Learn when is the best time to pay off your credit card bill to build a good credit score in the day and month in 2022
Video Credit: Mark Reese’s Youtube Channel
If your goal is establishing or improving your credit and want a simple, direct answer to the question of when you should pay your credit card bill, here it is: after your closing date but before the due date. And that’s the perfect spot when your credit gets built up in the right way, your score goes up, and you never have to worry about interest.
Now, for those who would like a more in-depth explanation of what this implies and how it operates—including the distinction between an open date and a closed date and a due date—We will explain that.
The Basics of Credit Card Bills
For clarity, let’s start with seven terms that will be crucial to your grasp of the ideas we’ll introduce in the next few moments. Your opening statement. That’s shorthand for “your bill,” which you should expect to get once a month.
Second, you need to know your current balance, which is the amount you still owe. That can be conceptualized as the sum of everything you’ve bought. Our third and final point concerns the frequency of your bills. This is the time frame between payments.
Dependent on the month, it’s roughly 30 days. As a convenient shorthand, let’s say your billing cycle is the 30-day window during which interest won’t be charged on transactions made with your credit card. As a result, the open and closed dates are the cornerstones of your billing cycle.
Opening And Closing Date of Credit Cards
The initial day of your billing cycle is the open date or opening date. The last day of your billing cycle is referred to as the close date or closing date. Number six is the date you must pay your bill or submit your statement. You will find your minimum due amount as part of any bill or statement you receive in the mail (or perhaps receive it as a downloadable PDF through your online account management site).
Now that the stage has been set, we’d want to provide a more in-depth explanation of each of those concepts, accompanied by illustrations, so that the solution is crystal clear and simple to grasp.
The date your bill or statement is due is indicated by the boxed text you see above; for example, on our American Express bill, the payment was required by October 16, 2020. Your payment is due around 21–25 days following the end of your billing month.
When your bill is due, you’ll be given the option to pay the minimum due, sometimes known as the “term number seven”, to indicate that this is the bare minimum that can be paid to avoid incurring late fees. Here, the bare minimum payment required would be $43. In other words, you will be charged interest on the unpaid sum. Naturally, you should pay off the whole debt instead than just the minimum required each month to prevent incurring interest charges.
We have thus far presented three potentially confusing terms: the open date, the closed date, and the due date. And we want to ensure you have a thorough understanding of those three concepts before we discuss the most convenient time for you to pay your bill.
When is the best time to pay my credit card bill or statement?
When should I make the minimum payment on my credit card bill? After the closure date, but before the due date, is the ideal time to pay a payment if you’re curious as to why keep watching. As for your second question: my available credit is relatively low. Is it possible to pay off my account early in the billing cycle? In a word, yes, payments can be made whenever you like, whether that be once a month or once every several months.
In answer to your third question, we have heard that you shouldn’t utilize more than 30% of your available credit at any given time. Do you believe that to be correct? It’s true and kind of not. Consider this a standard operating procedure. The more available credit you utilize, the lower your credit score will be. Maintaining use at 30% or below each month benefits your score. Your consumption is tracked once per month rather than daily. Thankfully, most banks aren’t like that.
The credit reporting agencies will only show your closing balance. This is your allotment for the current month/billing cycle. Ideally, you’d have 30% utilization or less by the closing date. So, let’s have a look. Here’s an instant illustration. Let’s pretend it’s November 10. We’ll suppose that your credit card’s billing cycle ends on November 15, five days from today, because your limit is $1,000, and your balance is $800.
All right, let’s move ahead for five days. We are already past the closing date of your billing cycle (November 15), and your 80% use has been reported to the bureaus. A lower score is the result of a high utilization ratio. Let’s go one step further with this. As of today, November 10, you still have a $1,000 credit limit. On November 15, five days from now, both your $800 balance and billing cycle will end.
Let’s skip ahead in time for two days. Today is November 17. Your $800 amount is reduced to $200 thanks to an early payment of $600. Then, skip ahead three days. Your last billing date was November 20. The percentage of time you’re actually being put to use just went up to 20%. To rephrase, 20% of a $1,000 credit limit is $200. In terms of credit, 20% is better than 30% because it falls below the average.
You can avoid paying interest on the remaining $200 if you pay it in full by the due date (about December 15). Kindly continue to the next question. This is a major development. Will it improve my credit score if I use a credit card to make a purchase and then pay it off immediately? Actually, that’s not only not a good idea, but it could even affect your grade. Just a friendly reminder that once per month, your balance and utilization will be recorded. Your billing cycle ends on that day. Therefore, the authorities aren’t privy to your day-to-day consumption data.
When the closing date approaches, your reported balance will be $0, and your usage will be 0% if you have paid off all your charges as they have been incurred. You may not make any credit card purchases, but they will appear that way on paper. Because of this, the three credit bureaus cannot accurately evaluate your payment history, current amounts, or credit utilization.
Your payment should be made after the close date but before the due date. That way, you can report a balance for credit reporting purposes while avoiding any interest charges. And there, at the bottom, is the sketch we made to help you out. There is an “open” date, indicating the start of your billing cycle, a “close” date, indicating the end of your billing cycle, and a “due” date, indicating the actual date payment is expected to be received. The balance as of the closing date is what is reported to the relevant authorities.
The Main Credit Bureaus
There are several credit reporting agencies, but the big three are Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian. The businesses on this list develop the scoring algorithms used to determine your credit history and generate your credit report. That’s one way of looking at it. It’s true that the relevant authorities receive data once a month or once in a snapshot. Like in a movie, they don’t get constant updates.
That’s great news since it means you can stop stressing about adhering to the 30% rule every single day of the month. The bureaus that keep track of your credit history are not eagle-eyed over your shoulder, recording your every purchase. Your use is not being tallied in real-time.
The only time they get an accurate picture of your entire balance, utilization, and the like is once a month when you send them your monthly statement. That data is the foundation upon which your credit rating is based.
It should now be obvious that the optimal time to pay a credit card account is between the billing cycle’s close date and the due date. And if you take this course of action, you can rest assured that you will grow your credit history responsibly over time without incurring any debt or paying any interest.
Conclusion
This article has provided information on when it is best to pay a credit card bill to affect a credit score positively. You can use a credit card to increase your credit score if you don’t already have one or if it’s lower than you’d like. If you use your credit card wisely by making all of your monthly payments on time and staying within your spending limit, you can easily raise your credit score.
I am not a financial advisor and This is NOT financial advice.
Please use any financial service at your own risk.
If you click on a partner link on this page, I may receive an affiliate commission compensation if you sign up for a service or product.
