Lower credit balances vs paying off

[Bryan43016]

Which would increase my credit score more getting a couple of credit card balances under 30% utilization or paying 1 card off complete?

[Horseshoez]

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@Bryan43016 wrote:

Which would increase my credit score more getting a couple of credit card balances under 30% utilization or paying 1 card off complete?

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It would depend upon your full list of credit cards and what their balances are; if you care to share all of your cards and their balances, then the collective here can offer up an opinion on what your best course of action could be.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Bryan43016 wrote:

Which would increase my credit score more getting a couple of credit card balances under 30% utilization or paying 1 card off complete?

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Getting a couple down to 28 or 29%.  Definitely.

[Thomas_Thumb]

As @Horseshoez says, it depends on status of your other cards and current utilization of these cards.

If you have 5 total cards and all cards are at 50% utilization, taking 2 of 5 to 25% utilization may not help score. However, taking 1 to $0 so only 4 of 5 report balances may boost score.

Conversely, if the 2 cards in question had UTs at 50% and the other 3 cards were at 25% UT, then taking the remaining 2 cards to 25% would definitely help more than paying one to $0 - except perhaps on EQ score 5.