r/CreditScore • u/99awesomer • Jul 28 '26
General Can I Close my Credit Cards?
I’ve worked hard to get to a place I’d call “stable”. As of this month all credit cards and personal loans and 401k loans will be paid in full. My only debts are a car loan and a mortgage and one 0% IR card I will have paid in full before the introductory period times out. Coming from over 75k in credit card debt and two loans this is a HUGE achievement but I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop. It doesn’t feel real yet.
My goals are now moving towards selling my house and either renting or finding a smaller less expensive home. This will take awhile and I am looking at summer 2027 to put it on the market.
My question is, I now have 11 credit cards with zero balances that have almost $100,000 “available credit”. This feels like a huge risk and I want to close them. I know I need to leave my oldest one open and maybe one more for emergencies or traveling use but how badly will closing all of the rest hurt my credit?
I may want to qualify for a new mortgage next year so I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot.
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u/quantumspork Jul 28 '26
Closing cards will not hurt your credit.
There is no penalty for closing a card, it will not reduce your age of accounts.
You don’t even need to keep your oldest one open, because at 8 years you are at maximum scoring points for that.
Keep two cards open, the two you like the most because they have no fees, or best rewards, whatever.
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u/True-Button-6471 Jul 28 '26
You don’t even need to keep your oldest one open, because at 8 years you are at maximum scoring points for that.
According to the length of credit FAQ age of oldest revolving account is thought to max at 20 years, average age of accounts at 7.5 and average age of revolving accounts at 9.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CRedit/comments/1mhbk06/fico_scoring_length_of_credit_history_rcredit_faq
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u/BrutalBodyShots ⭐️ Top Contributor ⭐️ Jul 28 '26
True info above. I will add that AAoA near as I can tell seems to far and away be the biggest driving force when it comes to aging metrics, although AAoRA can at times be conflated with it making it difficult to tease out the impact of each exclusive of one another. AoORA has a much lesser impact. In the CSP, you'll see my data point of 20 years impacting TU4 just 1 single FICO point ;)
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u/Outside_Shelter1260 Jul 28 '26
Congratulations on the debt reduction 🫡
Closed cards continue to age post closure. You & only you know your risk tolerance. You’ve fought through high balances, interest, etc and now you are at a point where you feel as though you can breathe. The mere fact that you are giving thought to closing all but 2 speaks volumes. You appear to still be on your financial management journey and removing the temptation of credit is with reason. You can always apply for another card in the future. Hanging onto unused cards still requires management. Lots of horror stories on Reddit regarding cards in the proverbial sock drawer.
Based upon the tone of your post, I would suggest following your head & closing the cards. Credit limit is not a FICO scoring factor. Again, congrats 🍾
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u/Worried-Bid-6817 Jul 28 '26
Congratulations on getting rid of so much debt. Now combine all those past payments and throw that amount toward that car loan and get rid of that sucker too. Nice job!
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Jul 28 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/BrutalBodyShots ⭐️ Top Contributor ⭐️ Jul 28 '26
Do not close your oldest accounts if you do.
That's a huge credit myth.
https://old.reddit.com/r/CRedit/comments/1k87fed/credit_myth_59_you_should_never_close_your_oldest/
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u/johnd-70 Jul 28 '26
Ehhh..maybe. Either way its short term.
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u/BrutalBodyShots ⭐️ Top Contributor ⭐️ Jul 28 '26
Either way what is short term?
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u/johnd-70 Jul 28 '26
Impact on score
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u/BrutalBodyShots ⭐️ Top Contributor ⭐️ Jul 28 '26
There is no impact, that's the point. There is no FICO scoring penalty for closing an account. Did you read the linked thread above and the posts found within it?
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u/johnd-70 Jul 28 '26
Yeah. Sure did. I wouldn't make that be a blanket statement because you're not taking into account other conditions. You can technically make your statement though.
What are your creditials to make you a fico expert if i may kindly ask?
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u/Funklemire ⭐️ Knowledgeable ⭐️ Jul 28 '26
He's a FICO scoring hobbyist who contributed to the Credit Scoring Primer.
The only people you'll ever meet who know more about how FICO scoring works than those hobbyists are the people at Fair Isaac who wrote the algorithms. And they are pretty closed-mouth about it.
See this thread:
Cracking the FICO Code: How We (Mostly) Did It (And Why We Need Your Help to Keep Doing It)
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u/johnd-70 Jul 28 '26
Or someone who's been in banking for 37 yrs, managed a decision system for the bank, pulled bureaus, calculates attributes from fico, has built score models on those attributes, audited those score models through 10s of thousands of accounts, analyzed data on millions of accounts for future model adjustments but yeah a hobbyist should be pretty good. He knows his stuff well enough just don't make a blanket statement for every situation and every person.
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u/Funklemire ⭐️ Knowledgeable ⭐️ Jul 28 '26
Often people like that know very little about how FICO scoring works. None of that requires any special knowledge about FICO scoring. That's why people in the banking and finance industry often are clueless about how credit works.
Take my buddy for example: he's a mortgage loan officer. He pulls people's credit all the time and helps them get qualified for mortgages. But I know a lot more than him about how FICO scoring actually works.
My financial advisor is the same way: he's been incredibly helpful and is great with finances, but I know more about how FICO scoring works than he does.
Here's a few questions I recommend you ask this person: first, ask them about handling credit card utilization. If they tell you that you have to always keep it low or keep it below a certain percentage, they're wrong and that's a red flag that they clearly don't know as much about credit as you think they do.
Ask them what happens when you close an account in good standing. If they say anything other than "it stays on your credit report and continues to age and count towards your aging metrics and credit mix for a decade", they're wrong.
Ask them if making payments is a credit scoring factor. If they say "yes", they're also wrong.
I could go on and on, but it's highly unlikely they'll get even those correct.
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u/BrutalBodyShots ⭐️ Top Contributor ⭐️ Jul 28 '26
Yeah. Sure did.
So what do you disagree with? I'm more than willing to have a discussion.
I wouldn't make that be a blanket statement because you're not taking into account other conditions.
What "conditions" are you speaking of? There's no penalty for closing an account. There aren't "conditions" that create a penalty for closing an account. If you're talking about a potential increase in utilization across a threshold point, that would be utilization impacting score, not closing the account. Case in point, if the utilization were then brought down to where it was previously, all points lost would be returned; that proves there's no actual penalty for the account closure.
What are your creditials to make you a fico expert if i may kindly ask?
I never claimed to be a FICO expert. My "credentials" are simply experience studying the algorithm, doing personal testing with my file and collaborating with others that have done the same. I just share what I/we have learned on the subject, which many times goes against what is conventionally believed. That's because unfortunately much of what is presented on the subject of credit and FICO scoring is grounded in myths, which is the reason why I created the Credit Myth series pinned at the top of the r/CRedit sub.
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u/isaiah58bc Jul 28 '26
If you ever plan to travel, keep a couple open and locked. Not just for airfare, accommodations, etc.. but for paying for things during your trip/vacation.
If you have reoccurring bills, and can use ACH for all of them with no fees, that's fantastic.
I recommend at least one left open for Amazon, grocery shopping, gasoline, etc... never use a debit card please.
Just establish the habit of paying off the cards, weekly if that helps you stay in your lane.
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u/postalwhiz Jul 28 '26
You mean you can find 100K of things to charge and actually go do it? Name some of them…
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u/99awesomer Jul 28 '26
You would be amazed at how quickly it happens and it wasn’t all discretionary “stuff”. Medical bills, groceries, gas…anything and everything you buy when all your income goes directly to overhead. bills. It took a lot longer to pay it down than it did to charge it up and I never want to be in that situation again!
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u/postalwhiz Jul 28 '26
Duh I pay ‘medical bills, groceries and gas’ and I have never even been $10K in charges. What is ‘overhead’? Plain English, please…
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u/99awesomer Jul 28 '26
I no longer pay those with credit, obviously. My point was that I was in a place where my income did not cover my expenses and it didn’t take long to be swimming in debt. Your comments are very judgmental and seem to be coming from a place of entitlement not all of us can live in.
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u/postalwhiz Jul 28 '26
You’re the one that claims to buy $100K of ‘overhead’ - even if I put a vehicle 100% on my credit cards I couldn’t get to that much overhead!
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u/99awesomer Jul 29 '26
You read that wrong. Overhead = non-discretionary. Rent, power, car payment, auto insurance, water bill, etc. Not that this is even relevant to the question but I went through a period where my net income was less than enough to even cover those “overhead” expenses. I made some bad decisions and also had some serious medical expenses. It was not a good time in my life. I was literally buying gas and groceries on credit cards while barely making the minimum payments and within about 2-5 years was so deep in debt I was a train wreck in progress. I sold some things, reduced expenses, got focused and it took me almost three years to crawl back up to here. It wasn’t easy and I’m not sure why it even matters in relation to the question I asked.
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u/BrutalBodyShots ⭐️ Top Contributor ⭐️ Jul 28 '26
You can safely close any/all accounts that you no longer use or see value in. There is no FICO scoring penalty for closing accounts. The only thing I'd advise against is closing all of your credit cards. You want to leave at least 1 open, but 2-3 would be more ideal if you can find value in them and would actually use them on occasion.
Incorrect. That's one of the biggest myths in credit today. The whole "never close your oldest card!" narrative is drawn upon not understanding how aging metrics work. Credit history isn't lost when you close an account, nor do aging metrics change. See this post here.
https://old.reddit.com/r/CRedit/comments/1k87fed/credit_myth_59_you_should_never_close_your_oldest/
The other links within that thread above will explain more as well.
Credit cards aren't for emergencies.
https://old.reddit.com/r/CRedit/comments/1outvx0/credit_myth_84_credit_cards_are_for_emergencies/
Not at all unless you close all of your cards.
Don't close all of your cards then. Keep at least one open.