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Individual utilization or overall utilization?

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Anonymous
Not applicable

Individual utilization or overall utilization?

So i paid all of my credit cards down to 0 except for one. I got an alert that one of my cards reported a 0 from holding a balance for what seemed like forever but i received no points.Do you earn points for individual utilization or overall utilization. I would be going from 90%overall utilization to 31%.

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4 REPLIES 4
RobertEG
Legendary Contributor

Re: Individual utilization or overall utilization?

Fari Isaac has stated on numerous occasions that scoring of util of revolving credit is a combination of scoring of overall % util and of the % util of each individual account.

Anectotal posts here in the forum indicate that overall % util is weighed higher than combined effect of individual accounts.

 

Being, for example, at 95% util on one card while still having an overall % util of 10% is not the same as having all cards at 10%.

Message 2 of 5
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Individual utilization or overall utilization?

So from what I am gathering i will receive the biggest jump when it reports that the overall utilization has dropped?

Message 3 of 5
Thomas_Thumb
Senior Contributor

Re: Individual utilization or overall utilization?


@Anonymous wrote:

So i paid all of my credit cards down to 0 except for one. I got an alert that one of my cards reported a 0 from holding a balance for what seemed like forever but i received no points.Do you earn points for individual utilization or overall utilization. I would be going from 90% overall utilization to 31%.


Overall utilization has a much greater impact on score than does individual card utilization. Some milestones for overall utilization to target are: below 80%, below 50%, below 20% and below 10%. Going from 90% to 31% will result in a significant score boost. You will see another nice boost when overall UT drops below 20%. .

 

Individual card utilization does not have much of an impact unless it is/was maxed out (generally assumed to be around 80%) or sometimes when it is at zero (see below). I allow individual cards to report utilizations up to at least 50% and it has no effect on score - no impact because overall utilization was maintained at a low level and that's the trigger.

 

The number of cards that report a non zero balance is a factor looked at in credit scoring. Your score will drop if none of your cards report a balance (red flag for no recent use of credit). Generally reporting a zero balance on all cards but one - as you are doing - will help optimize score as well.

 

 

Fico 9: .......EQ 850 TU 850 EX 850
Fico 8: .......EQ 850 TU 850 EX 850
Fico 4 .....:. EQ 809 TU 823 EX 830 EX Fico 98: 842
Fico 8 BC:. EQ 892 TU 900 EX 900
Fico 8 AU:. EQ 887 TU 897 EX 899
Fico 4 BC:. EQ 826 TU 858, EX Fico 98 BC: 870
Fico 4 AU:. EQ 831 TU 872, EX Fico 98 AU: 861
VS 3.0:...... EQ 835 TU 835 EX 835
CBIS: ........EQ LN Auto 940 EQ LN Home 870 TU Auto 902 TU Home 950
Message 4 of 5
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Individual utilization or overall utilization?

Thank you so much for clearing it up! I'm so appreciative! Just got a bunch of medical collections off with a pfd! Can't wait to see what kind of boost I get! Will update when I do!
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