A hard inquiry stays on your credit report for two years from the date a lender pulled your file, but it only affects your FICO score for the first 12 months. For most people, that effect is fewer than five points, and the inquiry drops off automatically at the 24-month mark without any action on your part.1myFICO. Do Credit Inquiries Lower Your FICO Score
Two Years on the Report, One Year on Your Score
All three major credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion — keep hard inquiries on your file for 24 months from the date of the pull. After that, the entry disappears on its own.
The scoring clock runs shorter. FICO only factors a hard inquiry into your score during its first 12 months on your report.1myFICO. Do Credit Inquiries Lower Your FICO Score An inquiry that is 13 to 24 months old is still visible to anyone reviewing your report, but it contributes zero points to the calculation. Scoring models treat older inquiries this way because an application you made more than a year ago says little about your current financial behavior.
One note on terminology, because it changes what you should worry about: only hard inquiries behave this way. Soft inquiries — checking your own credit, pre-screened offers, account reviews by lenders you already have, most employer background checks — never affect your score at all, even though they may also appear on your report for up to two years. If the inquiry in question is soft, the two-year number is irrelevant to your score.
How Many Points a Hard Inquiry Costs
For most people, a single hard inquiry lowers a FICO score by fewer than five points.1myFICO. Do Credit Inquiries Lower Your FICO Score The exact drop depends on everything else in your file. A long history with many accounts absorbs an inquiry easily. A thin file with few accounts feels each one more.
Scores typically recover within a few months as long as you keep paying on time and avoid piling on additional applications. If you actually opened the account you applied for, recovery can be faster still, because on-time payments on the new account add positive history that outweighs the small inquiry penalty.
Volume is where things change. According to FICO, people with six or more inquiries on their reports are statistically up to eight times more likely to declare bankruptcy than people with none.1myFICO. Do Credit Inquiries Lower Your FICO Score That correlation is why scoring models penalize a cluster of applications more heavily than any one on its own.
Rate Shopping Is Treated as One Inquiry
If you are comparing rates for a mortgage, auto loan, or student loan, scoring models give you a window during which multiple hard pulls count as a single inquiry. The length of that window depends on the model:
- Older FICO versions use a 14-day window.
- Newer FICO versions use a 45-day window.2myFICO. How to Rate Shop and Minimize the Impact to Your FICO Scores
- VantageScore uses a 14-day window but applies the deduplication across more loan types, including credit cards.
Because you usually don’t know which scoring model a given lender uses, the safe move is to finish your rate shopping within 14 days. Each inquiry still appears individually on your report, but only one of them counts against your score. Under FICO, this protection covers mortgages, auto loans, and student loans; credit card applications are scored individually, so stacking card applications does not get the same treatment.2myFICO. How to Rate Shop and Minimize the Impact to Your FICO Scores
If You Spot an Inquiry You Didn’t Authorize
Review the inquiry section of your report against your actual applications. You can pull free weekly reports from all three bureaus through AnnualCreditReport.com, and Equifax provides six additional free reports per year through 2026.3Federal Trade Commission. Free Credit Reports Checking your own report is a soft inquiry and does not affect your score.
If an entry doesn’t match anything you applied for, dispute it with each bureau that lists it. You can file online through the bureau’s dispute portal or send a letter by certified mail with the date of the inquiry and the name of the company that pulled your report. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681i, the bureau has 30 days to investigate, extended to 45 days if you provide additional information during the investigation.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681i – Procedure in Case of Disputed Accuracy The bureau will ask the company that made the inquiry to verify authorization. If the company cannot, the bureau must remove the inquiry.5Federal Trade Commission. Disputing Errors on Your Credit Reports
One limit worth knowing: you cannot dispute an inquiry that is accurate and authorized, even if you regret the application. Federal law explicitly states that neither you nor a credit repair company has the right to remove accurate, current, and verifiable information from your report.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1679c – Disclosures A legitimate hard inquiry runs its full two years and then drops off.
Preventing Future Unauthorized Inquiries
A credit freeze blocks lenders from accessing your report, which stops anyone from opening a new account in your name while the freeze is in place. Placing and lifting a freeze is free under federal law, and you can do it with each bureau online or by phone.7Federal Trade Commission. Credit Freezes and Fraud Alerts A freeze doesn’t affect your score and doesn’t interfere with the accounts you already have. When you need to apply for new credit, you lift the freeze temporarily with the bureau the lender uses, complete the application, and refreeze. If you’re not actively shopping for credit, keeping a freeze in place is the most reliable way to make sure no new hard inquiries show up on your report.