Anytime you close an account your score will go down . Some accounts credit cards , lines of credit through the bank you can have open without a running balance . With credit cards I will put something small on it and pay it off before it accrues interest . I like to have my score show that I am making payments , but also keep my debt to income ratio as low as possible . I bought a house earlier this year . We had already learned the lesson about closing accounts , so waited until the month after we bought the house to fully pay off the car we had the funds , but needed to build up a more diverse credit score , so we paid it WAY down making maximum payments for a few months beforehand . It will also ding your credit to apply for credit , I found financial counseling to be very helpful .