topic Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)? in Credit Cards

What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

BrutalBodyShots — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 00:45:25 GMT

ACL (Average Credit Limit) = TCL (Total Credit Limits) / number of cards.

For example, if someone has 5 credit cards and a total credit limit of $48,500 across them, ACL = $9700.

I've always found ACL to be a more interesting metric than TCL since TCL can be increased two ways... opening more cards or increasing limits on existing cards. Curious to see what sort of ACLs people on this forum have.

Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

GZG — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 01:07:20 GMT

@BrutalBodyShots wrote:
ACL (Average Credit Limit) = TCL (Total Credit Limits) / number of cards.

For example, if someone has 5 credit cards and a total credit limit of $48,500 across them, ACL = $9700.

I've always found ACL to be a more interesting metric than TCL since TCL can be increased two ways... opening more cards or increasing limits on existing cards. Curious to see what sort of ACLs people on this forum have.

on the personal side it's about $10k over ~20 cards

Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

crystal626 — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 02:18:14 GMT

$10,875 although I'm about to get rid of some cards, including a $41K card, so it's going to go down.

Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

BrutalBodyShots — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 02:57:14 GMT

@GZG, thanks for clarifying personal lines. I should have included that in the original post.

@crystal626, any chance of reallocation of limits from the card(s) you plan to close?

Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

FicoMike0 — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 03:12:22 GMT

I had to do some figurin. It's $11,100. Interesting, out of 11 cards, only 3 exceed the average. The median is $10,000.

The high is $27000, amex,

The low is $4200, capone.

Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

bilwilvegas — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 03:27:27 GMT

$16,111 over 9 cards. If I drop my two lowest then it jumps up to $19,785

Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

Aim_High — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 19:11:57 GMT

Thanks for the topic @BrutalBodyShots. This is a topic we don't see often and I also find it interesting, as my user name Aim_High reflects a combination of not only high limits but also high goals, high rewards, high FICO. I periodically track this metric since my strategy has been to (1) get high total limits and (2) to do so with less cards to manage. By default, that also gives me a high average per card.

My personal limits are $912,000 over 22 cards. That works out to about $41,454 per card. 😁.

My signature is current so I have (10) cards at $46K or higher. Highest are Chase Sapphire Reserve ($100K), BofA Premium Rewards Elite ($85K), NFCU Flagship Rewards ($80K), and AMEX Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant ($65K.) I also try to keep my lowest cards at or above $10K, so I just have 4 cards between $10K - $14.9K.

If you were to add in business cards, my average drops a bit since those limits are lower than my personal limits. They are just based on a small sole proprietor side gig.

I've got some likely changes to my lineup and may be closing and consolidating two cards, my Chase IHG Rewards ($12K) and AMEX Hilton Surpass ($10K.) If I did that and was able to keep all/most of those limits, I would average over $45K ($912K/20.)

Just for fun when I've been posting on threads about simplifying, I've imagined consolidating all personal limits by bank and closing cards to get something like this:

Chase Sapphire Reserve - $141.4K
BofA Premium Rewards Elite - $99.9K
NFCU Flagship Rewards - $80K
AMEX Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant - $75K
Discover IT - $52K (my oldest card)
CITI AAdvantage Executive - $50K

That would give me a simplified six card wallet, at least one card from each of the four processing networks, six different major lenders, choice of either cash back or multiple travel rewards options, base rewards earnings of 2.625% on BofA PRE, oldest open card from 1993, $498,300 ~~$583,300~~ in limits, and average CL of $83,050. ~~$97,216~~. 😜 I would probably never do that but it's fun to think about it.

Correction: In my late-night post on my iPhone, I made a math error and added PRE 85.0 twice. TCL of the above would be $498,300 and ACL would be $83,050. If anyone cares. LOL

Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

Patient957 — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 04:23:46 GMT

9 personal cards
TCL $99,400
ACL $11,044
Low: $1,900 (Ally Platinum, SD, no CLI requests allowed)
High:$30,000 (Venture X)

Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

BrutalBodyShots — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 04:48:02 GMT

Hey there @Aim_High! Long time no talk. I wanted to thank you for the help/guidance you gave me back in 2021 regarding BoA cards, limits, Preferred Rewards, etc. Since we spoke I've scooped up a pair of BoA cards that I tend to favor in my lineup and am working toward growing the limits of.

Your $41,454 ACL is super impressive and one of the highest I've seen. I too find great value in "quality over quantity" when it comes to number of cards and limits. My ACL is a bit below yours at $41,166. My TCL is $361,500 and I've got 9 cards. I've always maintained a rule to never go above a single-digit number of cards, so if I ever want to open another I must close one first I'm more or less capped out as far as limits go across most of my 9 cards outside of perhaps a little growth potential with BoA still. I don't see my ACL moving up much higher, and I don't see myself opening any other cards any time in the next few years (I've only opened 1 card in the last 5 years for context).

Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

Total_Synergy — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 05:05:02 GMT

This is a good metric to track, for one good reason: Per @Thomas_Thumb 06-06-2024: The LexisNexis "Credit Based Insurance Score" (CBIS) Algorithm penalizes if "average CL per bankcard" is below $10,500 per bankcard (open loop) excluding store cards. And, he states in another post you must reqest your current insurer in writing to re-score your policy to get a newer, lower rate assuming your score went up since you first had the policy (or just get a completely new policy from scratch).

To answer @BrutalBodyShots, my ACL for his question would be ~$17k (includes store cards).

Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

BrutalBodyShots — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 05:10:34 GMT

Thanks for the reply, @Total_Synergy. Yes, ACL is known to impact CBIS and that's of course a metric used to set insurance premiums. Back in 2020-2021 as far as I got on the subject was that an ACL somewhere in the "$10k-$12k range..." was what was needed to satisfy that metric. I was unaware that in 2024 a concrete number of $10,500 was verified. Thank you for providing that information!

Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

SRT4kid93 — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 05:47:43 GMT

@BrutalBodyShots

just want to take the time to welcome brutal body shots.

he is coming to us from Reddit and he brings a wide wealth of knowledge. He's a great addition to this forum.

Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

BrutalBodyShots — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 05:52:53 GMT

I appreciate the warm welcome. I'm glad to be a part of the MF forums!

Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

crystal626 — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 06:07:34 GMT

@BrutalBodyShots wrote:
@GZG, thanks for clarifying personal lines. I should have included that in the original post.

@crystal626, any chance of reallocation of limits from the card(s) you plan to close?

Unfortunately, no. I just have too many cards to juggle and I'm using a small handful of them now that I have the US Bank Kroger card giving me 5% every time I leave the house (mobile wallet).

Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

MarkintheHV — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 09:51:03 GMT

For me, it would be a total of $280k over 6 cards. That averages out to a little over $46.6k per card.

Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

ElvisCaprice — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 11:19:52 GMT

@BrutalBodyShots wrote:
ACL (Average Credit Limit) = TCL (Total Credit Limits) / number of cards.

For example, if someone has 5 credit cards and a total credit limit of $48,500 across them, ACL = $9700.

I've always found ACL to be a more interesting metric than TCL since TCL can be increased two ways... opening more cards or increasing limits on existing cards. Curious to see what sort of ACLs people on this forum have.

A minor metric that says or means very little, can't read much by it, both ACL & TCL, far too easy to skew. Be better off with annual income or net worth if you really want to get down to the nitty gritty. Nobody asks you for ACL or TCL (I suppose they could calculate it from your credit report), they just want to know your annual income and mortgage debt or rental expense.

As far as this claim to CBIS, there is no factual evidence that it does play a factor, ACL, and even if it did, it's just one little minor piece within a whole bunch of other information.

But, please continue with the fun!!

Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

Varsity_Lu — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 10:57:35 GMT

Mean is $13,033 over 9 personal cards for me. Highest is Savor at $21,500 and lowest is OnePay at $4,000. Median is $11,900.

Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

TrapLine — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 13:48:32 GMT

Interesting ...

Found after culling the herd, down to $10,688 as an average over eight cards. A while back, closed a card that was $57,500 but really no use. Much like other Fico Posters, I have been sifting through the past 20 plus cards and have greatly reduced my offerings.

Considering closing another two cards due to no real utilization value. Fico Scores in the 800+ so what is the point?

Now I do have some nice Lines of Credit and that is not included with no plans to shut them down.

Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

Varsity_Lu — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 13:40:00 GMT

@ElvisCaprice wrote:

A minor metric that says or means very little, can't read much by it, both ACL & TCL, far too easy to skew. Be better off with annual income or net worth if you really want to get down to the nitty gritty. Nobody asks you for ACL or TCL (I suppose they could calculate it from your credit report), they just want to know your annual income and mortgage debt or rental expense.

As far as this claim to CBIS, there is no factual evidence that it does play a factor, ACL, and even if it did, it's just one little minor piece within a whole bunch of other information.

But, please continue with the fun!!

Someone needs a hug! :-)

Re: What's your ACL (Average Credit Limit)?

made-mistakes — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 14:45:57 GMT

Are you conducting a study or collecting data for a specific..?

I thought this forum is aimed to educate and help people repair their credit not to collect personal DATA!