Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open.

Are credit histories/scores international?
It's not just that credit history is local; it's that it's a private business run for profit. The "big three" credit bureaus in the US are Experian, Equifax and Transunion.  They collect information on debt usage and abuse from various companies in the US, and charge a fee to provide that information (and their judgement of you) to companies interested in offering you further credit.  But there's nothing stopping a company from collecting international credit histories, or specialized credit histories either (for instance, there's a company called ChexSystems which focuses on retail purchase financing (mostly auto) and checking account abuse, while ignoring other types of lending). That being said, I don't know of any companies which currently collect international credit histories.  Perhaps in Europe, with more nations in close geographic proximity, there would be, but not in North America.