Does Paying Off Credit Cards Raise the Credit Scores?

Your credit score is influenced by credit card use, your account balances, when you make your payments and your available credit lines. This information, combined with data about loans and other credit use, is used by the credit bureaus to calculate three-digit scores, according to the myFICO credit scoring information website. Your credit-related actions, including paying off accounts, affects those scores.

Score Factors

Various factors and financial activities carry varying weight in determining your credit score, according to the myFICO website. Payment history--whether you make payments on time--has the most influence, accounting for 35 percent of the credit score. The balance you owe is almost as important, making up 30 percent of your score. High balances hurt you, so you improve your score by paying off credit cards, especially if you make those payments on time.

Process

You should pay off your credit cards efficiently if you cannot wipe out the balances with lump sum payments. The Motley Fool consumer finance website explains that it makes sense to pay as much as possible on high interest cards while paying only the minimum on lower interest accounts. Hefty interest rates eat up most of the minimum payment, so sending extra payment makes the principal balance go down faster. You can redistribute the extra money to the remaining accounts when your high interest cards are paid off.

Confirmation

Your credit card statements may show a zero balance, but that does not mean your Experian, Equifax and TransUnion credit reports are showing the same information. You can order free copies of your credit report from annualcreditreport.com to ensure the accounts show a zero balance. The Federal Trade Commission explains that annualcreditreport.com gives you no-cost reports once per year. You should dispute incorrect information directly through the credit bureaus via the forms on their websites.

Warning

You should resist the urge to close credit card accounts once you get them down to a zero balance. Closing them lowers you credit score, Bankrate website writer Leslie McFadden warns. Accounts with which you have a long history help raise your score, and you lose some of that good influence when you cancel them. Closed accounts get erased from your credit reports in 10 years, and it may be sooner if the bank stops reporting them. Open accounts appear indefinitely.

Maintaining Paid Accounts

Your bank is forbidden from charging you a penalty for keeping credit card accounts open without using them, the Federal Reserve System website explains. A federal law called the Credit CARD Act forbids such fees, but it does let card issuers close unused accounts. Avoid involuntary closure by using paid-off cards a few times each year. Buy cheap items and pay the owed amount immediately to avoid running up a balance and accruing interest charges.