The Relationship Between Your Credit Score and Credit Card Utilization Rate

October 05, 2017. https://www.creditkarma.com/article/creditcardutilizationandscore

Credit card utilization is one of the most important factors credit scoring models use to calculate your credit score. You can figure out your utilization rate by dividing your total credit card balances by your total credit card limits.

To illustrate how important this factor is, Credit Karma sampled approximately 15 million Credit Karma members who visited the site in 2014 and compared their credit scores and corresponding credit card utilization rates.

Findings
The graph above suggests that there is a strong correlation between credit card utilization rates and credit scores. Generally, those who had a lower utilization rate had a higher score and vice versa – with an exception for those with 0 percent utilization. The average credit score of those who had a utilization rate of 0 percent was actually lower than the average score of those who had a utilization rate of 1-20%.

What Does This Mean?
Lenders don’t like high utilization rates because it tends to indicate there’s a higher chance of you not being able to repay your debts. Keeping your credit card utilization low, preferably under 30%, is a good goal to aim for. Our data suggests an even better goal is to use your credit some, but keep the utilization rate under 20%. Creditors want to see proof that you can manage credit wisely–something you can’t do without using the credit you’re granted.

One of Many Potential Factors
Your credit card utilization rate is an important part of your credit profile and will likely have a significant effect on your credit score, but it’s not the only factor lenders care about. The data and graph above represent the average, meaning it is possible for a person with high credit card utilization to still have a good credit score if other factors are positive– it’s just not as likely to happen.