credit card usage

[Anonymous]

my current fico score is 731 trans union and my credit card usage is 18%   i am paying all to a zero balance. any idea what my score might be after the credit agency reports a zero balance ?

[haulingthescoreup]

Nope. Sorry, too many variables.

btw, you might be OK on TU when all accounts report $0, but you'll probably lose points on EQ. Generally you do better to let one account report $10 on its statement, and then be sure to pay it off before the due date.

This isn't necessary, of course, unless you're tweaking your scores for maximum impact. But it's good to be aware of this odd little twist.

[Anonymous]

thank you for the input. i really appreciate it   

[haulingthescoreup]

lol, I could have been nicer about the score increase, but the fact is, I have a terrible track record on this.

I'll say +15 points, and then we'll see how wrong I am.

But seriously, it depends on what else you have going on with your reports --any negatives, length of history, and so forth.

Anyone else want to jump in here?

[RobertEG]

+!

I agree with HTSU.  FICO scoring first puts you into one of about a dozen scoring brackets, or "buckets," each dependent upon your reporting on all of the five major FICO scoring categories.  The impact of scoring improvement for one single action, such as % util of revolving credit, varies depending upon the scoring algorithm for your bucket.

Improvement of % util from around 20% to 1% would, in my general guesstimation, result in less than a 10-point gain.

If you are clear of prior derogs, and thus in a scoring bucket that puts more emphasis on % util than payment history profile, then maybe it could be slightly more.

Around what HTSU has guessed... maybe 15 pts..  But I think that would probably be the expected high limit.