answer:The short answer is “probably not.” The long answer is that how closed credit cards affect your credit history is somewhat complicated. First, your payment history will continue to affect your credit score regardless of whether the card is open or closed (seven years for bad payment history, ten years for good payment history). In your case, though, this is a good thing (especially since payment history controls about ⅓ of your credit score). Second, closing a credit card reduces the amount of total credit you have available. But it doesn’t change the amount of credit you are using. Therefore, your utilization ratio (which is based on the percentage of available credit you are using) will go up. Utilization ratio is one of the main ways that potential creditors determine your credit risk (and credit risk controls another ⅓ of your credit score), so closing the card will technically lower your score. However, it will not make you any worse off than you were before you opened the card. Finally, if this were your only credit card, your oldest credit card, or your only form of credit at all, then closing the account could hurt your credit score. Since your credit history for closed accounts goes away after seven or ten years, a closed account will eventually be erased from your credit history. This is bad if you don’t have other longstanding accounts to show that you aren’t a credit risk. Additionally, credit score is in part determined by what sorts of credit you have available. Only having credit cards and having no credit cards are both bad for your credit score. Closing your only credit card would therefore decrease the diversity of your credit portfolio, thus lowering your score. Assuming you have other accounts and other types of accounts, though, neither of these concerns will apply in your case. (These two factors combined control about ¼ of your credit score.) In short, closing accounts that you haven’t had for very long isn’t a huge risk. While potential creditors will look at the average age of your various accounts, newer accounts don’t help that much anyway. It’s closing old accounts that is bad for your credit score—so don’t let this one linger if you’re just going to close it eventually anyway!