's been a late payment.
    – Hart CO
    Oct 2, 2017 at 13:23
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    @HartCO Source for claim in 2nd sentence: myfico.com/credit-education/whats-not-in-your-credit-score
    – Ben Miller
    Oct 2, 2017 at 13:31
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    @HartCO About the 2nd paragraph: I suppose it is possible that the corporate card would not report positive info, but still report negative info. It sounds very unfair to me, but I have read articles that claim that corporate cards sometimes do this. (Luckily, the corporate card I had did not.) In any case, the question here isn't really about late payments, but about how a credit limit increase (available credit, utilization, inquiries) affects the score. I've reworded that paragraph.
    – Ben Miller
    Oct 2, 2017 at 13:45

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