Does having one credit card over 30% utilization drop score?

[admiralsmoker]

Hello!

On my credit file, I am using about 14% utilization rate. One card got reported over 90%. Does one single card being over 30% hurt my FICO score or is it based on overall credit limit?

Thanks!

[JoeRockhead]

Both.... Keeping you aggregate usage down optimizes score. Having one card report 90% is maxed out, can be a red flag to lenders, and you'll take a pretty good ding for it as well. There's varying amounts of points to be had (or lost) between 10% usage and 90%. The good news is utilization has no memory so pay your balances down and your scores will rise.

[admiralsmoker]

Got it! Thank you very much!

[FicoMike0]

The advice I have read is keep individual under 30% and aggragate under 9% or 5%, depending on who you ask. Ditto what rockhead said. It also can hurt having too many report a balance and for sure hurts to have all report zero.  Look up "azeo" to read more than you can stand about it.

[Thomas_Thumb]

Aggregate under 9% and all individual cards under 29% (not 30%) does the job for me. Of course, there is also a # of cards reporting balances metric. Too many and/or too high a percentage and score starts to drop.

However, if you have 1 card only it should report a balance under 9% UT even though it means 100% of cards with balances. That avoids the all zeros penalty.

[FicoMike0]

Thanks for the correction. Myself, I use 9% across the board but I just got a new card with a big sub and low cl, I'll have to be careful. I'm not sure why i care, but I want to see all three above 800. Ex is hanging at 793.

[Zoostation1]

Last June I lost 4pts ea on EQ8 and EX8 when I had let a single card report 32% (was at 7% overall utilization).  For reasons I can't explain my TU8 score rose that month by 8pts with the higher utilization.  I've yet to come up with any plausible reason as to why unless there's some sort of unknown aging metric for TU8 that I can't determine.  I'm on a dirty profile which mutes the effects of utilization to some degree versus a clean profile, but I can say that getting below 29% the following month (28% on a single card reporting) gained the lost points back for EQ8 and EX8.

[SouthJamaica]

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@admiralsmoker wrote:

Hello!

On my credit file, I am using about 14% utilization rate. One card got reported over 90%. Does one single card being over 30% hurt my FICO score or is it based on overall credit limit?

Thanks!

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Yes it drops your score.

[Im-back]

I have a Citibank card with a CL of $68K. Sometimes my utilization on that card approaches 50%. I pay in full every month, and don't see more than a one or two point swing. All scores are over 820.

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@Im-back wrote:

I have a Citibank card with a CL of $68K. Sometimes my utilization on that card approaches 50%. I pay in full every month, and don't see more than a one or two point swing. All scores are over 820.

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Impact of individual card utilization on score is highly file dependent. More than a few profiles don't see a drop in score if a card goes over 29% or even 49% UT as long as AG UT is kept single digit.

For example, when I had an open mortgage on file I could report 74% UT on a card with no change in F8 or F9 Classic scores. However, since the loan was paid off and closed (leaving no open installment loans), card UT levels over 29% can affect my score

Having the open mortgage added stability to my score. Not sure if an open SSL or other non mortgage type of installment loan enhances stability. I have no plans to get/test impact of an SSL or auto loan on my file.