Lawyers.com > Understand Your Legal Issue > Banking Law > Consumer Banking > Changing Names or Adding a Spouse to a Credit Card

If you just got married, you may need to change your name on your credit card accounts and you may want to add your spouse's name to your credit cards or add your name to your spouse's credit cards as either a joint card holder or as an authorized user.

Changing Names

If you choose to take your spouse's name, you will need to change your credit card accounts to reflect your married name. It should be fairly easy to get your new last name put on your account and on your new charge card. You may want to first call your credit card company to notify them of your name change and follow up your call with a letter. Also, you may want to see if there is a name change form available on the company's Web site. You will want to request that they change your name on your account and issue you a new credit card in your new name. You will probably need to include a copy of your marriage license for verification purposes.

Adding Your Spouse to Credit Card Accounts

There are two ways to add a spouse to your credit card account. You can become joint card holders, which means that you will both be responsible for paying the bill, or one spouse can be added to the other spouse's credit card as an authorized user, which means that the authorized user may use the card but is not responsible for paying the bill.

When you become joint card holders of a credit card, both of you become 100 percent responsible for any debt on the credit card. Adding your spouse as a co-borrower will not impact your credit score because your credit score shows only your credit history but the new account will be included on your spouse's credit history. Going forward of course, if you misuse your account, such as making late payments, both of your credit scores will be affected. If your spouse has a lower credit score than you, your spouse's credit score could go up since your positive history on the credit card account will now be a part of your spouse's credit history. Therefore, the main reason to add a spouse to a credit card it to raise their credit score.

Even if neither of you have very high credit scores, having a joint account can help the credit rating of the spouse that was added to the account because it adds an extra credit account to the spouse's credit history. Another reason to set up joint credit card accounts is to help a spouse that has no credit rating at all. This can help your spouse to quickly establish a credit history. Keep in mind that this can work in reverse and damage the credit rating of the spouse that was added to your card if you have negative items such as late payments on the account-that negative history would be added to your spouse's credit files.

If you decide to change any of your individual credit card accounts to joint accounts, you will need to fill out an application for each credit card account that you want to modify. The card issuer will check your spouse's credit report. Your interest rate and credit limit may go up or down, depending on your combined credit histories.

When you add your spouse to your credit account as an authorized user, you are allowing your spouse to use your credit card but not making your spouse responsible for paying the bill. Your account information, and your spouse's status as an authorized user will show up on your spouse's credit reports. However, under new formulas for calculating credit scores, expected to be put into use by the credit reporting bureaus or companies during 2008, information from a credit card account for which you are only an authorized user will not be used in calculating your credit score.

Credit History, Credit Rating and Credit Score

Your credit history is a record of how you have maintained any accounts in your name. Your credit history is compiled and maintained by companies called credit bureaus or consumer reporting agencies. The three main ones are Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

Your credit rating is an assessment of your credit worthiness and is based on your credit history. Whether or not you are credit worthy is usually determined through statistical analysis of your available credit history. The result is a credit score, which is a number generated by a formula based on information in your credit report. One of the most common scores used in called a FICO (Fair Isaac Corporation) score. The resulting score is a prediction of how likely you are to pay your bills. Whether or not you get credit and how high your interest rate will be are based on your credit score. A higher credit score means a lower interest rate.

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- Choosing a Credit Card
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