Does minimum payment on credit card cause bad credit?
Not directly, no. The amount that you pay has no direct effect on your score. What will affect your credit score is having a high balance relative to your available credit. Ideally, your statement balance should be no more than 10% of your credit line. Having a balance of up 30% of your credit line is okay, but higher than that can lower your scores. Make sure that you always pay at least the minimum by the due date to avoid late fees and late payments do negatively affect your credit. The problem with making minimum payments isn’t that it lowers your credit score, but that it ends up costing you more in the long run. Paying off a balance by paying the minimum every month can take years and you will often end up paying more than double the original debt in interest.
