What Will Canceling Credit Cards Do To My Credit Score?

Which credit cards should you cancel to have the least negative impact on your credit score? Canceling old credit cards that you don't use anymore shouldn't have too much of an effect on your credit score as long as the remaining cards are kept to a balance below 50% of your available credit. Your credit score will be higher if you are using and repaying credit, rather than just holding onto some old credit cards.

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[RainbowConure]

@TranceScene The average household has $16,000 of credit card debt, so I think it is a bad idea to NOT cancel credit cards. As long as you have the cards you'll keep spending on them and you'll never pay off the debt. The only way to pay them off is to cancel the cards. I think otherwise most people can't pay them off because having a lot of credit is an irresistible temptation. So I get sick of people who say not to cancel your cards. I think that's bullshit.

[TranceScene]

Even Fair Isaac says not to close any credit card accounts if you have more than 3.

[TranceScene]

The ideal utilization rate is not 50% of your balance it's 30%. The lower the better but stay below 30%.

[TranceScene]

He's wrong. Closing credit card accounts never helps and always drops your score. This is because your account's age makes up for 15% of your overall credit score. You never want to close credit cards even if you don't use them. Closing the oldest credit cards will hurt your credit score MORE than closing a newer card. This is because the credit bureaus look at the age of your credit cards as an overall average age amongs them. The oldest credit cards with the highest limit are the keepers.