Your credit score is determined by a variety of factors, each of which makes up a portion of the score:
• Approximately one-third of the score represents the individual’s payment history.
• Another third of the score is determined by current debts and the ratio of debt to the amount of available credit.
• The remaining third of the credit score is determined by three factors—length of credit history, recent credit applications, and the types of credit (e.g., credit cards, car loan, mortgage) in an individual’s credit history.
If you have too many lines of credit open, canceling the cards can affect your credit positively. But if you have had these credit cards for a long period of time and have a good record of making payments on them, canceling them could have a negative impact on your credit because it will shorten the length of your history as a credit card user.
You need to look at your whole credit report to better understand whether it would be a good choice or not to cancel these credit cards. To reduce debt and be more financially secure, you can also decide to simply quit using these credit cards, whether you officially cancel them or not.
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