Myth: When you close a credit card or pay off a loan, you lose the value of the account’s age in your credit scores.

December 10, 2013

Fact: As long as an account is on your credit reports it is considered by credit scoring systems, open or closed and with or without a balance. As such, if you were to close a credit card that was opened 10 years ago it would still be seen and measured as a 10 year old account. And, closed accounts continue to age so an account that was closed 3 years ago is 3 years older today. As such, closing accounts will not result in a reduction in your credit scores as a result of the loss of the value of the account’s age.

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