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Soft pulls won’t harm your credit score, but hard pulls can lower it for up to 12 months and remain on your reports for up to two years. Think of a soft credit pull as a cursory glance at your credit reports, whereas a hard credit inquiry is a deep dive, which only happens when you fully apply for new credit.
Hard inquiry vs. soft inquiry
A soft credit pull, or soft inquiry, won’t affect your credit score at all. When you check your own credit reports, it’s considered a soft pull. If you’ve ever received a letter from a credit card company saying, “You’re preapproved!” then they’ve done a soft pull on your credit reports. Potential landlords, utility companies and private citizens can all conduct soft pulls for a surface-level look at your credit reports. And many lenders also offer a preapproval process that only requires a soft pull.
A hard credit pull, or hard inquiry, requires your permission, and it can harm your credit score for a few months and remain on your credit reports for up to two years. These happen when you apply for new credit, such as a credit card or loan. With a hard pull, you give a lender permission to request your credit reports to determine your creditworthiness for your new credit account.
How many points does your credit score drop from a hard pull?
The impact of a hard credit pull can depend on your current credit score, but it’s typically around five to 10 points per hard pull. So, while it’s not a huge drop, it can be a pain for low-credit borrowers or those right on the edge of credit score requirements.
Whether you’re approved for the new credit, hard inquiries are reported and can harm your credit score for up to 12 months but fall off completely after two years.
Credit scoring models consider borrowers who frequently apply for new credit to be high-risk. FICO and VantageScore track how often you apply for new credit. If you apply for new credit often, it lowers your credit score.
Hard inquiries go under the FICO category called new credit, which makes up 10% of your FICO credit score. Borrowers who frequently apply for new credit may be at risk of being overextended financially, so each time you apply for new credit, it’s noted on your credit reports for future potential lenders to see.
If you open a new credit account, that will also impact your credit score thanks to the category called length of credit history. It makes up 15% of your FICO credit score and tracks the average age of all your active accounts. By opening a new account, you’ll temporarily decrease the average age of your accounts, which can lower your credit score.
Rate shopping involves applying with multiple lenders within a short time for the sake of comparing rates to reduce the hard pull impact. If you apply for the same type of credit within a small window, the credit bureaus note all the hard inquiries, but the credit scoring models consider the multiple hard pulls as one in calculating your credit score.
The credit scoring models understand that when you apply for the same type of credit multiple times, such as a mortgage, you’re comparing rates. Older versions of FICO allow for a 14-day span for rate shopping, and the newer FICO versions allow for up to 45 days. So, even if a lender is using an older version of FICO, you still have at least two weeks to check rates with multiple lenders with minimal impact on your credit score.
However, rate shopping may not apply to things like credit cards. Each hard inquiry with a new credit card application will likely harm your credit score, because applying for multiple credit cards can be a sign that you’re overextended financially.
Products with no hard credit pull
These credit-building products don’t require a hard credit inquiry, so applying for them won’t affect your credit score.
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What is the Finder Score?
The Finder Score crunches over 300 checking accounts from hundreds of financial institutions. It takes into account the product's monthly fees, overdraft fees, opening deposit, customer support options, ATM network and features — this gives you a simple score out of 10.
To provide a Score, Finder’s banking experts analyze hundreds of checking accounts against what we consider is the best option: no monthly fees, no overdraft fees, a large ATM network of 50,000 or more, additional features outside of typical banking services, and the optional perk of earning interest. Accounts that are nearly free to maintain and use are scored the highest, while accounts with costly fees and few features are scored the lowest.
Since hard credit inquiries can add up, apply for new credit sparingly. Multiple five to 10 point drops in a short time can mean a drastic drop in your credit score for just applying.
You should also remember that checking your credit reports doesn’t harm your credit score at all. In fact, it’s encouraged to check your credit reports frequently. You can request free weekly copies of your credit reports from AnnualCreditReport.com or from the credit bureaus themselves: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.
Bethany Hickey is the banking editor and personal finance expert at Finder, specializing in banking, lending, insurance, and crypto.
Bethany’s expertise in personal finance has garnered recognition from esteemed media outlets, such as Nasdaq, MSN, Yahoo Finance, GOBankingRates, SuperMoney, AOL and Newsweek. Her articles offer practical financial strategies to Americans, empowering them to make decisions that meet their financial goals. Her past work includes articles on generational spending and saving habits, lending, budgeting and managing debt.
Before joining Finder, she was a content manager where she wrote hundreds of articles and news pieces on auto financing and credit repair for CarsDirect, Auto Credit Express and The Car Connection, among others.
Bethany holds a BA in English from the University of Michigan-Flint, and was poetry editor for the university’s Qua Literary and Fine Arts Magazine. See full bio
Bethany's expertise
Bethany has written 429 Finder guides across topics including:
The Extra debit card is a debit card that builds credit without charging interest like traditional credit cards do. Review Extra’s features, fees and more.
Step banking accounts help kids and teens learn to manage their money while building their credit scores.
Advertiser disclosure
Finder.com is an independent comparison platform and information service that aims to provide you with the tools you need to make better decisions. While we are independent, the offers that appear on this site are from companies from which Finder receives compensation. We may receive compensation from our partners for placement of their products or services. We may also receive compensation if you click on certain links posted on our site. While compensation arrangements may affect the order, position or placement of product information, it doesn't influence our assessment of those products. Please don't interpret the order in which products appear on our Site as any endorsement or recommendation from us. Finder compares a wide range of products, providers and services but we don't provide information on all available products, providers or services. Please appreciate that there may be other options available to you than the products, providers or services covered by our service.
We update our data regularly, but information can change between updates. Confirm details with the provider you're interested in before making a decision.
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