Hard vs. Soft Inquiries: What They Do to Your Score

Every time someone checks your credit, a record called an inquiry is created on your credit report. Some of these checks are “soft” and don’t affect your credit score, while others are “hard” and can temporarily trim a few points. The distinction matters because lenders, landlords, and insurers routinely access your report, and only certain purposes should cost you points. In mainstream scoring models, hard inquiries are a small factor compared with payment history and utilization, but their timing and clustering can still influence approval odds at the margins. Consumer regulators define what counts as a permissible “credit” pull, and both FICO® and VantageScore® publish clear guidance on how rate-shopping is grouped so you can compare mortgage or auto offers without taking multiple hits. If you understand when a pull will be soft, when it will be hard, and how long it stays, you can plan applications with minimal scoring friction. This guide decodes the categories, timelines, and lender adoption rules, then gives you a practical playbook to keep inquiry impact low. We anchor definitions and timelines to CFPB, FICO, VantageScore, and bureau sources so the advice matches how scoring actually works.

Hard vs. Soft: Definitions, Visibility, and When Each Happens

A soft inquiry occurs when your credit is checked for a purpose other than granting new credit, such as when you view your own report, when a monitoring app updates your score, or when a lender pre-screens you using a list from a bureau. Soft inquiries don’t affect your scores because they don’t signal new borrowing risk, and they are typically not shown to prospective lenders who review your file. A hard inquiry is created when you actively apply for credit — credit cards, auto loans, mortgages, personal lines — and a lender pulls your report to make a decision. Hard pulls are visible to other lenders precisely because they indicate potential new debt, and scoring models treat a cluster of new applications as a modest risk indicator. The CFPB defines a credit inquiry broadly as any request to view your report for eligibility decisions, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires a “permissible purpose” for any pull. Employers, landlords, insurers, and utilities may also review reports, but many of those checks are coded so they do not count as hard inquiries that affect scores. If a business cannot articulate a permissible purpose or you didn’t authorize a credit application, you can dispute the inquiry as improper. In practice, consumer-facing education from FICO, Experian, Equifax, and the FDIC all reinforce the same core distinction: checking your own credit or receiving a preapproval is soft, while applying for new credit is hard. That simple rule of thumb covers nearly all everyday scenarios and keeps you from avoiding useful soft checks out of misplaced fear.

How Much Hard Inquiries Matter — and for How Long

Hard inquiries are a minor factor compared with payment history or utilization, but they can still nudge your score, especially if several appear within a short span outside a protected shopping window. FICO notes that a hard pull may cause a small, temporary dip, and that effect usually fades as months pass without additional new-credit activity. Experian explains that hard inquiries generally remain on your credit reports for up to two years, but FICO typically counts them in its score calculations for only about 12 months. Equifax confirms the two-year reporting life and indicates that the scoring effect wanes before the entry drops off. Because models weigh recency, the first few months after a cluster is when the impact is most noticeable; by month nine or twelve, many profiles recover most or all of those points assuming clean behavior. Importantly, inquiries don’t accumulate interest or create fees — unlike balances — so the strategy is not to fear them but to time them. Consumers often worry that opening a single card for a sign-up bonus will “trash” their score; in a clean file, the inquiry itself is a modest, short-lived signal, and the new limit can even help utilization. Lenders also view context: one mortgage inquiry before a home purchase reads differently than six retail card applications in a weekend. If you’re planning a major loan, keeping the 12-month scoring window in mind helps you cluster applications early and avoid stray pulls right before underwriting. This is why many credit educators suggest pausing nonessential applications within a year of a mortgage, even though the hard-pull entries will linger on the report for up to two years.

Rate-Shopping Windows: Mortgages, Auto, and Student Loans

Both leading scoring families include logic to let you shop for a single loan without being penalized as if you were seeking many. FICO describes two layers of protection: first, most scoring versions ignore mortgage/auto/student-loan inquiries that are less than 30 days old at the time of scoring; second, they may deduplicate multiple inquiries within roughly a 45-day “shopping window” so they count as one. VantageScore takes a simpler approach: it treats multiple inquiries for the same loan type within a 14-day rolling period as a single inquiry. The CFPB’s consumer guidance echoes this with a concrete mortgage example: within a 45-day span, multiple mortgage checks are logged on your report but treated as one for scoring, which is why you can collect several official Loan Estimates to compare terms. TransUnion’s consumer education similarly summarizes the windows — about 45 days for FICO’s deduping and 14 days for VantageScore’s grouping — and advises shoppers to bunch applications tightly. The operational takeaway is straightforward: pick a focused week or two to get quotes, submit applications within that window, and you’ll minimize inquiry impact under both systems. If you spread applications over many weeks, scoring models may treat them as separate “new credit” events. Finally, remember that credit-card inquiries are not rate-shopped; those pulls generally each count individually because consumers can and often do open multiple revolving accounts. Planning your calendar with these windows in mind preserves optionality without sacrificing points you don’t need to lose.

Control the Impact: Practical Moves Before, During, and After You Apply

First, check your own credit often — that’s a soft inquiry and won’t affect scores — so you can correct report errors before a lender looks. Second, batch applications: if you’re shopping a car loan, aim to submit all applications within a tight 14-day window to capture VantageScore’s full protection and still sit inside FICO’s 30-day “ignore” period, with the broader ~45-day dedupe as a backstop. Third, avoid unnecessary combined friction by spacing unrelated hard pulls — like a retail card — far away from a planned mortgage. Fourth, prequalify where available; many issuers offer soft-pull prequalification so you can gauge odds without committing. Fifth, understand permissible purpose: if you see a hard inquiry from a company you never applied to, dispute it with the bureaus and, if needed, with the furnisher as an impermissible pull under the FCRA. Sixth, keep utilization low around application time; models read inquiry + rising balances as a stronger risk signal than inquiry alone. Seventh, after approval, set alerts and automatic payments so your new account reports positive behavior quickly, which helps any small inquiry impact fade faster. Eighth, if you’re declined, ask whether the lender can consider a recon using the same pull within a short period; some lenders will reuse a recent report without an additional hard inquiry. Ninth, if a lender unexpectedly performs multiple hard pulls for the same product (for example, initial and verification), ask them to consolidate or rely on the original pull. Tenth, track your statement-closing dates; the first few reports on a brand-new card often shape lender perception more than the inquiry itself, and low early utilization reinforces that you’re a low-risk borrower.

Common Myths (and the Facts)

Myth one: “Checking my own score hurts my credit.” Reality: self-checks are soft inquiries and have no impact on scores.
Myth two: “Every inquiry is equal.” Reality: mortgage/auto/student-loan inquiries inside recognized shopping windows are grouped, while credit-card inquiries are generally counted individually.
Myth three: “Hard inquiries wreck my credit for two years.” Reality: they remain on reports up to two years, but FICO typically includes them in scores for about one year and the impact fades with time.
Myth four: “Preapprovals always cause a hard pull.” Reality: most preapprovals use a soft pull until you formally apply, though you should read disclosures to confirm.
Myth five: “A balance transfer avoids a hard pull.” Reality: opening a new balance-transfer card usually requires a new application and thus a hard inquiry.
Myth six: “Employers doing background checks will hurt my score.” Reality: employment checks are coded so they don’t affect scores.
Myth seven: “A lender can pull my credit without a reason.” Reality: the FCRA requires a permissible purpose and you can dispute impermissible pulls.
Myth eight: “I should avoid rate shopping because the multiple checks will crush my score.” Reality: windows exist specifically so you can shop for the best terms with minimal scoring cost.
Myth nine: “Soft inquiries are invisible to me.” Reality: they appear in the soft-inquiry section of your report, just not to lenders.
Myth ten: “There’s a secret number of inquiries that auto-declines you.” Reality: lenders weigh inquiries alongside income, debt-to-income, utilization, and history; there’s no universal cutoff.

Durations and grouping based on FICO, VantageScore, and bureau guidance; exact handling depends on model version and lender systems.