9 Smart Moves That’ll Help You Raise Your Credit Score
Wondering how to raise your credit score?
A low credit score can seriously impact your financial situation in a number of ways. If you carry credit card debt, your interest rate may go up. If you’re applying for a mortgage, you may get offered a higher rate — or not qualify at all.
Figuring out how to raise your credit score can seem overwhelming. But it doesn’t have to be.
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What’s a Good Credit Score? What’s a Bad One?
Before we get too far into this, let’s define exactly what is meant by “good credit score” and “bad credit score.”
FICO credit scores, the most commonly used model, ranges from 300 to 850. Here’s how they break down:
- Exceptional: 800-850
- Very good: 740-799
- Good: 670-739
- Fair: 580-669
- Poor: 579 and below
Regardless of your credit score, there’s always room for improvement. (Well, unless you’re one of the rare folks with a perfect 850 score.)
How Is Your Credit Score Determined?
Your credit score is made up of five basic components. Here’s a look at how much of your score is based on each one:
- 35% Payment History. Do you pay your bills on time? If you do, you’ll get a better score … eventually. But the effects of past mistakes remain for years.
- 30% Credit Utilization. This is the amount of credit your using compared to your total credit limit, also known as credit utilization. If your credit utilization ratio is too high (above 30%), this will knock you down points. While credit history may have a bigger impact, credit utilization is easier to improve quickly by paying down debts.
- 15% Length of Credit History. How long have you had your credit accounts? This can only improve with time — no short cuts here.
- 10% New Credit. Opening new lines of credit can potentially improve your credit score because your increasing the amount of available credit, thus lowering your credit utilization. But you should avoid applying for new credit accounts new often, as lenders may see it as you not having enough credit to cover expenses.
- 10% Credit Mix. This refers to the mix of different lines of credit open under your name. If you only have credit cards, you could take out a personal loan to improve your credit mix. However, that costs money and won’t have as big of an impact as other changes.
What Is a Credit Utilization Ratio?
The credit utilization ratio represents how much of your available credit you actually use. To get the number, divide what you owe on a card (or all of them) by the credit limit for that card (or the total for all of them).
For example, suppose you have two credit cards. You charge $3,000 on a card with a credit limit of $4,000, and $1,000 on your other card, which has a limit of $6,000. In that case, you have a ratio of 75% for the first card, 17% on the second card and 40% overall (you’re using $4,000 of your $10,000 total available credit).
Both ratios affect your score. Many experts suggest keeping your ratio no higher than 30% or so, and preferably below 10%. You’ve likely heard of “maxing out” your credit cards. That would put your ratio at 100%. That’s very bad for your credit score. Don’t do it!
The bottom line is that for a higher credit score, you should get your credit utilization ratio as low as possible.
How to Raise Your Credit Score by Lowering Your Credit Utilization Ratio
There are two basic strategies for lowering your credit utilization ratio, and in turn, improving your credit score:
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Reduce what you owe.
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Increase your available credit.
You’ll want to do both to get the best score. Here are some things to try:
1. Pay Balances at the Right Time
Your credit utilization ratio is calculated using the balances you have at the time your credit card issuers report to credit bureaus. Call to see when that is, and adjust your payments accordingly.
For example, if they report information on the 2nd of each month and you pay off your balances toward the end of every month, you’ll end up with a very low ratio, since you’ll only have a few days to put new purchased on your card. If you paid around the 3rd of each month, however, they would be reporting your balances at their highest point in the month (the day before you pay), making your ratio higher.
Paying shortly before the information is reported is the best strategy. Doing this might involve timing payments differently for different cards, which can get confusing. So consider the alternative…
2. Pay Twice Monthly
If you don’t want to bother with tracking when each card should be paid, you can pay twice monthly so your average balance is always lower on each card.
3. Balance Your Card Use
If you charge $1,000 on a card with a $2,000 limit and charge nothing on three similar cards, your overall credit utilization ratio might be 12.5%, but it will be 50% for that one card, and that can hurt your score.
To avoid this, note the credit limit for each card. Use one card, then switch to a different card if you exceed 10% utlization.
4. Set Up Alerts
Many credit card issuers let you set up email alerts related to your spending. If yours does, set it so you get an email when your balance reaches 10% of the card’s credit limit. Once you get that email, you can start using another card or pay down the balance before charging more.
5. Spend Less on Your Cards
This is perhaps the most obvious way to lower your credit card balances. Make it a habit to spend less overall, or just move to using cash when you get past a certain threshold utilization ratio.
Once you’ve taken some of the steps above, you can move on to the following tactics, which are potentially even more powerful. They’re all about increasing your available credit.
6. Get Another Credit Card
Suppose your credit card limits total $10,000 and you owe $4,000. You have a credit utilization ratio of 40%, which is not good. Your credit score will reflect that.
But without reducing your debt one penny, you can reduce your credit utilization ratio to 20% by simply getting another credit card with a $10,000 limit.
Will having multiple credit cards count against you? Potentially, since applying for new credit results in a hard inquiry that can temporarily drop your score. Additionally, some credit score compilers see that as an indicator of financial problems. And more cards mean more accounts to manage.
Also, if you do open any new cards you open don’t become inactive. After a year or so of inactivity, the card issuer may close your account, reducing the amount of available credit and increasing your credit utilization.
7. Don’t Close Too Many Cards
You probably should close credit card accounts if the cards have annual fees and aren’t beneficial. If they don’t charge an annual fees, it may make more sense to take them out of your wallet and only use them occasionally — perhaps for a recurring subscription that you pay off each month. Closing them — or not using them at all and letting the issuer close the account — reduces your available credit, automatically increasing your credit utilization ratio.
8. Ask Issuers to Raise Your Credit Limits
Perhaps the easiest way to expand the credit you have available and reduce that key ratio is to get the limits on your existing cards increased.
The only catch is that when you request an increase, your issuer might do what’s called a hard inquiry that drops your score temporarily, though many companies now use a soft inquiry. Before taking this step, ask your credit card issuer if requesting a credit limit increase will result in a hard inquiry, and also ask if you are likely to get the increase.
It’s probably worth losing a few points temporarily if you can get a substantial credit line increase, since you may very well boost your score by many more points for your effort.
9. Keep Your Cards Active
If you have multiple credit cards, it can be easy to rely on a one or two exclusively, especially if they offer the best rewards.
However, if you stop using a card altogether — easy to do if you got a credit card in college that you put away, for instance — your credit score may fall due to both the resulting higher credit utilization ratio and a shortening of your average credit history.
To keep this from happening, put each unused credit card in an envelope with the last date you used it written on the outside. When it gets close to a year, take the card out and use it for one of your regular purchases, then put it away again (and pay the balance in full, of course). Or, assign each card a single recurring monthly expense, like for Spotify. Set up an automatic payment to pay off the purchase a week after you put it on the card. Even this small amount indicates that the card is still active.
Remember, keeping those credit lines open keeps your total credit availability higher, and your credit utilization ratio lower, which is exactly what you need for a higher credit score.
Freelance writer Steve Gillman contributed to this story. Tiffany Wendeln Connors, senior managing editor at The Penny Hoarder and a Certified Educator in Personal Finance., updated this post for 2026.
