Checking your own credit score does not lower it. When you look up your number through a bank app, a free monitoring service, or a credit bureau’s website, that’s a soft inquiry, and soft inquiries have zero effect on your score.1Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. What Is a Credit Inquiry? You could check every day for a year and the number would sit exactly where it started. The confusion comes from a different kind of credit check, called a hard inquiry, that happens when a lender pulls your report because you’ve applied for credit.
Soft Inquiries vs. Hard Inquiries
A soft inquiry is any credit check that isn’t tied to a new application for credit. That includes you checking your own score, a lender screening you for a pre-qualified offer, an employer running a background check, or an insurer pricing a policy. Only you can see soft inquiries on your report; other lenders don’t see them at all.1Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. What Is a Credit Inquiry?
A hard inquiry is different. It happens when a lender checks your report because you’ve formally applied for a loan, a credit card, or similar credit. Hard inquiries stay on your report for two years, but they only affect your score for the first twelve months.2myFICO. The Timing of Hard Credit Inquiries: When and Why They Matter For most people, a single hard pull drops the score by fewer than five points.3myFICO. Does Checking Your Credit Score Lower It?
What Actually Triggers a Hard Pull
Hard inquiries are tied to situations where you’re actively seeking new credit:
- Mortgage applications with any lender you formally apply to.
- Auto loan applications through a dealership or a bank.
- Credit card applications during underwriting.
- Private student loan applications.
- Personal loans from banks, credit unions, or online lenders.
One hard pull isn’t the real problem. Where scores take a bigger hit is when someone applies for several credit cards or personal loans in a short window, because scoring models read that pattern as financial stress.
Rate Shopping Without a Penalty
FICO’s scoring models treat comparing offers on the same type of loan as smart behavior rather than reckless borrowing. Multiple hard inquiries for a mortgage, auto loan, or student loan get bundled into a single inquiry for scoring purposes, as long as the pulls fall inside a set window.4myFICO. How to Rate Shop and Minimize the Impact to Your FICO Scores
Older FICO versions use a 14-day window; newer versions extend it to 45 days.4myFICO. How to Rate Shop and Minimize the Impact to Your FICO Scores Since you usually can’t tell which version a lender runs, doing all your shopping within two weeks is the safest bet. VantageScore uses a 14-day window as well.5VantageScore. The Complete Guide to Your VantageScore 4.0 Credit Score This protection covers mortgage, auto, and student loan pulls only. Credit card applications are never bundled, so each one counts on its own.
Credit Checks That Aren’t From Lenders
Plenty of routine life events involve a credit check, and most of them are soft pulls that won’t move your score.
- Apartment applications. Most landlords and tenant screening services use a soft pull, though a few use hard pulls. Ask before you submit.
- Utility and phone service activation. Companies check credit to set your deposit, and it’s generally a soft inquiry.6myFICO. Can Utility, Rent, Insurance and Other Non-Lending Inquiries Affect Your FICO Scores?
- Employer background checks, including for security clearances, use soft pulls.7TransUnion. Hard vs Soft Inquiries: Different Credit Checks
- Insurance quotes. Insurers that check credit to price policies typically run soft inquiries.
If you’re not sure which type of pull a company will use, ask before you authorize the check. Any reputable company will tell you.
How to Check Your Own Credit for Free
Federal law entitles you to one free credit report every twelve months from each of the three major bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1681j – Charges for Certain Disclosures In practice you can check far more often than that. All three bureaus have permanently extended a program letting you pull your report weekly through AnnualCreditReport.com, a change that started as a pandemic measure and was made permanent in 2023.9Federal Trade Commission. You Now Have Permanent Access to Free Weekly Credit Reportsp>
AnnualCreditReport.com is the only site federally authorized to provide these free reports. Reports are available online instantly, or by mail within about 15 days.10Federal Trade Commission. Free Credit Reports
A quick distinction worth keeping straight: a credit report is not a credit score. The report is the detailed record of your accounts, balances, and payment history. Your score is a number calculated from that data. Many banks and credit card issuers now show your score for free inside their apps, and pulling it there is a soft inquiry every time.
If You Spot a Hard Inquiry You Didn’t Authorize
One benefit of checking your report often is catching inquiries you don’t recognize. A hard pull you didn’t authorize can be a sign someone applied for credit in your name. File an identity theft report at IdentityTheft.gov, then write to any bureau showing the inquiry and request its removal, including a copy of the FTC report with your letter.11TransUnion. What to Do if You Don’t Recognize an Inquiry on Your Credit Report The bureau generally has 30 days to investigate, extendable to 45 days in some situations, and five business days after that to notify you of the outcome.12Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Long Does It Take to Repair an Error on a Credit Report? Contact the creditor that ran the pull as well, so they can close any fraudulent account.
None of this changes the answer to the original question. Looking at your own credit is a soft inquiry, and soft inquiries never lower your score. Check as often as you find it useful.