Gary North

April 12, 2008

This chart was published by Bankrate.com.

The author writes:

So, is there ever any reason to close a credit card, from a credit score perspective?

Not from a scoring perspective, no. There really is never any good reason to close an account. I don't get to say that about too many things that have to do with scoring because usually you're going to hear a lot of "it varies" -- because it does. I can tell you one other way that closing an account can hurt your score: Once it's paid off, that account will be on your credit report for no more than 10 years.