Does closed credit card count towards average age of account in credit score calculation?

I have read many people said something like this. Closing your old credit card impacts credit score by lowering the average age of accounts.

I don't know what this saying is based on. If credit score calculation doesn't include closed account, then, the reverse statement should be true as well? That is, closing your newly opened accounts will boost your credit score!? However, I have heard the opposite of that from many people too.

So if the credit score calculation does take into account the closed account, we are talking about the old closed account eventually fall off your credit after 7 years and thus impact your average age then. In that case, the effect comes only 7 years later.

From the average age of account perspective, is the effect of closing an account on the credit score an IMMEDIATE effect or a DELAYED effect (7 years)? What's your thoughts?

It might be the 103 degree fever, but I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. However...

While closing the newest / newer accounts will improve your average age of credit (as average age only includes open accounts), closed accounts do show on your report (as you implied), and it is believed that having a high number of closed accounts is looked at as a negative (indicative of shortsightedness perhaps). Closing accounts would also reduce the amount of credit available, which would throw off your total utilization (another negative).

Because of that, the "benefit" that closing new accounts would have on your average age would be offset by the fact that your report would show a bunch of closed accounts (at least as long as those closed accounts hang around on your report). The common opinion (I think) here is that it's best to just cut up the non-used cards or throw them into a drawer, but keep the accounts open. If you've "maxed out" the number of cards you can have from a given issuer, it's better to try and combine the lines (merging into the oldest card) than to close the accounts.

Sorry if this doesn't make sense...I'll revisit and edit accordingly (if necessary) once I'm over the flu.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

lrothkcsa, are you saying that the closed card DOES NOT count towards the age calculation immediately. Do you have any supporting material for that? I tried to search for one and couldn't find a explicit source.

verruckterBaum, you seem to be holding the opinion that closed card DOES count towards the age calculation until it falls off the credit report (7 years), but doesn't count towards utilization. And again, do you have any explicit source supporting that view?

I can't cite a source but I can say that I have closed both old and new cards at separate times but both less than 7 years ago. My FICO score did not change one bit. So if I go on the logic that it immediately is not counted, that means credit age does not matter which pretty much accepts is false. Therefore the only logical explanation is that it is still being counted.