Does cancelling a corporate credit card damage your credit history if you leave a company?

I am thinking about applying for a corporate credit through my company to streamline the process of submitting expenses. The card gets billed to me directly, and I'm wondering if cancelling it (if I were to leave the company for instance) would reflect badly on my credit score in the same way it would if I were to cancel a personal credit card account--which I have been told is not good for one's credit rating. Does anyone know?|||Is there any balance, delinquents, etc. Then it shouldn't. It will be in your report as a responsible card holder.|||If the credit card is in your name and not the company's, whatever you do good or bad will be reflected on your personal credit history.|||You can use this credit monitoring service to pre-estimate future scores for different scenarios of such payments - buildcredit.ifastnet.com|||Regardless of where the bill gets sent, the key question to ask is who is ultimately responsible, you or your company? It sounds from your question like you are the responsible party. If so, then yes, for reporting purposes, it is treated just like it was your personal credit card. If is is a true corporate card, where the company is liable rather than you (even if the bills are sent to you), then it does not count on your credit score.





"Corporate" credit cards that are really personal cards have become a hot marketing game, because of the recent changes to the Fair Credit act. That Act imposed requirements for notice about any rate increases and in general gave consumers more rights. However, the new rights do NOT apply to these so-called corporate cards. They can--and do--jerk you around as much as ever, maybe more.





Keep in mind that while canceling a card is a hit to your credit score, it is a small one, especially if you do not carry a balance on your other cards. The major effect from cancellation is not from the cancellation itself, but from the way it makes your overall debt-to-credit limit seem worse.





For example, suppose you have two cards, each with a $10,000 credit limit. On one card, you are paying off a $5,000 balance, while you owe nothing on the second card. So, your total credit limit for the two cards is $20,000 and your total debt is $5,000. That means you have a debt-to-credit ratio of 25 percent, which is fine (less than 30 percent is the goal). But if you cancel the card with no balance, you now have $10,000 of credit to go with that $5,000 balance, bringing your ratio to 50 percent, which is definitely adverse. Nothing has really changed of course. You still owe the same amount as before, but your score will go down. On the other hand, if you have no balance on either card, there is no effect to your ratio when you cancel one of the cards.





Bottom line: if you have reasonably good credit, I would not let the cancellation issue determine whether to get the corporate card. It's just not that big a deal. But if it isn't really a corporate card--if it is just a personal card with a corporate imprint--you will have to decide whether simplified reimbursement procedures are really worth the trouble the card itself could cause.





I hope this helps. Good luck.