 TITLE: How to Calculate Credit Card Utilization CONTENT: How Does Credit Utilization Affect Your Credit Scores?\n------------------------------------------------------\nYour utilization ratio can impact both your VantageScore® and FICO® credit scores. In either case, your individual credit cards' utilization rates and your overall utilization rate (if you have several cards) are important to your credit scores.\nFor VantageScore credit scores, your utilization falls within the \"total credit usage, balance and available credit\" category. The company lists this as \"extremely influential\" in determining your VantageScore 4.0 credit score.\nWith FICO® Scores☉ , your utilization is part of the \"amounts owed\" category, which makes up approximately 30% of your FICO® Score. But utilization is only a part of the category, which also includes how much you owe on various accounts and how many accounts have balances.\nA lower utilization ratio is better than a high utilization ratio for all your credit scores. However, sometimes having a low utilization rate is better than having no utilization.\nAlso, keep in mind most credit scoring models only look at your most recently reported balances. Having an exceptionally high utilization rate may hurt your scores one month, but bringing down your reported balance and lowering your utilization could help your scores the next.\nBecause of this, your credit utilization ratio is one of the things you can address if you want to improve your scores quickly.\nKeep in mind, however, that the latest VantageScore and FICO® Score models consider trended data, which may include your utilization rates over time. If you tend to carry a balance and only make minimum payments, that could hurt those scores. If you pay your bill in full each month, that could help those scores—even if you occasionally have a high utilization rate. END