Does maxing out credit cards hurt credit score if you don't max out total available credit?

I have four credit cards. In total, there is $1,200 between them. I currently max out two of them every month, but I'm only using about 40% of my total credit limit. Is this hurting my credit score? Should I spread the spending evenly amongst all of the cards?|||Yes. About 20% of your FICO score is based on credit usage. Keep your revolving balance (the amount you carryover to the next month) under 30% of your credit limit on EACH and EVERY account. Keep one account that you will payoff completely every month to avoid finance charges on that account.|||Maxing out your cards or using most of the available credit is NOT the issue. That does NOT impact your score. What balance you carry is what figures into your FICO score. The amount the creditor is reporting to the bureaus as your available balance or what percent you are carrying over time is what will affect your credit rating. Most say keep the balance (if you need to carry a balance because you cannot pay off the card in full) below the 30% threshold of your credit line. So, if you have a credit line of 1k, you shouldn't carry a balance of more than $300 to the next statement. Carrying 40% isn't horrible, but you should work to get it down to 30.|||Your credit score is going to vary month to month. Sounds like you charge the max on 2 each month and then pay it off. Your credit score is only important if you are trying to get a loan. So time the loan application for when your credit card debt is lowest. Ideally you should have a 33% debt ratio. Meaning you use only 33% of your total credit limit. It doesn't matter if you spread the debt among the cards or keep doing it as you are, as long as you pay on time and keep the debt low.





And your credit score means nothing if you are not applying for a loan or or more credit|||If you are carrying balances on those credit cards of more than 30% of your limit (both individual accounts and overall -- overall being the biggest factor), it hurts your score. Pay off the balances and your score rebounds.





If you are just using that much of your limit every month and paying those balances in full, it really doesn't hurt your score. It all evens out in the end.|||try not to use more that 50% of your limit. it's better to have a little on all your cards, rather than maxing any one of them out.