Do you know what makes a credit score go down? You may be hurting your credit score without even realizing it. Beware of these five factors that can negatively impact your credit score.

Late Payments
Failing to pay bills can be detrimental to your credit score and your reputation with financial institutions in the future. No one wants to lend money to someone who has missed too many payments or constantly pays late. Your payment history makes up 35% of your credit score so always make sure you stay up to date on all your bills.

High Credit Usage
Using your line of credit and keeping up with payments helps build your credit history. However, using too much credit can hurt your score. It’s important to not max out credit cards by using all of your available credit. A good rule of thumb is to stay within 30% of your credit.

Experiencing Bankruptcy or Foreclosure
Filing for bankruptcy tells the court you are no longer able to pay debts. Foreclosure occurs when a homeowner has not paid their mortgage and the lender takes over the property. Both of these events can block you from qualifying for loans in the future. Additionally, these marks can stay on your credit report for 7-10 years.

Too Many Hard Inquiries
A hard inquiry occurs anytime a financial institution checks your credit by running a report. This happens when applying for a loan or new credit card. Applying for credit too many times within a certain period of time will cause your score to decline.

Closing Credit Lines
Do you have an old credit card that you never use? Whatever you do, don’t close that card. It might feel like the responsible thing to do, but closing an old card decreases your total amount of available credit. It also decreases the age of your credit history. Both of these factors result in a declining score. The older you credit is the better, so keep those old accounts open.

And Remember…
Bad marks on your credit score won’t last forever. If your score does drop for any reason, there is always an opportunity for it to recover with good credit behavior over time.