Credit comes with a lot of folklore. People are scared to check their own score, afraid to ever close a card, convinced one mistake will haunt them forever. Most of it isn't true (Credit Myths Your Family May Have Taught You unpacks the biggest ones). Here's what genuinely hurts your score, and what's harmless.

What actually hurts

  • Late or missed payments. This is the big one. A payment 30+ days late can drop your score sharply and stay on your report for years.
  • High credit utilization. Maxing out a card, even if you pay it later, signals risk and pulls the number down.
  • Accounts in collections. An unpaid debt handed to a agency is a serious mark.
  • Applying for lots of credit at once. Each application adds a , and a pile of them in a short window looks desperate to lenders.

What doesn't hurt (despite the rumors)

Plenty of things people worry about are harmless:

  • Checking your own credit. Pulling your own score or report is a . You can do it daily and lose zero points.
  • Carrying a card with a $0 balance. You don't need to carry debt or pay to build credit. Paying in full is ideal.
  • Your income or bank balance. Your score doesn't know or care how much you earn or save.
  • A single hard inquiry. One application usually costs only a few points and fades within a year.
Tip
Shopping for one loan, say comparing car loans over two weeks, is usually counted as a single hard inquiry rather than many. The scoring formulas expect you to compare offers. Hard vs. Soft Credit Inquiries covers the details.

The closing-a-card trap

It feels responsible to close a card you don't use, but it can quietly hurt you. Closing it erases that card's limit from your total available credit, which can spike your . If it's an old account, closing it also shortens your average credit history.

Unless a card charges an you don't want to pay, it's often better to keep it open, use it for a small charge now and then, and pay it off.

The two habits that protect your score most are the same two that build it: pay every bill on time, and keep your balances low. Get those right and the smaller stuff barely matters.

If your score has already taken a hit, none of this is permanent. Repairing Credit After a Setback walks through the road back.