How long will it take for score to change?

[Anonymous]

I have been at about 90% util on my credit cards for quite some time.  I am about to pay all of them off.  Yay!   How long does it take for this to be reflected in my FICO?  Also, how much can I expect my score to increase??

[MidnightVoice]

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Windi622 wrote:

I have been at about 90% util on my credit cards for quite some time.  I am about to pay all of them off.  Yay!   How long does it take for this to be reflected in my FICO?  Also, how much can I expect my score to increase??

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Could take up to 60 days for it all to work its way threough the system

And score increase depends on current score and what other baddies are on the CR

[Anonymous]

Congrats! I just did the same thing and it will depend on when each of those creditors report to the cra's. I found those dates off of my true credit report and they are all different dates so for me it will be a good month before everything is reporting corrrectly. I'm new at this, so don't take my word as gospel though.

[Anonymous]

Congrats you 2 for getting those balances down! It has to be a good feeling to do that.

How much your scores will go up is anyone's guess. But in my situation, In March my TU score was 521. At the time I had no idea about utilization, but knew that interest charges were out of hand. So I committed paying them all off, over a 3 month period.

I was able to pif 4 out of my 6 cc's, and by July my TU score was 671. If that's any indicator.

[Anonymous]

i paid my cards from near 100% util to under 30% (except my biggest balance was only brought to under 50%).

my middle score went from 651 to 690 as soon as my cards reported (days after due dates).

then i paid my biggest balance to under 30% util, and my score went to 721.

i was surprised how fast they changed. what also surprised my is that some creditors pull real-time scores and some creditors pull scores from 30days and 60days ago.

Citi was one that used out-of-date scores.

[Anonymous]

I pray mine go up that much!

[Anonymous]

It also depends on which credit card companies, and when you pay relative to the card's billing/reporting cycle.  Many have reported delays with HSBC (Household Bank, HSBC card, etc).  My most recent FICO report 11/12) showed that both of my HSBC cards had only last reported back in September.  So even if I had paid the cards down in October, it still wouldn't have impacted my report a month and a half later.

I paid off all my cards/revolving accounts on 11/6, and I'm still waiting for a bump in my scores of any kind.  The waiting is killing me!    (Buying a house soon, and wanted to get pre-approved).  But if HSBC only reports every other month (or their reports take longer to process) and I just missed the November cutoff, it could be January before it impacts the scores.

[haulingthescoreup]

Oddly, you will have better scores if at least one card reports a balance (under 10%) than if they all report $0. TU especially loves this, and I just got a 14-point jump for doing this. One card reported $7 --that was fun!

Aim for having fewer than half of your cards reporting a balance. And for anyone new reading this, realize the importance of timing your payments so that YOU control what is reported to the CRA's.

Depending on what baddies you have on your reports, improving your util is the fastest way to raise your scores, and you're completely in control. (As long as you can get the CCC's to report, and the CRA's to post, your new balances, that is! )