1. Banking mistakes
Not retaining an address in your home country. If you don’t have a residential address in your home country, it could be hard to maintain your bank account and difficult to re-establish your credit once you make your way home again. That’s why many people change their on-file banking address so correspondences go to a parent’s house or other relative. Doing so may allow you to keep one foot in your home country even if you get most banking notifications via email.Closing a credit card account in good standing. According to Bruce McClary, the director of media relations at ClearPoint Credit Counseling Solutions, closing a credit card in good standing could damage your overall credit score.1 While you don’t have to keep each and every one of your accounts open while you’re living away from home, you should be careful about which ones you decide to close. It can be helpful to have credit cards in your home currency for domestic purchases, even if you have to pay $75 a year to keep to keep it open.
When you do close multiple accounts, do so one at a time over a period of time. The more accounts you close at once, the more damage you’ll do to your credit score, and the harder it will be to undo that damage. And for the cards that you do decide to keep open? Let your credit card issuers know about your move in advance. This will prevent them from thinking that suspicious activity is occurring once you start using the cards overseas.