Do Credit Bureaus Sell Your Information? Opt-Outs and Trigger Leads

Yes. Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion are for-profit companies, and selling your information is a core part of how they make money. Federal law lets them share data from your credit file with lenders, insurers, tenant and employment screeners, debt buyers, and their own corporate affiliates. So the real question for most people searching whether credit bureaus sell your information is narrower: which uses can you shut down, and how? You can stop prescreened credit and insurance mailings through OptOutPrescreen.com or 1-888-567-8688, and you can block affiliate marketing through the privacy notice each bureau sends you. You cannot stop every sale, because some uses, like a landlord pulling your report after you apply for an apartment, are legally permitted and do not require your consent.

What Credit Bureaus Actually Sell

The bureaus package your data in three main ways, and each has its own rules.

Prescreened lists. The Fair Credit Reporting Act lets bureaus sell lists of consumers to lenders and insurers who want to send unsolicited offers. A lender sets criteria, such as a minimum credit score or a geographic area, and the bureau returns the names and addresses of people who qualify. The lender does not see your full report, and the offer must be a “firm offer of credit or insurance,” meaning the lender has to follow through if you respond and still meet the original criteria. Every prescreened offer must carry a notice telling you how to opt out, with a short version on the front of the first page and a longer version elsewhere in the mailing.¹

Resellers. Separate companies buy credit data in bulk and repackage it for specific industries: tenant screening, employment background checks, debt collection, and so on. Resellers can only pass the data to end users who have a permissible purpose under the FCRA, must certify what that purpose is, and must confirm it will not be used for anything else.² Permissible purposes include credit and insurance decisions, employment screening with your written consent, and government benefit eligibility reviews.³ These transactions are not something you can opt out of; the OptOutPrescreen process does not touch them.

Corporate affiliates. Each bureau belongs to a larger corporate family that sells credit monitoring, identity theft protection, and similar subscriptions. Those affiliates can use information from your credit file to target marketing to you, as long as they disclose the sharing and offer a way to opt out.⁴

Mortgage Trigger Leads Are Now Restricted

Until recently, applying for a mortgage set off a wave of calls, texts, and emails from competing lenders within hours. The bureaus flagged your file as an active mortgage shopper and sold that status as a “trigger lead.” The Homebuyers Privacy Protection Act, signed September 5, 2025, amends the FCRA to prohibit the sale of mortgage trigger leads unless the receiving creditor already has a financial relationship with you, such as holding your current mortgage or deposit account, or you have specifically opted in. The restriction takes effect March 5, 2026.⁵ Mortgage applications filed before that date fall under the old rules.

How to Opt Out of Prescreened Offers

The FCRA gives you two choices: a five-year opt-out or a permanent one.⁶ Both run through a single system shared by the major bureaus (and Innovis, a smaller fourth bureau): OptOutPrescreen.com or 1-888-567-8688.

Have this ready before you start:

Full legal name, including any suffix such as Junior, Senior, or III
Social Security number
Date of birth
Current address, plus any previous address from the last six months

The information above comes from the bureaus’ opt-out requirements.⁷

The five-year opt-out is fully electronic. You submit online or by phone, and it takes effect within five business days.⁷ The permanent opt-out starts the same way but requires one extra step: you print, sign, and mail a Permanent Opt-Out Election form that the website generates for you. It stays in effect until you choose to opt back in.

Expect a lag. Processing begins within five business days, but offers already in the mail pipeline can keep arriving for up to 60 days.⁸ Keep a copy of any mailed form in case you later need proof.

The Separate Opt-Out for Affiliate Marketing

OptOutPrescreen handles prescreened offers from unrelated lenders and insurers. It does not cover marketing from the bureau’s own corporate siblings. For that, you need to use the opt-out instructions in the annual privacy notice each bureau sends you under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. That notice has to describe the categories of data collected and shared, who receives it, and your right to opt out of certain disclosures to nonaffiliated companies.⁹ Read it when it arrives. The affiliate-marketing opt-out and the third-party sharing opt-out are usually separate boxes, and both are separate from OptOutPrescreen.

Why a Credit Freeze Doesn’t Replace an Opt-Out

A security freeze blocks new creditors from pulling your credit report, which stops most new accounts from being opened in your name. It is free, and the bureaus must honor a phone or online request to lift it within one hour.¹⁰ But a freeze does not stop prescreened marketing. Those lists come from a different kind of inquiry that the freeze does not block.¹¹ If you want both account security and relief from junk credit mail, you need the freeze and the OptOutPrescreen opt-out.

An extended fraud alert, available to identity theft victims, is a middle option. It lasts seven years, requires businesses to verify your identity before opening accounts, and automatically removes you from prescreened lists for five years.¹²

Changing Your Mind

If you later want to receive offers again, maybe to shop for a better credit card rate, go back to OptOutPrescreen.com or call 1-888-567-8688 and follow the opt-in prompts.¹³ The statute ends your exclusion as soon as you tell the bureaus through that same system that you no longer want to be out.⁶

If the Bureaus Ignore You

If you are still getting prescreened offers well past the 60-day window, or a bureau will not process your request, file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at consumerfinance.gov/complaint.¹⁴ Include dates, any confirmation you received, and copies of the offers that kept arriving.

The FCRA also lets you sue for willful violations, including a failure to provide the required opt-out notice on a prescreened mailing. Statutory damages run from $100 to $1,000 per violation, and you can also recover actual damages and attorney’s fees.¹⁵

1
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR 1022.54 – Duties of Users Making Written Firm Offers of Credit or Insurance
2
Federal Trade Commission. Fair Credit Reporting Act Text – Section 607
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1681b – Permissible Purposes of Consumer Reports
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681s-3 – Affiliate Sharing
5
Congress.gov. H.R. 2808 – Homebuyers Privacy Protection Act
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1681b – Permissible Purposes of Consumer Reports – Subsection (e)
7
TransUnion. Prescreen Opt Out
8
GovInfo. Prescreened Offers of Credit and Insurance
9
eCFR. Subpart A – Regulation S-P: Privacy of Consumer Financial Information
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1681c-1 – Identity Theft Prevention; Fraud Alerts and Active Duty Alerts
11
Equifax. 8 Facts About Security Freezes
12
Consumer Advice – FTC. Credit Freezes and Fraud Alerts
13
Federal Trade Commission. What To Know About Prescreened Offers for Credit and Insurance
14
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Submit a Complaint
15
Federal Trade Commission. Fair Credit Reporting Act Text – Section 616