Which CC to pay first to improve credit rating.

Shiningstar7

I have 4K to pay off some debt and looking to improve my credit rating. How can I do this? thank you. 

Balances and interest rates:
£1725 - 33.9% 
£891 - 26.9%
£7,510 - 26.9%
£5000 - 24.9%

DE_612183

doesn't matter - credit rating is meaningless - how much you owe is.

If I were you I'd pay off the £891 first ( 3 cards looks better than 4 ), then the £1725.

Of course it depends why you want to improve your credit rating - if it's to take out more credit then it will depend on the lender what criteria they use to decide whether or not to grant you what you want.

MattMattMattUK

Shiningstar7 said:

I have 4K to pay off some debt and looking to improve my credit rating. How can I do this? thank you. 

Balances and interest rates:
£1725 - 33.9% - First
£891 - 26.9% - Second
£7,510 - 26.9% - Third
£5000 - 24.9% - Fourth

Your credit score is totally meaningless, you should ignore it.

In terms of the best choice financially, pay the highest interest rate debts first, anything else is sub-optimal.

RAS

The totally of your debt matters. Pay off the debt with the highest APR first as it gives you most bangs for your bucks.

But some lenders will been more favourable if more than the minimum is paid to the other three cards, say round up to the nearest fiver.

Have you looked the MSE 0% Checker if you can balance transfer any of the 33.9 debt?

vacheron

General wisdom is to attack the highest percentage cards first.

However, looking at this purely from an "improving credit eligibility" perspective, some lenders may like to see a reducing balance, some may prefer a lower number of cards, some may prefer a lower credit utilisation ratio.

You don't mention the total credit limit of each card. Personally, I would say to pay down the card with the highest overall limit, because when you close that card your total available credit would reduce by the largest amount which would potentially give the best chance of obtaining future credit.

... that said however if, if that £891 card had say a £10k limit, and the others had limits just a little higher than their current balance, closing the £10k card would cause your utilisation ratio to skyrocket, even though your overall debt has reduced by £891, and this could cause issues with other lenders who use that in their eligibility scoring.

You can see the problems in trying to second guess lenders' criteria here! 

ManyWays

The 33.9% one should be cleared first

What is the credit limit on these two? 
£891 - 26.9% 
£7,510 - 26.9%