I'm not talking personal ACL, but rather the average credit limit per account per American. Is there any data out there on that? Also I think it would be cool just as a group to see how everyone defines different credit limits... what (to you) constitutes a tiny limit, an average limit, a large limit, etc. We all have different lingo, so just go with what you typically say. For me, I'd probably classify them as the following: Toy limit: Anything 3-figure Average limit: Anything 4-figure Big limit: $10k-$29.9k Monster limit: $30k-$49.9k Outlier limit: $50k+ That above would be if I were assigning 5 categories. I could easily see an argument to break the Average limit category into $1k-$4.9k and $5k-$9.9k. If I were to create a shooting-from-the-hip bell curve of American credit limits I would think the bulk of them would fall in the "Average" range I referenced above. I don't know how much of them... maybe 70%? I then would think that the amount of 5-figure limits would probably exceed the amount of 3-figure limits, but not by a huge margin. I feel like Outlier limits are probably very small when looking at the big picture... my guess < 1%. I think since we're part of a credit forum and into this stuff that we may think the number is greater than that, but when you consider the sheer amount of sub-$50k limits I would imagine that there are easily 99 of them to every 1 that's $50k+. Just curious to hear different opinions on this and have a fun little discussion.
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Any data on average credit limits?

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3 years ago
Sat Mar 26, 2022 2:00 am
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BrutalBodyShots
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I'm not talking personal ACL, but rather the average credit limit per account per American. Is there any data out there on that? Also I think it would be cool just as a group to see how everyone defines different credit limits... what (to you) constitutes a tiny limit, an average limit, a large limit, etc. We all have different lingo, so just go with what you typically say. For me, I'd probably classify them as the following:

Toy limit: Anything 3-figure
Average limit: Anything 4-figure
Big limit: $10k-$29.9k
Monster limit: $30k-$49.9k
Outlier limit: $50k+

That above would be if I were assigning 5 categories. I could easily see an argument to break the Average limit category into $1k-$4.9k and $5k-$9.9k.

If I were to create a shooting-from-the-hip bell curve of American credit limits I would think the bulk of them would fall in the "Average" range I referenced above. I don't know how much of them... maybe 70%? I then would think that the amount of 5-figure limits would probably exceed the amount of 3-figure limits, but not by a huge margin. I feel like Outlier limits are probably very small when looking at the big picture... my guess < 1%. I think since we're part of a credit forum and into this stuff that we may think the number is greater than that, but when you consider the sheer amount of sub-$50k limits I would imagine that there are easily 99 of them to every 1 that's $50k+.

Just curious to hear different opinions on this and have a fun little discussion.
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Re: Any data on average credit limits?

2 of 10
3 years ago
Sat Mar 26, 2022 3:31 am
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Saeren
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Experian says $30K. https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-expe ... t%20limits. Seeing how most people only have a couple cards, I guess this makes sense but it's still pretty surprising to me. I would have for sure thought that number was less than $10K.
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Re: Any data on average credit limits?

3 of 10
3 years ago
Sat Mar 26, 2022 10:35 am
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BrutalBodyShots
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Anyone else find that ($30k) hard to believe? I do.

One of the big reasons is for me to have trouble buying that is that there are very few people (relatively, remember we here are the minority) that push limits, routinely request CLIs etc. The vast majority of the population doesn't. Almost everyone I talk to in life doesn't even know that you can. That being said, compare what your personal ACL is today as someone that does push your limits and request CLIs (if you do) and then remove those CLIs or the majority of them and take a stab at what your ACL would be if you didn't.

My ACL if I didn't push my limits would have been right about at $9k, perhaps $11k-$12k if I account for a couple of auto CLIs from lenders I know that may do that. And that is with approvals on credit scores/file and income that was at least average and at times above average.

What else do you all think?
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Re: Any data on average credit limits?

4 of 10
3 years ago
Sat Mar 26, 2022 2:17 pm
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Saeren
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I think that most lenders will give PCLIs if you're actually using their card though. I will also say that I had a $25K card with US Bank when I was barely 22 and I was only making about $35K. That card got used a lot because my only other major credit card was from BoA and was over 22% interest while my US Bank was 1.9% + prime which back then meant my interest rate was around 10%.

People like us are massive outliers so our profiles don't reflect normal anything.
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Re: Any data on average credit limits?

5 of 10
3 years ago
Sat Mar 26, 2022 3:55 pm
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Slabenstein
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I'm not sure whether that Experian article is talking about the average limit of individual credit cards or average TCL, which would make more sense. The article you posted is definitely phrased like it's talking about individual cards, but it refers to this article about 2020 cc statistics. In that article, all of the other statistics such as average debt and average utilization appear to be per cardholder, implying the $30k average would be TCL, too, but it doesn't explicitly say one way or the other. ETA: Outside reporting on Experian's number appears to consistently treat it as average TCL. So if we take $30,365 average TCL together with Experian's saying that the average number of cc's per cardholder in 2020 was 3.84, we get an average CL of $7,907.55. But how accurate that is prly depends on how rounded 3.84 is.
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Re: Any data on average credit limits?

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3 years ago
Sat Mar 26, 2022 4:27 pm
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Cassie
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Slabenstein wrote: Sat Mar 26, 2022 3:55 pm So if we take $30,365 average TCL together with Experian's saying that the average number of cc's per cardholder in 2020 was 3.84, we get an average CL of $7,907.55.
This has to be the correct interpretation. The only way I can think of that it wouldn't be is if that average is really an average and not the more meaningful median. That seems unlikely.
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Re: Any data on average credit limits?

7 of 10
3 years ago
Sat Mar 26, 2022 6:32 pm
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Saeren
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Slabenstein wrote: Sat Mar 26, 2022 3:55 pm I'm not sure whether that Experian article is talking about the average limit of individual credit cards or average TCL, which would make more sense. The article you posted is definitely phrased like it's talking about individual cards, but it refers to this article about 2020 cc statistics. In that article, all of the other statistics such as average debt and average utilization appear to be per cardholder, implying the $30k average would be TCL, too, but it doesn't explicitly say one way or the other. ETA: Outside reporting on Experian's number appears to consistently treat it as average TCL. So if we take $30,365 average TCL together with Experian's saying that the average number of cc's per cardholder in 2020 was 3.84, we get an average CL of $7,907.55. But how accurate that is prly depends on how rounded 3.84 is.
That would make a lot more sense that it's based on TCL because like I said, I expected it to be less than $10K.
Saeren
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Re: Any data on average credit limits?

8 of 10
3 years ago
Sat Mar 26, 2022 9:45 pm
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AllZero
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@Slabenstein is a Ferengi and really good with numbers. His logic is sound.
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Re: Any data on average credit limits?

9 of 10
3 years ago
Sat Mar 26, 2022 11:07 pm
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BrutalBodyShots
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Good call @Slabenstein and thanks for that input. I do feel like $8k or so feels a lot more realistic.
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Re: Any data on average credit limits?

10 of 10
2 years ago
Sun May 08, 2022 5:52 pm
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Birdman
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Totally agree good call @Slabenstein
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