Credit reporting agency Experian has released a new study showing that 14.1 percent of Americans have at least 10 credit cards, and just over half (51.3%) of credit card holders have at least two. Overall, the study found that the average American cardholder has four credit cards.

Experian study also tracked credit card usage by state, and New Hampshire came up as the state that most enthusiastically uses credit cards. New Hampshire and New Jersey had the highest average for credit cards per cardholder, at 5.2 and 5.1 cards per cardholder, respectively. New Hampshire and Minnesota had the highest percentage of cardholders with two or more cards, at 63.4% and 61.1%. And New Hampshire and New Jersey were the most likely to have 10 or more cards, with 20.3% and 20.0% fitting that definition respectively.

On the flip side, Mississippi and Washington D.C. had the least cards per cardholder, at 3.0 and 3.1 respectively. D.C. and Texas had the lowest percentages when it came to carrying two or more cards, at 43.0% and 44.1% of cardholders. Mississippi and D.C. were also the least likely to carry 10 or more cards, with 8.3% and 9.0% of cardholders being heavy card carriers.

For complete state-by-state statistics from Experian, go to: http://www.nationalscoreindex.com/ScoreNews.aspx.

Published 02/20/07 (Modified 04/20/12)