6 Ways To Lower Your Credit Card Utilization

Your credit utilization rate, the amount of available credit you use at any given time, is one of the most important factors in determining your credit scores. Here are ways you can lower it.

You’ve heard you should keep your credit card utilization under 30%. Here’s why it’s important and how you could do it.

Your credit utilization— the percentage of your credit limit that you’re using—is one of the most important factors in determining your credit scores. Because a high utilization rate could indicate you’ll have trouble paying your bills on time, a lower utilization rate is generally best for your credit scores.

There are several ways to change your balance or available credit. This can help you improve your credit utilization rate and your credit as a result.

1. Pay down your balance early.

2. Decrease your spending.

3. Pay off your credit card balances with a personal loan.

4. Increase your credit limit.

5. Open a new credit card.

6. Don’t close unused cards.

Credit card utilization rates (also known as credit utilization ratios) are relatively simple to calculate. First, look for the credit limit on your credit card account. Then divide the balance on your monthly statement by your credit limit, and that’s your credit utilization rate.

So, if you have a $5,000 credit limit and spend $1,000 during your billing period, your credit utilization rate will be 20% ($1,000 divided by $5,000 – multiply that number by 100 get the percentage.)

If you have several credit cards, you can combine the balances and divide that number by the combined credit limits to find your overall credit utilization rate.

Lowering your credit utilization rate could be a great way to boost your credit.

Unlike some other credit score factors, “utilization is a powerful tool for improving your credit in a short time frame,” says Sarah Davies, senior vice president of analytics, research and product management at VantageScore.

It can take months or years for your scores to recover after a late payment or bankruptcy. However, “if you could pay down all your credit cards in one month, your credit could improve dramatically,” Davies says.

Whether you’re looking for a quick boost or want to learn how to sustain good credit, here are six ways to lower your credit utilization rate.

1. Pay down your balance early.

One tricky point about credit card utilization rates is that your usage depends on the balance that your card’s issuer reports to the credit bureaus, not how much you spend each month. Those two numbers aren’t always the same.

Also, your issuer may not even report to all three of the major credit bureaus, Equifax®, Experian® and TransUnion® — and in some cases, it may not report to any of them.

Typically, issuers report the balance at the end of your billing cycle.

However, some issuers may send the data at the same time each month for all cardholders, regardless of when your billing cycle ends. Your best bet may be to ask your issuer so you can be certain.

What this means is that your issuer may report your billing cycle’s balance before you pay it off. This reported balance will add to your credit utilization.

However, if you pay down part, or all, of your balance before issuers report your balance for the billing cycle, your credit utilization rate for that card will go down.

2. Decrease your spending.

If you’re working to pay down credit card debts and can’t afford to make partial or full payments early, it can be helpful to stop using your credit cards to make purchases. Otherwise, your new purchases may offset your payments, and your credit utilization rate won’t go down.

Switch to a debit card or cash for your regular purchases, and as you make credit card payments to pay off debt, your credit utilization rate could drop.

3. Pay off your credit card balances with a personal loan.

Because credit utilization rates are a reflection of how you use revolving credit, you could take out a personal loan, pay off your credit cards and effectively move the debt to an installment loan (potentially with a lower interest rate than your credit cards). 

Common Question:

What is an installment loan?

An installment loan is a loan that you repay with a set number of scheduled payments over time. Types of installment loans include auto loans, mortgages and personal loans.

However, there are multiple drawbacks to this approach. You’ll need to qualify for the loan and may have to pay an origination fee on the money you borrow.

And to qualify for the best interest rates on a personal loan, you need to have excellent credit (in addition to other factors). If you have average or poor credit, the interest rate on the personal loan may be higher or lower than that on your credit card(s).

4. Increase your credit limit.

Another way to improve your credit utilization rate is to increase your credit limit.

You can call your credit card’s issuer to request a credit limit increase, or you may be able to make the request online. Your card’s issuer may have criteria you need to meet, such as having your account for a specific period of time.

The lender will likely also base its decision on your usage and payment history with the card – so if you have a history of late payments, you’re unlikely to be approved for a limit increase.

Requesting a credit limit increase can result in a hard inquiry, even if the issuer doesn’t approve your request. The inquiry could ding your credit slightly depending on the rest of your credit, although this impact can vary widely depending on the rest of your credit. For example, if you have little credit history, a hard inquiry may impact you more.

5. Open a new credit card.

Another way to increase your available credit is to open a new credit card.

You won’t necessarily know what the credit limit will be until after you’re approved because it depends on the issuer’s consideration of multiple factors, such as your income and credit history. Some cards may have a minimum credit limit.

For example, some Visa Signature® and World Elite Mastercard® cards have a minimum $5,000 credit limit. But even with these types of cards the minimum limit can depend on the card or issuer and you won’t necessarily get a high credit limit.

As with requesting a credit limit increase, applying for a new card generally results in a hard inquiry regardless if the issuer approves your application.

6. Don’t close unused cards. 

As you take steps to get your credit in order, you may want to clear out financial clutter by closing credit cards that you don’t often use.

While this could make managing your wallet easier, closing an account can also lower your available total credit and increase your credit utilization rate.

Managing your credit utilization rate can be a simple way to help improve and maintain your credit. Focus on both parts of the equation — your balance and your credit limit — and look for ways to decrease and maintain a low ratio for the best possible impact.

While recovering from a late payment or another derogatory mark can take months or years, lowering your credit utilization rate could result in a quick, significant improvement in your credit.

Does Checking Your Own Credit Score Hurt Your Credit Score?

Credit can be a confusing concept. But if you want to understand your credit scores, you can start by focusing on high-impact factors like your credit card utilization, payment history and any derogatory marks on your reports.

According to TransUnion’s July 2017 credit literacy survey, a lot of people think so. Of the 1,002 U.S. consumers included in the survey, nearly half thought that checking your own credit scores has the same effect as when a lender checks them.

Fortunately, this isn’t the case. As many know, checking your credit scores on Credit Karma is reported as a soft inquiry and it won’t negatively impact them.

But that got us thinking: What other questions or misconceptions do people have about credit? The factors that actually make up a credit score may be a lot different from what you think.

Let’s dig a bit deeper.

What’s in a credit score?

Below are the factors that are typically used to calculate your credit scores, by the level of impact they can have on your scores. Because there are different credit scoring models, how factors are weighted can vary slightly from model to model.

High impact

Credit card utilization: This refers to how much of your available credit you’re using at any given time. It’s determined by dividing your total credit card balances by your total credit card limits.

Most experts recommend keeping your overall credit card utilization below 30 percent. Why? Because lower credit utilization rates suggest to creditors that you can use credit responsibly without relying too much on it. Individuals whose credit card utilization soars above 30 percent may be more likely to fail to repay their loans than those who keep their balances low.

Another benefit of keeping your utilization low? Having available credit can help if something unexpected arises which you then have to pay for.

Payment history: This is represented as a percentage showing how often you’ve made on-time payments. Paying bills on time shows lenders and creditors that you’re reliable and more likely to pay back your debts.

Late or missed payments can significantly harm your credit scores, so it’s important to try to pay all your bills on time.

Derogatory marks: As of July 1, 2017, about half of all tax liens and nearly all civil judgments have been removed from consumers’ credit reports. That’s good news, because having those derogatory marks on your reports can lower your credit scores. Other derogatory marks that may affect your credit include accounts in collections, bankruptcies and foreclosures.

Medium impact

Age of credit history: This factor shows how long you’ve been managing credit. It doesn’t refer to — as some may think — your actual age.

While your average age of accounts isn’t typically the most important factor used to calculate your credit scores, it’s important to think about. Closing your oldest credit card account, for example, could end up negatively impacting your scores.

To sum up: The longer you manage your credit responsibly, the more you demonstrate your creditworthiness to lenders.

Low impact

Total accounts: This refers to the number of credit cards, loans, mortgages and other lines of credit you have.

Lenders generally like to see that you have used a mix of accounts on your credit responsibly. It generally shows that other lenders have trusted you with credit.

Hard inquiries: Hard inquiries usually occur when you apply for a new line of credit, such as a loan, credit card or mortgage, but can also take place when, for example, you rent an apartment.

A lot of hard inquiries on your credit reports within a short time period may suggest that you’re desperate for credit or aren’t getting approved by other lenders.

Hard inquiries can slightly lower your credit scores. It might seem counterintuitive: To build your credit, you need lines of credit — so why should your credit scores take a hit because you applied for a new account?

Some experts say that any time you take on a new credit obligation, there’s an element of risk involved. Credit models see that and want to understand if you’re able to handle that new obligation.

After you’ve made on-time payments for a few months, the impact of that hard inquiry should go away or diminish, experts say.

What Factors Affect A Credit Score?

From opening new accounts to making a late payment, there are a lot of things that can affect your credit scores. Learn which factors are generally most important, and which may only have a minor impact on your scores.

If you have a goal to reach a particular score or just want to learn more about credit scores in general, it’s important to know what affects your credit scores and how your actions could improve or hurt your creditworthiness.

Although there are many credit scoring models, all the scores are trying to figure out the same thing — the likelihood of you paying your bill on time, or even at all. And whether you’re looking at a FICO® or VantageScore® credit score, your scores are based on the same information: the data in your credit reports.

While various credit scoring models may weigh each factor differently, the leading ones, FICO® and VantageScore®, place similar relative importance on the following five categories of information. We’ve ranked them by which ones are often most important to the average consumer.

1. Most important: Payment history

Your payment history is one of the most important credit scoring factors.

Having a long history of on-time payments is best for your credit scores, while missing a payment could hurt them. The effects of missing payments can also increase the longer a bill goes unpaid. So a 30-day late payment might have a lesser effect than a 60- or 90-day late payment.

How much a late payment affects your credit can also vary depending on how much you owe. Don’t worry though, if you start making on-time payments and actively reduce the amount owed, then the impact on your scores can diminish over time.

If you’re having trouble making payments at all, you could also wind up with a public record, such as a foreclosure or tax lien, that ends up on your credit reports and can hurt your scores. Sometimes a single derogatory mark on your credit, such as a bankruptcy, could have a major impact.

2. Very important: Credit usage

Credit usage is also an important factor, and it’s one of the few that you may be able to quickly change to improve(or hurt) your credit health.

The amount you owe on installment loans — such as a personal loan, mortgage, auto loan or student loan — is part of the equation. However, even more important is your current credit utilization rate.

Your utilization rate is the ratio between the total balance you owe and your total credit limit on all your revolving accounts (credit cards and lines of credit). A lower utilization rate is better for your credit scores. Maxing out your credit cards or leaving part of your balance unpaid can hurt your scores by increasing your utilization rate.

Sarah Davies, senior vice president of analytics, research and product management at VantageScore®, says that for VantageScore® credit scores, your overall utilization rate is more important than the utilization rate on an individual account.

However, utilization rates on individual accounts can also affect your credit scores. This means you should pay attention to not just your overall credit utilization, but also the utilization on individual credit cards. Having a lot of accounts with balances might indicate that you’re a riskier bet for a lender.

Keep in mind that you can pay your bill in full each month and still appear to have a high utilization rate. The calculation uses the balance that your credit card issuers report to the bureaus, often around the time it sends you your monthly statement. You may have to make early payments throughout your billing cycle if you want to use a lot of credit and maintain a low utilization rate.

3.  Length of credit history

A variety of factors related to the length of your credit history can affect your credit, including the following:

• The age of your oldest account

• The age of your newest account

• The average age of your accounts

• Whether you’ve used an account recently

Opening new accounts could lower your average age of accounts, which may hurt your scores. However, the hit to your scores could also be more than offset by lowering your utilization rate and by increasing your total credit limit, making sure to make on-time payments to the new card and adding to your credit mix.

Closed accounts can stay on your credit reports for up to 10 years and increase the average age of your accounts during that time. But once the account drops off your credit reports, it could lower this factor, and hurt your scores. The impact could be more significant if the account was also your oldest account.

4. Credit mix and types

Having experience with different types of credit, like revolving credit card accounts and installment student loans, may help improve your credit health.

Since your credit mix is a minor factor, you probably shouldn’t take out a loan and pay interest just to add to your credit mix. But if you’ve only ever had installment loans, you may want to open a credit card and use it for minor expenses that you can afford to pay off each month.

5.  Recent credit

Creditors may review your credit reports and scores when you apply to open a new line of credit. A record of this, known as an inquiry, can stay on your credit reports for up to two years.

Soft inquiries, like those that come from checking your own scores and some loan or credit card prequalifications, don’t hurt your scores.

Hard inquiries, when a creditor checks your credit before making a lending decision, can hurt your scores even if you don’t get approved for the credit card or loan. But often a single hard inquiry will have a minor effect. Unless there are other negatives marks, your scores could recover, or even rise, within a few months.

The impact of a hard inquiry may be more significant if you’re new to credit. It can also be greater if you have many hard inquiries during a short period.

Don’t be afraid to shop for loans, though. Credit scoring models recognize that consumers want to compare their options. So multiple inquiries for mortgages, auto loans and student loans from a single 14- to 45-day period (depending on the loan and credit scoring model) may be treated as a single inquiry when calculating your scores.

Bottom line

There are many credit scores, and you may not know which one a lender is going to use when considering your application. However, consumer credit scores, which are determined based on the information in your consumer credit reports, weigh factors in a similar manner. If you focus on improving these factors, you could improve your credit health across the board.