Length of Credit History

Length of credit history looks at how long you've been using credit overall, including the age of your oldest account, the age of your newest account, and the average age across every account you have open. Generally, a longer history gives lenders more data to judge, which tends to work in your favor.

This factor is unusual because it's the one you can't speed up. You can pay down a balance in a single afternoon, but an account's age only grows one way: by leaving it open and letting time pass. That's part of why financial advice so often favors keeping an old account open rather than closing it, even one you barely use anymore.

Length of credit history includes the age of your oldest account, your newest account, and the ____ age across all accounts.

Closing your oldest credit card can lower your average account age immediately, since that account stops counting once it's closed. It can also raise your utilization, because closing a card removes its credit limit from the total you have available. For both of these reasons, an old, no-fee card is often more useful left open than closed, even with a zero balance.

Why might closing your oldest, no-fee credit card hurt your credit score?

Length of credit history is a factor you can meaningfully speed up just by making larger payments.

There's no shortcut here, but there's also no need for one: simply opening accounts at a reasonable pace and keeping the oldest ones active in the background is usually enough to let this factor work quietly in your favor over the years.