When's the best time to pay your CC?

[Amarie003]

If my credit card payment is due on the 15th of the month and statements come out on the 25th of the prior month, then when is the best day to make a payment to have the balance reported to your credit but also paid off? I'm only asking because I usually pay off my balance each month but I think I've been paying it too early and I'm afraid it won't look like I've been using it if a potential lender ran a credit report.

[Anonymous]

There are other fields on a report besides balance that indicate card use.

[Revelate]

When you next check a report, simply look at the last activity date: if it is up to date, you're fine.  If it's not, let a balance report the following month.

As user5387 suggests, lenders can see the data (like we can if we pull from annualcreditreports) that the tradeline has payments on it and presumably use as a result.

[takeshi74]

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@Amarie003 wrote:
I'm only asking because I usually pay off my balance each month but I think I've been paying it too early and I'm afraid it won't look like I've been using it if a potential lender ran a credit report.

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Not an issue as indicated above.

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@Amarie003 wrote:
If my credit card payment is due on the 15th of the month and statements come out on the 25th of the prior month, then when is the best day to make a payment to have the balance reported to your credit but also paid off?

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Your two statements I quoted don't seem to jive. Here's the rule of thumb. "Best" doesn't really mean much on it own regardless of topic. In this case it depends on what you're specifically trying to do:

• Pay by the due date to keep your account current.
• Pay in full by the due date to avoid paying interest.
• Pay by statement end (or other reporting date if applicable) to adjust reported utilization.