The answer to this question depends on which scoring model is being used. Two of the most widely used credit scoring companies – FICO® and VantageScore® – have different factors that weigh differently when they calculate your credit score.
With FICO, 35% of your score is determined by your payment history. How long you have had your active credit accounts and how often have you made payments on time are checked here. The older your credit history, the better your score can be. Along with that, the history of on-time payments needs to be a longer one. Any missed payments can put a dent in your score significantly, especially if there are multiple misses.
With VantageScore, your credit score is calculated based on how you measure up against its extremely influential factors. These factors include your total credit usage, balance, and available credit. That is, a sum of the total credit you are currently using, all your credit cards put together, how much balance you owe on each of them, and how much total credit you still have left to use.
You will notice that the factors FICO considers the most important come second on VantageScore’s list as highly influential. The factor that VantageScore considers most important comes second on FICO’s model. Therefore, it is always good to maintain good credit behavior overall. Focusing on the most important factors may not always help because credit scoring models vary.
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