How Many Credit Accounts Is Too Many? (Or Not Enough?)

   Up next on our personal credit series... Number of accounts! Your credit score takes into account how many open accounts you have—but it’s not just about quantity. Lenders want to see that you can responsibly manage multiple accounts (see our previous post Revolving Credit Utilization: Why It Matters and How to Improve It Fast).

   When it comes to number of accounts we're looking at total number of accounts AND the mix of credit types you manage. Term loans like auto, RV, and boat loans are one section. Mortgages are another (we'll talk about the importance of this specific metric in a later post). Lastly you have revolving accounts like credit cards.

Why it Matters:

   A mix of accounts shows you can handle different types of credit, but opening a bunch of accounts all at once? That can backfire. As we discussed in our post about age of accounts (you can read more here) it isn't just about HAVING the accounts, it's about your historic management of these accounts that accounts for most of your score.

Best Practices:

• Maintain a mix: credit cards, auto loans, personal loans

• Don’t open accounts you don’t need

• Keep older accounts open to show depth

• Don't conflate having a lot of accounts for having a good score.

  
  

   There’s no perfect number, but having too few can limit your score—and too many new ones can bring it down.

👉 Not sure how your profile stacks up? We can walk through it together.