Both hard and soft credit inquiries can stay on your credit report for up to two years. However, their impact on your credit score can vary substantially based on your circumstances and the type of inquiry or inquiries you’re dealing with. For instance, soft credit inquiries usually don’t ding your score at all and are visible only to you on your credit report.
Read on to learn more about how long credit inquiries stay on your report and the effects they can have while there.
Key Points
• Credit inquiries typically stay on your credit report for up to two years.
• Each hard inquiry can temporarily reduce your credit score by five to 10 points. Soft credit inquiries, which are visible only to you, do not affect your credit score.
• Multiple hard inquiries for a home or auto loan in a short period count are generally counted as a single inquiry when you are rate shopping.
• Hard inquiries remain on your credit report for two years but may affect your score for only one.
• Limiting credit inquiries can help build or maintain a credit score and overall financial health.
What Is a Credit Inquiry?
A credit inquiry is a request to look at your history of using credit. This occurs any time a prospective lender wants to take a peek to assess your creditworthiness and potentially extend you a loan or line of credit. Your credit file can show how well you’ve used credit in the past and whether, for example, you typically pay bills on time and have used different forms of credit (such as credit cards and installment loans) responsibly.
Credit inquiries come in two flavors: hard inquiries and soft inquiries.
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What Is a Hard Inquiry?
A hard credit inquiry occurs when you officially submit an application for a credit card or loan. The vast majority of lenders will run a hard credit check in order to approve your application for these financial products.
Hard inquiries occur when you apply for a new loan or line of credit (say, a mortgage or a credit card). These hard pulls, as they are sometimes called, can have a negative impact on your credit score, particularly if you apply for many new loans or lines of credit at the same time. Lenders may see this behavior as a risk factor, since you might take out more credit than you can afford to pay back.
A hard inquiry can lower your credit score by about 5 to 10 points each. While these inquiries can stay on your report for up to two years, they may not have an impact after one year.
What Is a Soft Inquiry?
A soft credit inquiry may be pulled by a potential lender to prequalify you for a loan or determine your eligibility for a line of credit but without officially approving your application. Soft credit inquiries can also be part of employment background checks or be requested when you start services with a utility company. You might even pull your credit file yourself to review it for accuracy. That too is a soft inquiry.
The good news is that while they can stay on your report for up to two years, soft inquiries have no impact on your credit score. What’s more, they are visible only to you.
Exceptions to the Impact on Your Credit Score
As mentioned above, only hard inquiries can have an impact on your credit score. Additionally, it’s worth noting that even with hard inquiries, if you’re shopping around for a specific type of loan, you can take advantage of a rate shopping window. Here’s an example:
Say you’re getting ready to buy a house or a car. You may be focused on building your credit score and using a money tracker app to manage your spending and saving goals. When it’s time to shop around for the loan with the most favorable terms, a finalized rate may be available only with a fully completed application (including a hard credit inquiry). So you want to file multiple applications to see where you are approved with the best deal for your situation.
Fortunately, the credit bureaus treat multiple hard inquiries for loans of the same category as only a single inquiry. They do, however, need to be made within a certain time frame — usually between two weeks and 30 days, depending on the type of loan.
In this way, loan shopping may not have too serious an impact on your credit score.
How Long Do Credit Inquiries Stay on Your Credit Report?
Hard credit inquiries can stay on your credit report for up to two years. That’s true for soft credit inquiries, too. As mentioned above, hard pulls may impact your credit score only for a year, and soft pulls are visible only to you.
This maximum time frame of two years is substantially shorter than other markers, such as bankruptcy, which can remain on your credit report for seven or 10 years.
What Is the Difference Between a Hard and Soft Inquiry?
A hard inquiry is used to officially approve an application for a loan or line of credit, and it can have a temporary negative impact on your credit score. A soft inquiry is used in most other instances when your credit score is pulled. It does not have an impact on your credit score, nor is it visible to anyone but you.
How Much Does a Hard Inquiry Lower Your Credit Score?
Usually, a hard inquiry will lower your credit score only by five to 10 points (though the dip may be more meaningful if you’re working to build your credit). While the hard pull will stay on your record for up to two years, it often has a negative impact for only one year.
Note that your credit score updates generally occur every 30 to 45 days.
How Much Does a Soft Inquiry Lower Your Credit Score?
Trick question! Since a soft credit inquiry has no impact on your credit score whatsoever, it won’t lower it at all. In fact, as noted, soft pulls are not even visible to prospective lenders and will show up on your end only when you review your credit file.
How Do Hard Inquiries Affect Shopping for Loans?
Hard inquiries inform lenders that you’re actively shopping for credit. As mentioned above, if all that credit shopping is in the same category in a short amount of time, the effect is likely to be limited. However, if you’re perpetually shopping around for new credit (a personal loan here, a credit card there), lenders may raise an eyebrow. Too many applications for credit can ding your score.
Also keep in mind that the rate-shopping window doesn’t apply to credit cards. Every credit card you open will come with a hard credit check. The impact of this credit check is not mitigated because you submitted other credit card applications. In other words, multiple credit card applications in a short period of time may have a more lasting detrimental impact on your score than if you were shopping for a single mortgage.
How to Reduce the Impact of Credit Inquiries on Your Credit
Perhaps the simplest way to reduce the impact of credit inquiries on your score is to limit the number of inquiries requested. This means you would sparingly apply for loans and lines of credit only when you truly need to. Along with helping you avoid the negative impact of hard inquiries, keeping your credit use to a minimum can help ensure you avoid a debt spiral and stay in the best possible financial position to repay the loans you do have.
Can Inquiries on My Credit Report Be Disputed?
Credit score monitoring is important and can be done for free through several channels, including credit card companies, banks, and credit counselors.
It’s also wise to regularly review your entire file every few months to look for inaccuracies. If you notice a credit inquiry on your report that you don’t recognize, you can dispute it with the reporting credit bureau — and you should. You should also reach out to the financial institution that made the inquiry and inform them that it was not a legitimate request.
In addition, you can dispute any erroneous items on your report, such as an indication that a debt you paid off is still pending.
Recommended: Why Did My Credit Score Drop After a Dispute?
Can You Remove Credit Inquiries From a Credit Report?
The only way hard credit inquiries can be removed from your credit report is if they were made fraudulently. In this case, you should go through the process of filing a dispute with the reporting bureau, as outlined above. These days, most credit file disputes can be made online, but you can also file a dispute by mail.
Avoid Unnecessary Applications Prior to Applying for a Home or Auto Loan
Since hard credit inquiries can have a negative impact on your score, it’s a good idea to avoid applying for unnecessary lines of credit shortly before applying for a more substantial one, like a mortgage or auto loan.
Credit card applications in particular can be a slippery slope since they may be extremely easy to apply for and may offer rewards for doing so. If you’re planning for bigger financial moves in the near future, steer clear if you can.
Recommended: How to Lower Credit Card Utilization
The Takeaway
All types of credit inquiries stay on your report for up to two years, though only hard inquiries can have an impact on your score and are visible to others. Typically, a hard inquiry can lower your score up to 10 points; soft inquiries, on the other hand, have no impact. While credit card applications always lead to a hard inquiry, multiple applications for an auto or home loan in a short amount of time may appear as a single inquiry on your credit report.
As you consider your credit report, it may make sense to track your finances more closely. Tools like a spending app can help you set budgets, manage bill paying, and more.
Take control of your finances with SoFi. With our financial insights and credit score monitoring tools, you can view all of your accounts in one convenient dashboard. From there, you can see your various balances, spending breakdowns, and credit score. Plus you can easily set up budgets and discover valuable financial insights — all at no cost.
FAQ
Can you remove credit inquiries from your credit report?
Unless you notice fraudulent credit inquiries on your report, hard inquiries will usually stay on your record for up to two years, which is a relatively short time frame in the world of credit reporting. If you do see a hard inquiry you don’t recognize, dispute the inquiry with the credit bureau and the financial institution involved immediately. Worth knowing: Soft credit inquiries stay on your report for a similar period of time, but they are visible only to you.
How many hard inquiries are too many?
There’s no hard and fast answer to this question. Generally speaking, the fewer hard inquiries your credit report sees, the better. There is an exception when you’re shopping around for a home or auto loan. As long as all the hard inquiries are for the same type of financial product and are made within a relatively short time frame (usually 14 to 30 days), they’ll appear as a single hard inquiry and have only a single hard inquiry’s impact on your credit score.
How much will a credit score decrease for each inquiry?
While the specifics can depend on the rest of your credit file, generally speaking a hard inquiry will lower your score only about five to 10 points. However, if you apply for multiple credit cards or many different types of loans in a short period of time, the inquiries may have a more substantial impact, especially if your credit file is slim or imperfect.
Does your credit score go up when hard inquiries fall off?
Hard credit inquiries usually have only a slight impact on your overall credit score. While it’s possible you may see a small increase to your score when they fall off, other positive markers, like on-time payments and lowering total credit balance, are more likely to help build your score.
Photo Credit: iStock/Kateryna Onyshchuk
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