Some of the most innocuous changes can result in major credit score damages. Today&39;s question involves a very common misstep:

I have  7 or 8 credit cards and I am paying them down pretty quick.  I don&39;t owe more than $1,500 per card.  Some balances are a lot less but none over the $1,500.  My original plan was to pay them all off, cancel the ones I don&39;t use and only keep a couple ones open.  So my question is, would it be better to leave all of them open with a $0 balance versus closing all of them but a couple? 

Closing a credit account will always be a negative when it comes to credit. There is no situation really where closing a credit card will help improve your score.

Why? Because credit scores place a lot of value in having older, established credit accounts and in having a high credit limit in relation to your debts.

Let&39;s tackle the first point: account age. The "age" of your credit report is established by the date that your oldest account on record was opened. For example: say you have a credit card opened 10 years ago and four other cards opened last year. Your credit age will be 10 years. If you close that oldest account, your credit age drops to only one year. That decrease in age will translate to a decrease in your credit score.

Now the second point: debt utilization. A major factor in your credit score is the ratio between your total credit limits and your total credit use.  Ideally, you want this ratio to be around 10% (Only having charged $500 if you have $5,000 in credit limits). If you close credit accounts, you lower your total available credit limit and skew this ratio higher.

There is no negative score damage that comes from having 7-8 credit card accounts on your report. Also, there is no negative score damage that will come from having these cards open with a $0 balance.

Only if our reader was being charged an expensive annual fee on one of the cards, should he consider closing the account. Otherwise, paying the debts off and leaving the accounts open is going to be the right move for his credit.

Have a credit or money question? Send it to the CreditBloggers team of financial experts at tidbits@credit.com.

Emily Davidson – Credit.com&39;s Communication Director and former TransUnion credit expert. Emily writes about credit reports, credit cards, loans and personal finance as the CreditBloggers.com moderator.