Hard vs Soft Inquiry: How Credit Checks Affect Your Score

By CreditMeadow Editorial Team · Updated October 16, 2026

Whether a credit check counts as a hard vs soft inquiry comes down to why someone looked at your credit report. An inquiry is a request to see your report, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sorts inquiries into two groups. Hard inquiries are often made by lenders after you apply for credit, and they can affect your credit scores. Soft inquiries cover reviews such as checking your own report, and they don't.

Below: how to tell the two apart, how much a hard inquiry matters for a FICO Score, how long it lasts, and how to shop for a loan without stacking up inquiries.

Hard vs soft inquiry at a glance

What counts as a soft inquiry

Soft inquiries are checks that are not tied to a new application for credit. The CFPB lists:

• Your own requests for your credit reports
• Reviews of your existing accounts by lenders or insurance companies
• Prescreening inquiries by prospective lenders
• Employment screening

FICO adds background checks to the soft category. Checking your own report or score never hurts your FICO Scores, as long as you get it from a credit bureau or a provider authorized to give consumers their reports.

Prescreening is how offers of credit you never asked for reach you. The CFPB explains that card companies use information from the credit bureaus to make firm offers of credit to people whose credit history meets their criteria. That screening is a soft inquiry; applying for the card is what leads to a hard one.

Soft inquiries are shown only on the copy of the report you see. The CFPB says they are not visible when others purchase your credit report.

What counts as a hard inquiry

A hard inquiry happens when a lender checks your credit because you applied for credit, such as a credit card, a mortgage or an auto loan. When you apply, you authorize the lender to request your report from a credit bureau, FICO explains, and the inquiry is then listed on your report, where other lenders can see it.

Hard inquiries count because, as the CFPB puts it, most scoring models look at how recently and how frequently you apply for credit. FICO's research shows that opening several new accounts in a short period represents greater risk, especially for people who don't have a long credit history.

How much a hard inquiry affects your FICO Score

For most people, not much. FICO says one additional inquiry takes less than five points off most people's FICO Scores, on a scale that runs from 300 to 850. Inquiries fall under new credit, which makes up 10% of a FICO Score, and they are only part of that category.

The effect can be larger in three situations:

• A thin credit file. Inquiries can have a greater impact if you have few accounts or a short credit history.
• Many inquiries. FICO's statistics show that people with six or more inquiries on their credit reports can be up to eight times more likely to declare bankruptcy than people with none, which is why a cluster of applications reads as higher risk.
• Several card applications. FICO says applying for a single new card may have a small impact, but applying for several can have a much greater effect.

Your payment history and the amounts you owe matter far more. See how your credit score is calculated for all five factors.

How long hard inquiries stay on your report

Hard inquiries remain on your credit report for two years, but FICO Scores only consider inquiries from the last 12 months. An application you made 14 months ago may still be listed when a lender looks at your report, but it no longer counts in your FICO Scores.

Rate shopping: when several inquiries count as one

Comparing loan offers is worth doing, and scoring models are built to allow for it. The CFPB says credit scoring models don't penalize you for comparison shopping and generally count multiple inquiries as one if they happen within a reasonably short period.

FICO's rate-shopping guide names three kinds of inquiries that get this treatment because they commonly involve shopping around: mortgage, auto loan and student loan inquiries. FICO Scores handle them in two ways:

1. A 30-day buffer. These inquiries are ignored while they are under 30 days old.
2. Grouping. Multiple inquiries that fall within the rate-shopping window count as a single inquiry. Older FICO versions use any 14-day span; newer versions use any 45-day span. Each lender chooses which version it uses.

There are limits. The CFPB notes that grouping applies to inquiries for the same type of loan: shopping for a mortgage and an auto loan at the same time generally counts as multiple inquiries, as does comparison shopping that goes beyond 45 days. Credit card applications are not on FICO's rate-shopping list. FICO explains that several credit card applications in a row may mean a person is seeking multiple new lines of credit.

Example: timing a car loan search

Suppose you apply with three auto lenders on June 3, June 8 and June 14, and the lender you choose pulls your FICO Score on June 20 (hypothetical dates).

• The first and last applications are 11 days apart, inside both the 14-day and the 45-day window, so the three can be counted as one inquiry under older and newer FICO versions alike.
• On June 20, the newest inquiry is 6 days old and the oldest is 17 days old. All three are under 30 days old, so they are ignored in that score.

Now suppose the same three applications were made on June 3, July 1 and August 20. The gaps are 28 and 50 days. No two applications are within 14 days of each other, so an older FICO version would see three inquiries. Under a 45-day window, June 3 and July 1 fall inside one span, but August 20 is 50 days after July 1 and 78 days after June 3, so it counts separately: two inquiries instead of one.

The CFPB's advice for auto loans is to keep loan shopping within 14 to 45 days. FICO suggests a focused period such as 14 days, which fits both the older and the newer window.

Before you let a lender check your credit

• Ask what kind of check it is. When you shop for a mortgage, the CFPB says you can decide whether to allow a lender to check your credit, and suggests asking the loan officer how they plan to check it.
• Check your own reports first. It's a soft inquiry, so it won't affect your FICO Scores, and it lets you catch errors before a lender sees them.
• Bunch your loan shopping. Keep mortgage, auto or student loan applications within a short window, ideally 14 days.
• Apply for cards one at a time. FICO suggests reading about each card's features and applying only for the one that has the features you want.
• Expect follow-up offers. After a mortgage lender checks your credit, other lenders may send you offers, sometimes called "trigger leads." The CFPB says you have the right to opt out of receiving them.
• Look for inquiries you don't recognize. FICO suggests checking your reports regularly so you can identify unauthorized inquiries and dispute them. Our guide on how to dispute a credit report error walks through the steps.