An unused credit card stays open as long as it sees one posted purchase inside the issuer's review window — 6 months at the strictest, 24 at the most lenient. Miss that window and the bank closes the account, which drops your available credit and eventually your average account age. Below: three reliable ways to clear the bar.

The short answer

Run one posted charge on every unused card at least every 90 days. Any amount counts — even $1. Three methods do the work: a recurring subscription on autopay, a quarterly manual purchase, or an automation service that handles every card for you.

See how the automation works → or jump to pricing

Method 1 — A small subscription on autopay

The lowest-effort approach: move a subscription you're already paying for — music, cloud storage, news, a productivity tool — onto the unused card and turn on autopay. The subscription bills monthly, the charge posts, autopay clears the balance to $0. The card sees regular activity and never gets flagged.

Good anchor subscriptions: Apple Music or Spotify ($10–15), iCloud+ or Google One ($1–10), NYT or WSJ ($4–25), 1Password or Notion ($3–10). Use what you'd be paying for anyway — the card becomes a rail for an existing expense, not a new cost.

Failure mode: the anchor subscription stops. You switch streaming services, the company shuts down, or you forget you set it up. Across multiple cards, the probability that at least one anchor breaks within a year is high.

Best for: 1–3 unused cards. After setup, near-zero ongoing effort.

Skip the subscription juggling. ActiveCred runs a tiny authorized charge on every linked card automatically — $0.99/mo for 1 card, $4.99/mo for up to 20. No subscriptions to manage, no calendar reminders.
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Method 2 — Quarterly manual rotation

Every 90 days, log into each unused card, make a small purchase, pay it off. A coffee, a transit fare, a $1 digital download — anything that posts. The amount is irrelevant; only the date of the most recent posted transaction matters.

Quarterly is the safe-everywhere cadence. Citi and Bank of America can close cards at 6 months of inactivity, so 90 days gives you a buffer. Some issuers tolerate longer gaps, but a single rule across the whole portfolio is easier to stick to.

Failure mode: forgetting. Most people drop the quarterly rotation within 6 months because life intervenes. By the time you remember, one or more cards may have crossed the threshold.

Best for: 1–3 disciplined cardholders. ~30 minutes per quarter.

Method 3 — Automated activity tooling

For 4+ unused cards, or for anyone tired of remembering: services that run a tiny authorized charge on each linked card on a schedule. ActiveCred charges $0.50 + tax per card per month — enough activity to keep every issuer's review system satisfied, low enough that it doesn't matter what's on the card.

Link the cards once, set the cadence, done. The card sees a real posted charge every month, the issuer's review system records it as active, and you never manage subscriptions or remember quarterly reminders again. Plans run $0.99–$4.99/mo depending on how many cards you cover.

Failure mode: not paying the subscription on your manager card. That's it.

Best for: 4+ cards, or anyone who'd rather not think about this.

What does not count as activity

  • Logging into the app. Doesn't count. Issuers track posted transactions, not engagement.
  • Paying the balance to $0. Doesn't count. Payments are inbound credits, not posted charges. A $0-balance card can be closed even with perfect payment history.
  • Calling customer service. Doesn't count. Closure decisions are automated; a phone call adds a note but doesn't reset the timer.

Only a fresh, posted, outbound charge from a merchant resets the clock. Full definition of what counts.

Per-issuer cadence cheatsheet

  • Citi, Bank of America — 6–12 months. Treat 4–5 months as safe.
  • Chase, American Express, Discover — 12–18 months. Every 9–10 months works.
  • Capital One — 18–24 months. Once a year is usually enough.
  • Annual-fee cards (any issuer) — the annual fee posting counts as activity. These rarely close.

If your cards span multiple issuers, calibrate to the most aggressive one. Per-issuer detail here.

Bottom line

Pick the method that matches your portfolio. Subscription on autopay for 1–3 cards if you're set-and-forget. Quarterly rotation for 1–3 cards if you trust the discipline. Automation for 4+, or for anyone who's tried manual approaches and watched them fail. Doing nothing is also an option — it just ends with the bank picking the closure date for you.