does keeping your credit cards at a zero balance help your credit?

Answer 1

As long as you are using and paying them off. Having too many credit cards is not always a good thing even if they are all at $0 for the balances.

You credit rating is mostly about how you manage the credit and debt that you have. If you have no activity that can play against you as well.

I hope this helps.

Answer 2

Through a quirk in the scoring system and the reality of lenders wanting to make money and a zero balance customer not being profitable.............. the ideal balance is 5 - 15 percent of the reported credit limit. Note that signature cards and any Capitol One cards, do NOT report limits so in those cases zero is better.

Other problems are that inactive cards can get cancelled and would be reported as cancelled by creditor. Also although you may pay a card in full, it may still report a balance on your credit file. It depends at what point of the billing cycle your card reports.

Short answer yes and no. zero is better than 99% but 5 -15 or even 25% appears to a lender (or their artificial intelligence) as a profitable customer

Answer 3

It all depends. If you are beginning to establish a credit history, it is best to run up a small balance $300-$500. Then make a few months payments. You can pay more than the minimum and suggested to do so. You pay less interest this way.

Pay it off then get a car loan. This will increase the credit score exponentially.

Pay off early whenever you can. The lenders make enough as is.

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Answer 4

Yes because it shows you pay things off on time.

However if by keeping at zero you mean not using it at all, then no it doesn't help that much. To build your credit you are best using it and then paying it off pretty much straight away.

Answer 5

Not really. You need to have active good credit to improve your credit.

Answer 6

yes, because it shows that you paid, and you paid on time