What is a Hard or Soft Credit Check (2024)

FAQs

What is a Hard or Soft Credit Check? ›

Credit pulls are when someone — even you — checks your credit. Lenders run hard checks when you officially apply for credit, which can cause your credit score to drop slightly. Soft checks, on the other hand, are for preapprovals or when you check your own credit, and they don't affect your credit score.

The defining factor is that a soft inquiry occurs when someone is only seeking credit information about you (but not looking into making you a loan), while a hard inquiry happens when a lender is deciding whether to make you a loan.

A soft pull on your credit shows basic personal information, a summary of your credit history, recent inquiries, any public records related to your credit, and sometimes a summary of your credit scores. It does not reveal detailed account-specific information and doesn't affect your credit score.

Soft inquiries do not impact your credit scores. Hard inquiries serve as a timeline of when you have applied for new credit and may stay on your credit reports for up to 36 months. Depending on your unique credit history, they could indicate different things to different lenders.

A soft credit check may be visible on your credit report, but won't affect your credit score, or your ability to get credit in future, so there's no need to worry about how often they're completed.

Soft inquiries do not affect credit scores and are not visible to potential lenders that may review your credit reports. They are visible to you and will stay on your credit reports for 12 to 24 months, depending on the type.

While pulling your Equifax credit report, or a credit score based on the information in it, will generally result in a soft inquiry, it will not affect your credit scores. If you see information on your credit report that appears to be inaccurate or incomplete, you can contact Equifax for free and we will look into it.

Credit Karma allows you to check your credit report and score for free, without affecting your score. The service doesn't hurt your credit score because it counts as a self-initiated inquiry, which is a soft credit inquiry.

Checking your own credit report or score won't affect your credit scores. It's an example of a soft inquiry—a request for credit info that does not affect credit scores.

Both types of inquiries appear on your report for up to two years, but understanding their differences is crucial in maintaining good financial health. Soft inquiries don't impact your credit score.

What information is needed for a soft credit check? ›

Personal details like your name, home address and date of birth. A list of any types of credit you currently have, including any bank accounts, loans and credit card accounts, and any outstanding debts. Details of your repayment history, including any missed or late payments.

The answer differs from lender to lender, but most consider six total inquiries on a report at one time to be too many to gain approval for an additional credit card or loan. In this article, we will review: What a hard credit inquiry is. What the difference is between hard and soft inquiries.

Hard inquiries on your credit — the kind that happen when you apply for a loan or credit card — can stay on your credit report for about 24 months. However, a hard inquiry typically won't affect your credit score after 12 months.

Your credit report contains information on your financial behaviour (including any missed payments or defaults) from the last six years.

Soft credit inquiries have no impact on your credit score. If a lender checks your credit report, soft credit inquiries won't show up at all. Soft inquiries are only visible on consumer disclosures—credit reports that you request personally.

This is also known as a hard inquiry or hard pull. With a hard credit check, the lender can see how much credit you're juggling and how you've handled credit in the past. This helps them decide if you're financially responsible and how likely you are to pay them back.

Soft pulls can be as accurate as a hard credit pull and provide much of the same information. However, they won't affect your credit score like a hard pull would.

Your credit score won't be affected by a potential employer conducting a credit check on you. “An employment inquiry is treated like a soft inquiry,” Ulzheimer says. “Not visible to other parties (other than you) and not considered in credit scoring systems.”

If you've recently applied for a loan, such as a car loan, mortgage or student loan, you may immediately notice a hard inquiry on your credit report — especially if you're using a credit monitoring service.

When you apply for a line of credit, lenders will usually perform soft inquiries for an overview of the basic details on your credit score, including how often you've applied for credit. This information is usually gathered by scoring models calculated by the three credit reporting bureaus.