Your credit utilization ratio, or CUR, is the second biggest factor in determining a credit score. It’s the ratio of how much debt you have in relation to your credit limit. CUR is calculated by dividing the outstanding balance on all of your credit cards by the credit limit on those cards. The lower your credit utilization ratio, the better it is for your credit score. A ratio of 30% or less is ideal. For example, suppose you have three credit cards that offer you a total credit limit of $10,000. You have a $500 balance on one card, a $0 balance on another, and a $2,150 balance on the third. Your total balance of $2,650 is about 27% of the credit available to you. You’re using 27% of your available credit. The lower your ratio, the higher your credit score is likely to be. Credit utilization accounts for 30% of a FICO credit score. It’s second to payment history, which is 35%. As we noted earlier, those two are the main factors that credit repair companies can help people with. Having low debt and not using your credit cards much, or at least paying them off completely each month without carrying a balance, can alone be enough to substantially raise your credit score substantially.