When starting your credit repair journey you may be tempted to close credit card accounts, especially if the credit card has negative entries on it such as a late payment.
This is a bad idea. It’s actually better for your credit score in most cases if you keep the account open because a big part of your credit score depends on how much credit history you have.
Should You Close Your Credit Card Accounts?
By keeping your credit cards open, you’re adding credit history to your credit profile, even if it has negative marks. It’s much better to try and remove late payments from your credit cards than to close them.
I made this mistake when I started my own credit repair journey, actually.
Closing credit card accounts seemed logical to me at the time. I thought, “Ok, I have a bunch of credit cards, I have paid them off, and I don’t want to be tempted to use them again so I better close these accounts.”
I also said to myself, “Hey, this will improve my credit score too! The magic FICO credit score generator will see that I am acting responsibly by closing credit card accounts after I paid them off!”
This couldn’t have been farther from the truth.
Three months after I closed 3 out of 4 of my credit cards, my credit score dropped.
How Is My Credit Score Affected by Closing My Credit Cards?
Your credit score is largely based on how well you manage open credit accounts.
If the account is closed, there is nothing to go off of except the account history before you closed the account (which is probably bad if you closed the account).
An excellent credit score reflects that the individual has had long term, well-managed credit accounts.
Also, while it is true that too many open credit card (revolving) accounts can hurt your credit score, the key is to shy away from opening too many accounts, not closing the accounts.
Never close an open credit card account –it can hurt your credit score.
Should I Re-Open My Credit Card Accounts?
Another technique you can try if you have already closed a credit card account is to contact the creditor and ask if they will consider reopening the account.
You can be certain that they will pull your credit report, so this usually only works if you have shown some improvement recently.
You can also follow the steps I outline in my post 5 Amazingly Simple Techniques to Optimize Your Credit Score to make sure your score is optimized before you ask them to reopen the account.
Here is how I got Capital One to reopen my account after I paid off the balance and closed the account:
First I applied for and received a secured credit card to rebuild my credit (Open Sky Secured Credit Card is the card I got in case you’re wondering). I kept up on the payments for one year.
After the one year was up, I called their customer support and asked if they would “kindly consider reopening my account based on the recent steps I have taken to improve my credit score and the accounts I have in good standing as of right now.”
They checked my credit report and a few weeks later I received a new Capital One credit card with a $500 limit.
Take Home Points:
- Never close credit card accounts that are in good standing.
- Avoid bad credit by not opening too many credit card accounts. (2 or 3 credit cards is plenty)
- If you can’t control your spending it’s better to throw away the credit card than to close the account.
- Attempt to reopen closed credit card accounts by contacting the creditor after you have proved that you can be trusted.
What if I have 6 credit cards all in good standing? Is that too many?
I’d say 6 is too many. Consider paying off the balances on 2 of them, but keep them open.. don’t use them.
Absolutely true. I recently paid off and closed one of my Citibank retail revolving accounts (I have a couple) under the notion that it will keep me from charging and will improve my score as I falsely was informed. Two months after, my credit score plunged tens of points. It hurt badly. I just found this article by Ryan, wonderful article. I fully agree, no matter how many accounts you have, keep them open, and destroy the card. The creditors may close them and this action will not harm your credit score whatsoever. One of my accounts was closed by the creditor because I never used it and it never harmed my score. The Citibank account I closed is in my report as a single negative. I will take Ryan advice and try to reopen it. Don’t know what they will say after the plunge of my credit score.
I refinanced my Mortgage and the bank sent letters to my credit cards closing the accounts. Now I am concerned that I have a bad rating because of it. (All the credit cards were in good standing)
same thing happened to me,i unfortely listened to an email newsletter sugestion and wow what a mistake it was to do this.i had like 13 cards and all was in good standing well i thought of well all accounts are in good standing and paid off so i closed them 1 by one,see the news letter phrased it this way.if you have alot of cards or even cards that are redit was near currently open,then that credit limit will hurt your score,exapmly 1500 credit limit will hurt youe score too much credit,well what a load of hog wash..my accounts i had were over 5 years old never been late and my credit was awesome well long story short i closed them all out and now my score went down to 500 some thing,so who ever says to close open accounts is stupid,and does not know the credit card industry.better off me just shredding the card and waiting 2-3 years when new card comes in the mail,or heres another sugestion use your card once in awhile ,like online purchase.remember as long as you have credit card number and code number on back of card and expiration date then you can use it online, at least that way the account does not get closed but stays open until you get your new cards in the mail and keeps you from using it reguarly.
To Ann
just cause you refinance your home does not mean that all credit cards get closed out unless you wanted them closed out ? and if so then the bank hgas every right to do that.but what i dont understand is how can they close out all your credit card accounts? is this what you wanted ? because of refinancing,you consolidated all your debts? your info is a little vagu.put more info of what happened and maybe there be some one out there that can assist you better..
When we refinanced, the person at the bank stated that they would pay off the credit card balances and close the accounts. It wasn’t a question…it was a statement. I didn’t question it because she made it sound like it was a condition of the refinancing. She had the cheques ready to the creditors and along with it were letters to close the various accounts and I had to sign them. The bank then sent the signed letters along with the cheques.
That’s strange.
I’m about to do the same. Refinance and pay off my credit cards balances. The lender is requesting me to close all the credit cards and lines of credit as a condition for the consolidation. I have never been late on any payment, I’m just consolidating to pay lower interest rates in one single account. But the bank won’t allow me to leave any other account open. I will lose my credit age. I have accounts that are more than 10 years old. But I will pay lower interest rates. And probably hit my credit score.
I have a credit card with capital one but they closed it due to bad. Payments what do I do next
You should write them a goodwill letter.
Hi Ryan, no question…just wanted to Thank you for the information. It’s been very helpful in my decision to try and have BOA reopen a credit card.
Thanks for reading!
I am attempt info to refinance , get some equity out of the house and pay off some credit cards.v I am struggling to make minimum payments. The lender is asking me to obtain a revolving credit close out letter. It seems to me if the creditor closes out the account this will impact my credit score??
Hi Ryan,
Thanks for the great advice!! I have a bank credit card that I’ve had for 9 years and have never paid late. It started with a $500 limit and the creditor raised it to $10, 000 over time due to my good history. I got upset with them about a year ago because they wouldn’t reduce my interest rate of 18% so I closed the account with a balance that of course I still pay on as scheduled. My question is should I reopen the account and if so how should I approach this?
I closed 2 accounts 6 years ago because my finances were in shambles and they were about to increase my interest rate a lot (on a very high balance). The bank told me I could close the account to keep the current (fairly low) interest rate I had. I know I made the right decision then because the high interest rate would have killed me, but I am wondering what I should do now that I am in a better financial position. Once the card is completely paid off, which it will be soon, should I ask to re-open the account?
I would.
Thanks Ryan.
I was about to close one of my accounts and came across this article. I will pay one off as I had intended already due to getting a better interest set card and will stash the old card away for a rainy day. My credit history was bad before but am building it up again slowly and have never missed a payment so would hate for the good work going down because of closing one account.
Thanks again.
I went on AMEX’s website to see if I was eligible for a bank transfer credit card and didn’t realize when I sent the info it would automatically process if I was approved. So when I got the notification that they were sending a card, I panicked and immediately closed the account. It was only later that evening I realized what an idiotic mistake that was.
Would you recommend me trying to reopen the cancelled card OR try to apply again for the same card? We are talking opening and closing an account with a matter of an hour! This also happened two month ago (April 30th to be exact). PLEASE HELP!