How many credit cards should report a "0" balance?

[glamchick]

I've been trying to find this answer in the forums but I have a lot of credit cards so I decided to post this.

I have 10 credit cards and 1 store card.   How many should report a balance?   I know that I read you should have have 1 report a balance but when I let a few report 20$  I get 4-8 more points.

My overall utilization is kept around 10-11%

Should my utilization be lower also?   I am getting ready to request for cli's so I wanted my credit report to look OK before requesting.

[Anonymous]

I used the credit karma tiers, though different scoring systems, to determine what utils would yield me the most points. I use under 9% as my overall util. I have 6 accounts that I designate two that shows balances. Others are 0

[Anonymous]

From what I've read, to get the ultimate points. You need to have all cards reporting zero but 1 card reporting under 10% uti. It varies on different folks but majority said as long as it's less than 10%. 

[glamchick]

im going to try the credit karma tiers.

And Yes I've also read that all but 1 should report a "0" balance.   But does it matter how many credit cards you have?   I don't understand why when I left a few report a small balance I get more points.

[Anonymous]

then it varies - just see what works best for you, if small balance on all but still under 10% UTI overall then use that system. 

[Anonymous]

I've got 850 with several (maybe 4) cards reporting a balance.  When I have a few more the score drops.   So the "1" is not quite absolute.  Remember that what you hear here and other forums is an attempt to reverse engineer the FICO algorithms.   And I believe the big "studies" that were done were on FICO 7, so FICO 8 and 9 may have different behavior on # of cards reporting balances.  (People will repeat old data for ages!)

[Anonymous]

I think it may have something to do with percentage of cards reporting.  It seems that many have reported their "sweet spot" to be around 20-25% of their cards reporting.  So, for people with up to 4-5 cards, this would be 1 card.  However, those that have 10-12 cards perhaps would gain a few more points in letting 2-3 of them report.  That's a theory that seems to hold water but who knows for sure, and always, results will very from profile to profile.  All of this, again, assumes that the balance reported on each card is 9% or less and some have referenced a point or two more with reporting a 4% balance verses a 9% balance, so that's another arguable point of potential data.

[disdreamin]

Having 6 out of 8 cards report a balance has not had any impact on my FICO 8 score, but it really hits my older FICO versions (especially the mortgage ones) hard when too many cards report a balance. So really, it may depend on which score you are trying to optimize!

[Anonymous]

I think most people are trying to optimize FICO 08, generally speaking.  When people refer simply to "their score" on here to me 9 times out of 10 it means "their FICO 08 score" the terms seem almost interchangable. 

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@disdreamin wrote:

Having 6 out of 8 cards report a balance has not had any impact on my FICO 8 score, but it really hits my older FICO versions (especially the mortgage ones) hard when too many cards report a balance. So really, it may depend on which score you are trying to optimize!

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I've had similar results with Classic Fico 08 - I think it has to do with the 850 buffer. I can report balances of 2 of 6 up to and including 6 of 6. without affecting score.

Mortgage scores, particularly Fico 04 scores and more specifically EQ are influenced by # cards (% cards) reporting balances.

Enhanced Fico 08/09 scores (Bankcard & Auto) - are influenced by # cards reporting for my profile. I experienced a 1 to 19 point jump depending on CRA and model going from 6 of 6 cards reporting (2/2016) down to 3 of 6 cards reporting (3/2016). TU is affected more than EX or EQ for enhanced Fico 08 and Fico 09.