 TITLE: How Long After You Pay Off Debt Does Your Credit Improve? CONTENT: What Are the Credit Scoring Factors?\n------------------------------------\nAs you pay off and consider closing debt accounts, it's prudent to understand how your credit score is calculated and how your actions will impact it.\nThese are the top credit scoring factors to be aware of:\n*   **Payment history**: The most important factor, accounting for 35% of your FICO® Score, reflects whether you pay your bills on time. Missing even one payment can hurt your score; paying bills on time helps it.\n*   **Amounts owed**: Accounting for 30% of your FICO score, this factor indicates how much you owe on loans as well as your credit utilization rate on lines of credits. Keeping your utilization rate below 30% can benefit your credit.\n*   **Credit history**: The age of your accounts determines 15% of your score. The longer you've had credit accounts in good standing, the better, so it could be worthwhile to keep old credit card accounts open even if you don't use them often.\n*   **Credit mix**: The diversity of your credit accounts is less important, accounting for 10% of your score, but it can make a difference. For example, if you've only had installment loans (such as student loans or auto loans), opening a credit card account can improve your credit mix. That doesn't mean you should open a new account solely for this purpose, however.\n*   **New credit**: Whenever you apply for a new loan or line of credit, a hard inquiry goes on your credit report and can temporarily lower your score. Approximately 10% of your credit score factors in how many new accounts you've recently opened and how many hard inquiries you have, since an increase in those activities can make you look risky to lenders.\nIf you haven't reviewed your credit score or report in a while, it's worth a look to assess how each of these credit score risk factors affect you personally. END