Is it better for your FICO scores to have small cc balances reporting or zero balances

[SouthJamaica]

I can't figure out if it's better to have a lot of zero balances reporting, or a lot of small balances reporting.

I used to have a lot of small balances reporting.

Then I switched to a lot of zero balances reporting.

And my scores haven't changed.

[EW800]

I am not sure that this would be the case for everyone, as every profile is different, however I can tell you that the sweet spot for me, and many others within this forum, is to have all CC balances report $0, other than one account that reports a small balance under 9% or so.  In my case, I have one account usually report between $10 and $20, with all the others $0.  I have found that if I even allow a second account to report a balance, I get dinged a few points.  

[SouthJamaica]

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@EW800 wrote:

I am not sure that this would be the case for everyone, as every profile is different, however I can tell you that the sweet spot for me, and many others within this forum, is to have all CC balances report $0, other than one account that reports a small balance under 9% or so.  In my case, I have one account usually report between $10 and $20, with all the others $0.  I have found that if I even allow a second account to report a balance, I get dinged a few points.  

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Thanks. I've been trying to find that 'sweet spot'

[JagerBombs89]

Here, see my post for reference: 

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/My-Credit-Journey-snapshot-Road-to-800/m-...

I kept all individual accounts at 1% utilization and my overall utilization was at 1% as well.  The only difference was the number of accounts reporting a balance.

[lg8302ch]

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@SouthJamaica wrote:

I can't figure out if it's better to have a lot of zero balances reporting, or a lot of small balances reporting.

I used to have a lot of small balances reporting.

Then I switched to a lot of zero balances reporting.

And my scores haven't changed.

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If you go from the general Fico rules and behavior then you should report all but 1 account with 0 balance and that 1 account with 1-9%.  But each profile acts a bit different. While with Fico04 last year my EQ Fico score dropped 40+ points for reporting balances over 50% of my accounts with overall util of less than 5%. But  it looks like Fico8 now is a bit more patient and for my file it changes with overall util only. Right now I have 7 accounts with a balance and the scores are very close to the 0 / 1 balance reporting. In a few days I will see what a 70% util will do on a single card with still overall util of less than 9%. I am curious to see what will happen then combined with the number of accounts reporting balances. I guess if you want to find out you need to experiment a bit with your reportings over the next few months and check the impact.   All accounts with 0 balance will be a small ding at least for me.

[NRB525]

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@SouthJamaica wrote:

I can't figure out if it's better to have a lot of zero balances reporting, or a lot of small balances reporting.

I used to have a lot of small balances reporting.

Then I switched to a lot of zero balances reporting.

And my scores haven't changed.

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I am of the opinion that consistently reporting small balances will not make a noticeable difference in FICO scores, compared to the common practice here to "keep all reporting balances at zero but one". Many report a small drop in score for letting a balance go from zero to reporting something, but I think that is due to the "new debt" aspect, and that if allowed to report consistently, the score would recover.

What is causing your EX to be so much lower than the others?

[Anonymous]

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@NRB525 wrote:

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I am of the opinion that consistently reporting small balances will not make a noticeable difference in FICO scores, compared to the common practice here to "keep all reporting balances at zero but one". Many report a small drop in score for letting a balance go from zero to reporting something, but I think that is due to the "new debt" aspect, and that if allowed to report consistently, the score would recover.

What is causing your EX to be so much lower than the others?

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This is all new to me also and curious if I should be reporting small balances or not either so reading these comments closely. My EQ and TU are both close but my EX is also a bit lower too.

[Anonymous]

Mine worked the best when I had zero balance reporting on all but one card.  And kepted that at  >1%.

[SouthJamaica]

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@JagerBombs89 wrote:

Here, see my post for reference: 

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/My-Credit-Journey-snapshot-Road-to-800/m-...

I kept all individual accounts at 1% utilization and my overall utilization was at 1% as well.  The only difference was the number of accounts reporting a balance.

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Thanks for keeping those statistics

[SouthJamaica]

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@NRB525 wrote:

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@SouthJamaica wrote:

What is causing your EX to be so much lower than the others?

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There seem to be more negatives there, and more inquiries.