Does closing an account lower AAoA immediately or after 10 years?

[folks19]

When I close an account, it remains on my report for 10 years, but does that mean that it won't have an affect on my AAoA until after 10 years?

I searched this on this site and on other sites, but I keep on seeing mixed opinions. Some claim that I only continue to benefite from my positive payment history with that account for 10 years (or, unfortunately, negetive payment history - up to 7 years), but it stops affecting my AAoA when I close it. What do you guys think?

[Anonymous]

I'm sure more experienced members will chime in at some point on the more technical aspects. Though you are correct that positive accounts can remain on your report for up to ten years, depending upon the Lender of course. It doesn't mean they definitely will or have to, it's just that they generally do.

As for negative accounts they will age off after 7 years, unless you choose to take care of them I think. Then they too will remain longer because they are now postive, but will also contain the negative history?

Closed accounts only stop affecting AAoA once they stop reporting, not when you close them.

[Anonymous]

AAoA is determined by averaging the age of all accounts on your CR, open and closed.  Therefore, closing an account has no impact on your score at all unless the account gets removed from your CR.  Why you may be seeing some mixed opinions on this or different answers when searching is due to pretty front end fluff software from CMS sources such as Credit Karma which incorrectly suggest that only open accounts are factored into AAoA.  No need to pay attention to any of those nonsense.

[SouthJamaica]

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@folks19 wrote:

When I close an account, it remains on my report for 10 years, but does that mean that it won't have an affect on my AAoA until after 10 years?

I searched this on this site and on other sites, but I keep on seeing mixed opinions. Some claim that I only continue to benefite from my positive payment history with that account for 10 years (or, unfortunately, negetive payment history - up to 7 years), but it stops affecting my AAoA when I close it. What do you guys think?

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1. A closed account continues to be factored into your average age of accounts until it falls off your credit reports.

2. There is no guarantee that a closed account will be in your credit report for 10 years, although that is typical.  Sometimes it falls off much sooner, sometimes it stays on longer.