Does Closing a Credit Card Account Help My Credit Score?

One question we often hear is, “If I close a credit card, will that help improve my credit score?” This can be good credit management, if you don’t want to have as many credit cards. Closing an account can also help people who are impulsive spenders, so they don’t charge up more debt.

However, what FICO credit scoring company says is that whenever you close a credit card account, it will never help your score, and it will usually hurt your score. So if you’re trying to optimize your credit score, you will want to leave that card open and occasionally make a small charge on it to keep it active.