Activating My Credit Card - How Does It Affect My FICO Score?

Reader Question: My husband and I have one joint credit card. It's our only credit card, and it has a zero balance. We pay a yearly fee to have it, even though we haven't carried a balance on it in several years. We haven't activated the newly issued card and was wondering if that will affect our FICO score.

Activating the credit card shouldn't have a major impact on your FICO score one way or the other (up or down). If you start making small purchases with the new credit card, and you promptly pay them off each month to keep your balance low, then you may even see your score go up.

I never advocate using a credit card solely for the purposes of establishing a credit history ... but if you are going to use it, just try to keep that balance low. "Low" in this context means less than 20 percent of the available limit. As far as your FICO score is concerned, the best way to use a card is to make small purchases and pay them off every month.

But I'm wandering off track here. Activating your credit card should not make a big difference with your score. It's how you use it that makes the biggest difference.

Disclaimer: Everything I just told you is based on past experience. I cannot guarantee what effect the card activation will have (obviously). So please don't take this as gospel. :-)

Hope that helps. Good luck!