Utilization and the 9% rule
credit · 3 min read
The thresholds that actually move the score
FICO doesn't publish exact numbers, but years of data-sharing communities have pinned down the breakpoints:
- Overall utilization over 30% — meaningful score drag.
- Overall utilization over 10% — mild score drag.
- Overall utilization under 9% — near-maximum benefit.
- Any individual card over 49% — the highest-utilization card by itself drags the score.
The advice "keep it under 30%" is wrong for optimization. Under 9% is where you want to live.
Per-card vs overall
Both are measured. If you have $50k in total limits with $5k on one card and zero on the others, your overall is 10% but one card is at whatever-its-limit percentage. That per-card figure matters too.
The AZEO hack
AZEO = All Zero Except One. Let one card report a small balance (1-9% of its limit), and all others report zero. This squeezes out the maximum possible util score. Use before mortgage applications.