Originally Posted by
alben
I have a question that is related to the OP question. I have searched the forum, but never found a definite answer to what is the "ideal" credit utilization ratio. I always pay the cards off in full a few days after I receive my statement in the mail.
Normally my credit utilization is about 2-3%, and has never been more than 5%. I could easily pay the cards off before the statement date hits, resulting in a 0% utilization. However there is some controversy in some threads that banks don't want to really see 0% utilization, as they may interpret that means they won't make a dime off of you in merchant fees. Also they may interpret 0% utilization as "why should we extend credit to you, when you aren't using any of the credit that you already have".
Anyone have a good data point as to what the "ideal" credit utilization % is?
Yes, zero utilization is bad. You want a small (nonzero) utilization, probably under 10%. Maybe under 5% is ideal, but I think as long as you're under 10% or so it doesn't make much difference.