https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/CC-utilization-calculation/m-p/173584#M16948 Both! You are scored on both individual util and on overall. That's why it gets exciting if you have a card that you're using for a 0% balance transfer, and it's high util. Your other cards can be low, and your overall util can be low, but there will be that one stinker.<BR /><BR />I'm in this situation, with an original 82.4% util on a new BT card. I've already paid it down to 75% before it had a chance to report a balance, and I'm going to make another big payment to get it to 69% before dropping it 5% every month. I know there's a big hit coming... <img id="smileysad" class="emoticon emoticon-smileysad" src="https://ficoforums.myfico.com/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-sad.gif" alt="Smiley Sad" title="Smiley Sad" /> But it makes financial sense to go with the 0%, so I'm going to grin and bear it. Fri, 07 Mar 2008 14:28:16 GMT haulingthescoreup 2008-03-07T14:28:16Z https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/CC-utilization-calculation/m-p/173566#M16946 <DIV>How does fico calculate utilization?&nbsp; Do they take all your outstanding balances and divide by your total limits of all cards&nbsp;or do they calculate each cards utilization and divide by the number of cards you have?</DIV> Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:52:33 GMT https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/CC-utilization-calculation/m-p/173566#M16946 Anonymous 2008-03-07T13:52:33Z https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/CC-utilization-calculation/m-p/173584#M16948 Both! You are scored on both individual util and on overall. That's why it gets exciting if you have a card that you're using for a 0% balance transfer, and it's high util. Your other cards can be low, and your overall util can be low, but there will be that one stinker.<BR /><BR />I'm in this situation, with an original 82.4% util on a new BT card. I've already paid it down to 75% before it had a chance to report a balance, and I'm going to make another big payment to get it to 69% before dropping it 5% every month. I know there's a big hit coming... <img id="smileysad" class="emoticon emoticon-smileysad" src="https://ficoforums.myfico.com/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-sad.gif" alt="Smiley Sad" title="Smiley Sad" /> But it makes financial sense to go with the 0%, so I'm going to grin and bear it. Fri, 07 Mar 2008 14:28:16 GMT https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/CC-utilization-calculation/m-p/173584#M16948 haulingthescoreup 2008-03-07T14:28:16Z