24 Dec If I cancel a credit card, what happens to my credit score?

Q. Any advice on how to cancel an airline rewards card without it affecting your credit score? We have an automatic renewal coming up and we do not wish to renew.
— Consumer

A. There are several pieces to your credit score that will probably be affected if you cancel a credit card.

First consider how long you’ve had the card. Your length of credit history is part of your credit score, and if this card is one that you’ve had for a long time, canceling it could give your score a ding.

But the bigger part is how much available credit you’ll be giving up compared to the amount of debt you have. It’s known as your credit utilization ratio.

Let’s say in all, you have $20,000 of available credit across all of your cards. Let’s also say you have a $5,000 balance across all of your cards. That shows you’re using 25% of your available credit.

But then let’s say that the card you want to cancel has a $10,000 spending limit. If you cancel it, you’ll only have $10,000 of available credit in all. If you have a $5,000 balance across your cards, you’re now using 50% of your available credit.

That’s considered to be too high by most credit scoring models, so your score would probably go down.

But if you don’t keep a balance on your cards, canceling one won’t make a big difference to your credit utilization ratio at all. And if you make your payments on time, it won’t take long at all for any ding to your score to correct itself.

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This story was originally published in December 2025.

NJMoneyHelp.com presents certain general financial planning principles and advice, but should never be viewed as a substitute for obtaining advice from a personal professional advisor who understands your unique individual circumstances.