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The card sitting untouched in your drawer might be doing more for your credit score than the one you use every day.
Your credit score is heavily impacted by your total available credit and your length of credit history. A $10,000 limit you never touch is still $10,000 of available credit working quietly in your favor.
Cancel it, and that $10,000 is gone.
Your utilization ratio takes an immediate hit
When you close a credit card, you lose the available credit on that account. That increases your overall credit utilization ratio, which is the percentage of your total revolving credit you’re currently using.
The $10,000 number is where it gets concrete. Say you carry $3,000 in balances across your other cards and you have $20,000 in total available credit right now. Your utilization is 15%, which is well inside the range that helps your score. Cancel the $10,000 card, and your available credit drops to $10,000. Same $3,000 in balances, but now your utilization is 30%. That’s the threshold where it really starts working against you.
The impact is more significant when you cancel a card with a high credit limit. A $2,000 limit card barely moves the needle. A $10,000 card can move it quite a bit. If you’re thinking about canceling a card, it’s worth knowing what else is out there first. Compare some of the best credit cards available right now before you make a decision.
Your credit history could eventually shorten
Closed accounts do not immediately reduce the average age of your credit accounts. A card closed in good standing stays on your credit report for 10 years and continues to factor into your score the whole time.
The age hit comes later, when the account finally drops off. If you have four cards open for 10 years, five years, four years, and one year, your average age is five years. Close the 10-year account and the average drops to two and a half years. If the card you’re canceling is also your oldest account, that future drop is worth thinking through before you close it.
What to do instead
You may be able to ask for a product change and switch to a card in your issuer’s collection with a lower annual fee while keeping the original account history on your credit report. Card providers sometimes lower fees or offer additional rewards to get cardholders to stay.
If the card has an annual fee you don’t want to pay anymore, ask about a downgrade before you close it. Chase, Citi, and most major issuers have no-annual-fee versions of their paid cards. You keep the account age, you keep the credit limit, and the fee goes away.
If you have another card with the same issuer, you may be able to transfer your available credit limit to that card before closing the unused account. That way the $10,000 moves instead of disappears.
If a downgrade is on the table, here are some of the best no-annual-fee credit cards worth comparing right now.
When closing actually makes sense
None of this means you should never cancel a card. It can make sense when the account charges an annual fee you no longer find worthwhile, the card encourages overspending, or you want to simplify a large number of open accounts.
Closing an account hurts, at least temporarily. But the question is whether what you’re getting out of closing it is worth the short-term score hit.
For most cards with a $10,000 limit, the answer is probably: ask about the downgrade first.
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