Does canceling a credit card hurt your credit?
Age of Credit
Closing a credit card can increase your credit utilization ratio, which is the amount of credit you're using compared to your total available credit. It can also leave you with a lower average age of credit and fewer types of credit accounts. This can lead to a dip in your credit score.
Key Takeaways
A credit card can be canceled without harming your credit score. To avoid damage to your credit score, paying down credit card balances first (not just the one you're canceling) is key. Closing a charge card won't affect your credit history (history is a factor in your overall credit score).
Your credit utilization ratio goes up
By closing a credit card account with zero balance, you're removing all of that card's available balance from the ratio, in turn, increasing your utilization percentage. The higher your balance-to-limit ratio, the more it can hurt your credit.
If you still owe the card provider, you won't be able to formally cancel a credit card. You can let the provider know you want to cancel it, but they will keep it open (visible on your credit report) until it is paid off.
“When you close a credit card, you lose the available credit limit on your account. This can increase your utilization rate or your balance-to-limit ratio, which in turn will temporarily lower your credit score,” says Rod Griffin, senior director consumer education and advocacy at Experian.
The answer is worth repeating loud and clear: Never, under any circ*mstances, should you close a credit card less than one year after opening it. While it is possible to do so, there are many reasons why canceling a credit card before the annual fee is due is a bad idea.
Canceling a credit card will cause a direct hit to your credit score, so more often than not, you'll want to keep the account open. Correctly managing an open, rarely-used account may require some extra attention, but the added effort will help your credit in the long run.
- Call and negotiate fees. ...
- Pay off any remaining balance before closing the card. ...
- Redeem your rewards. ...
- Update billing information where this card is being used.
Closing a credit card could lower the amount of overall credit you have versus the amount of credit you're using (your debt to credit utilization ratio), which could impact your credit scores.
What is a perfect FICO credit score?
A perfect credit score of 850 is hard to get, but an excellent credit score is more achievable. If you want to get the best credit cards, mortgages and competitive loan rates — which can save you money over time — excellent credit can help you qualify. "Excellent" is the highest tier of credit scores you can have.
- Pay off any remaining balance. Pay off your credit card balance in full prior to canceling your card. ...
- Redeem any rewards. ...
- Call your bank. ...
- Send a cancellation letter. ...
- Check your credit report. ...
- Destroy your old card.
There is no right number of credit cards to own, and owning multiple cards gives you access to different rewards programs that various cards offer. Owning five cards would give you a bigger total line of credit and lower your credit utilization ratio. If you can manage five cards at once, it's not too many for you.
How many credit cards is too many or too few? Credit scoring formulas don't punish you for having too many credit accounts, but you can have too few. Credit bureaus suggest that five or more accounts — which can be a mix of cards and loans — is a reasonable number to build toward over time.
It's generally recommended that you have two to three credit card accounts at a time, in addition to other types of credit. Remember that your total available credit and your debt to credit ratio can impact your credit scores. If you have more than three credit cards, it may be hard to keep track of monthly payments.
- No more temptation to go into debt: Only you can know: will you be tempted to use that zero balance card again if you don't close the account? ...
- It may not affect your credit score: ...
- You want to keep track of fewer cards:
Opening a credit card and then closing it quickly is also damaging for scores that have a short credit history and can impact your chances of being offered loans in the future.
Usually, yes—many card issuers will refund an annual fee if you close the account and request a refund quickly enough. You usually have about 30 days after an annual fee is incurred—sometimes more, sometimes less. It varies highly by issuer and is not always guaranteed.
If you don't use a credit card for a year or more, the issuer may decide to close the account. In fact, inactivity is one of the most common reasons for account cancellations. When your account is idle, the card issuer makes no money from transaction fees paid by merchants or from interest if you carry a balance.
If you change your mind and don't want a card that you recently opened, it's smarter to call the issuer to cancel the card than just ignoring it. You might get hit with an unexpected annual fee, or the card will be closed because the issuer considers your account inactive.
Does your credit score go up if you close an account?
Not directly, no. Information about your bank account generally isn't included on your credit report because it's not thought of as credit. So closing your bank account shouldn't affect your credit score. But if you close your bank account when you're overdrawn, you could find that this does have an impact.
This is because your total available credit is lowered when you close a line of credit, which could result in a higher credit utilization ratio. Additionally, if the account you closed was your oldest line of credit, it could negatively impact the length of your credit history and cause a drop in your scores.
In the U.S., the average credit score is 716, per Experian's latest data from the second quarter of 2023. And when you break down the average credit score by age, the typical American is hovering near or above that score.
While older models of credit scores used to go as high as 900, you can no longer achieve a 900 credit score. The highest score you can receive today is 850. Anything above 800 is considered an excellent credit score.
The minimum credit score needed for most mortgages is typically around 620. However, government-backed mortgages like Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans typically have lower credit requirements than conventional fixed-rate loans and adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs).
