How high will my credit score go after paying off my credit cards?

[Mary]

How much of an increase in credit score can be expected if I pay off my credit cards below 10%? Is it better to bring it down over a few months or a one-time payment? I have no derogatory or otherwise negative information on my report other than high revolving credit utilization.

[Tracy Winters]

40 – 70 points

A fair assumption would be 40-70 points, depending on many factors such as your current utilization, length of credit history, diversity of credit accounts, current score etc. For each different credit profile, a different increase can be expected.

If it’s really important for you to know in advance how high your score will go, use a FICO Simulator to figure out exactly how much YOUR credit profile can benefit from lowering revolving utilization.

Paying off your credit cards is actually the only quick way to raise your credit score. In fact, if you’re planning on applying for a car loan, mortgage or even another credit card – you’ll do yourself a big favor by paying of your credit cards.

Paying off CCs does three good things to your credit

1. Lowers your utilization
2. Raises your credit score
3. Lowers your debt-to-income ratio

Since debt-to-income is a major factor in any lending decision, I always advice to pay off credit card before applying for new credit. You can even do better by paying credit card before statement arrives to actually force the credit card companies to report a $0 balance. This will improve your chances of approval and get you the best available terms.

[Dan]

75 Points

My FICO went up 75 points bump by decreasing utilization from 55% to 0. I had one of my card maxed out prior to this, but I have no idea if and how it affected my credit.

[Witney]

I saw only 10 points increase

My Fico went up by only 10 points after going down from 70% to 10%, but that is probably because my credit report isn’t clean – I have a 5 yrs old medical collection account. I guess that w/o it my increase would have been much higher.

[Adam]

I got a 70 pts bump

Mine went up around 70 points over a one month period when I reduced my util from 52% to 0%. I don’t think it matters if you do it over a long period of time or in one big payment. Only the final balances matter.

[Sharon]

Haven’t seen an increase yet 🙁

Got my utilization down from 76% to 40% but hadn’t seen any improvement yet. Would be interesting to see next month what will happen to it after I bring it down to around 30%…

[Linda]

I gained 44 points going down from 40% util to 5%

[Jess]

Only the final balance matters

FICO score has no memory of past balances/utilization. The only thing that matters to FICO is your current utilization, so lowering it over a long period of time has no benefits. The faster your UTIL goes down – the faster your FICO goes up!

[David]

I saw 59 points increase, but only after my utilization when down below 10%.

[Justin]

46 points bump

For bringing down my utilization from 96% to 25%. Hope to see at least 20 points increase next month when I get it further down to 0%.<

[Kate]

Which CC to pay first?

My total utilization is only 24%, but I’m maxed on one of my cards. What’s more important – bring down total util or just the maxed card?

[Joice]

Hard to tell

I gained 20 points after paying off my maxed card, which only accounted for ~20% of my overall utilization. Can’t really tell if it came from the overall drop in utilization or from the card no longer being maxed

[Nigel]

Almost 90 points~

I went from around 85% utilization (during my %0 APR period) down to around 10% utilization, and saw my score going up from about 630 to 720. It took a year or so to get there, though.

[Mary]

Gained 22 points for bringing utilization from 28% to 6%.

[JenniferS]

I’m sure that the CC balance is a major factor in FICO. More than they admit. My FICO score was in the low 600 for almost 2 yrs because I maxed out my CL. When I payed of the balance below 15% it went up to just above 700 in two months!

[Author]

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