what does cancelling a credit card do to my credit rating?

[Rhone]

Let's say I have a credit card with a zero balance and a $1000 credit limit. And this limit represents about 10% of my total credit limit on all my cards.

If I cancel this card, is it positive, negative, or neutral with regard to my overall credit score?

[b0000000000m]

It depends on whether you currently have "too much" credit already right now, and what percentage of your available credit you are using on average.

If you want to find out the situation with both of these, get a free credit report that gives you your FICO score and an analysis of your + and - factors. It will tell you if the credit agencies think you have too much or too little credit, and if they think you are using too much or too little of your available credit.

[RogerZBT]

IIRC from the talking heads on CNBC, cancelling cards doesn't really help your score. Whether it's neutral or negative would depend on how much debt is on the other cards. If you have $9,000 worth of debt on that other $9,000 worth of credit limit, it would hurt, because you'd now be maxed out.