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The most widely used credit scoring model, FICO, weighs five categories of information from your credit reports. The weights below are approximate and apply to most consumers; thin or new credit files may be weighted differently.

• 35% — Payment history — whether bills are paid on time. The single biggest factor.
• 30% — Amounts owed (credit utilization) — total balances relative to total credit limits.
• 15% — Length of credit history — average age of your accounts and age of your oldest account.
• 10% — Credit mix — variety of account types (cards, installment loans, mortgages).
• 10% — New credit — recent applications and newly opened accounts.

Two of the five categories — payment history and utilization — drive about 65% of the score. If you focus your improvement effort on those two, you address the vast majority of what the model cares about.

Credit utilization is the most directly mathematical part of the score. It is calculated across all your revolving accounts at the moment your statement closes:

Conventional wisdom says keep utilization below 30%; the sweet spot for top-tier scores is below 10%. Each card's individual utilization also matters, not just the total — maxing out a single card hurts even if your overall utilization is low. Pay down before the statement closes (not before the due date) for the best score impact.

Length of history is the average age of your accounts plus the age of your oldest account. Closing an old card reduces both — even if you stop using it, keeping a paid-off card open with a small recurring charge protects your score.

Suppose your starting score is 680. You carry $4,500 across three credit cards with a combined limit of $10,000 — a 45% utilization. You have one 30-day late payment from 18 months ago and four credit cards with an average age of three years.

Paying balances down to $1,500 (15% utilization) typically lifts a score in this range by 30 to 50 points within one or two billing cycles. Bringing utilization below 10% can add another 10 to 20 points. The 30-day late will continue to drag the score until it falls off after seven years, but its impact diminishes after the first 24 months.

If you instead opened two new credit cards at once, your score would dip 10 to 20 points temporarily from the hard inquiries, lower the average account age, and raise total available credit (helping utilization). The net effect is usually negative for several months and positive after a year, assuming you do not run up balances.

The fastest legitimate score improvement is almost always paying down credit-card balances. It is more effective than disputing minor entries, opening new credit, or chasing exotic credit-repair tactics — and it produces results in weeks rather than years.