Credit glossary
High credit
The highest balance ever owed on an account, shown on many credit reports as high balance or highest credit.
The CFPB's 2012 description of Metro 2 lists "credit limit, highest credit or original loan amount" among the account details furnishers send. On a loan, the related figure is usually the original amount borrowed. On a card, the high balance shows the most you've ever owed, and it can sit far above your current balance without meaning anything is wrong.
Read it next to the limit. If a card reports a high balance but no credit limit, compare it with your statement and ask the issuer to report the limit, since the limit is what utilization is measured against. A high balance above anything you ever charged, or a limit reported lower than your statement shows, is a factual error you can dispute with that statement as proof.
Guides that go deeper
- How to read your credit report, line by line and field by fieldWhat each section and field on an Equifax, Experian or TransUnion report means, which dates matter most, and how to tell normal entries from real errors.
- Credit utilization, explained with the actual mathCredit utilization is card balances divided by card limits. See the math per card and overall, what counts, and why last month's ratio stops mattering.
Sources
- Key Dimensions and Processes in the U.S. Credit Reporting System (December 2012), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
- What is a credit report?, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
This is education, not legal or financial advice. Spot an error? Tell us and we'll fix it.