Key Takeaway: Checking your own credit scores won’t hurt your credit because that action is considered a soft inquiry. But hard inquiries, which are typically done when you apply for credit, can cause your scores to take a temporary negative hit.
No, checking your own credit scores doesn’t hurt them. Checking your credit scores yourself is considered a soft credit inquiry on your credit reports, which has no impact on your credit scores.
Hard credit inquiries, however, do impact your credit scores. These typically happen when you apply for a new loan or credit card and the lender checks your credit.
When you check your credit scores on Credit Karma, soft credit inquiries are performed on your TransUnion and Equifax credit reports to provide you with your VantageScore® 3.0 credit scores.
- What is a soft inquiry?
- What is a hard inquiry?
- What can lower your credit scores?
- How to check your credit scores
- How can I improve my credit scores?
- FAQs about checking your credit scores
What is a soft inquiry?
A soft inquiry, also known as a soft pull or soft credit check, occurs when you or a company checks your credit for informational purposes. These inquiries are typically noted on your credit reports but are not visible to lenders and do not affect your credit scores. You may not even be aware that some soft inquiries are happening.
Examples of actions that can trigger soft inquiries include:
- Checking your own credit scores. When you check your scores through Credit Karma or through platforms provided by lenders, credit card issuers or credit bureaus, soft inquiries are performed on your credit reports.
- Prequalifying for credit offers. Lenders and credit card issuers may perform a soft inquiry to see if you meet their initial criteria for a prequalified offer.
- Employment verification. A potential employer may perform a background check that includes a soft inquiry on your credit.
Soft inquiries may be noted on your credit reports, but they’re not visible to lenders and don’t factor into your credit scores.
What is a hard inquiry?
A hard inquiry, also known as a hard pull or hard credit check, is what happens when a financial institution checks your credit report after you’ve applied for a new credit account. A hard inquiry typically requires your direct permission as part of the application process.
Hard inquiries are visible to other lenders on your credit reports because they signal that you’ve recently applied for new credit. To lenders, hard inquiries can be a sign that you’re taking on more debt and might be at higher credit risk.
Examples of actions that can trigger hard inquiries include:
- Applying for a mortgage
- Applying for an auto loan
- Applying for a new certain federal or private student loans
- Applying for a student loan or personal loan
How do hard inquiries affect your credit scores?
A single hard inquiry generally causes your credit scores to dip by a few points.
But if you have multiple hard inquiries in a short period, that can signal to lenders that you might be a higher-risk borrower.
Credit scoring models often recognize when you’re shopping for the best rate on a mortgage, auto loan or student loan, however. In these cases, multiple hard inquiries within a short time frame (typically 14 to 45 days) are often treated as a single inquiry to minimize the impact on your credit scores.
The impact from a hard inquiry wears off over time, often within a few months — although they can stay visible on your credit reports for two years.
What can lower your credit scores?
Most credit scoring models, including those from FICO and VantageScore, focus on five key factors to calculate your credit scores. Here’s how those credit score factors can cause your scores to lower:
- Payment history: This is the record of your on-time, late or missed payments across your accounts and is generally the most important factor in your credit scores. Having late or missed payments on your credit reports will typically lower your credit scores.
- Credit usage or utilization: This shows how much revolving credit you’re using compared to your overall available credit. Higher credit utilization can signal to lenders that you might struggle to pay back your new loan or credit card balance, which can lower your credit scores. That’s why it’s generally recommended to keep your credit utilization below 30% when possible.
- Length of credit history: This factor looks at the age of your oldest and newest credit accounts, as well as the average age of all your credit accounts. A longer credit history shows that you have more experience using credit. Closing your credit accounts, especially older ones, can eventually shorten your length of credit history and lower your credit scores.
- Credit mixes: Having a variety of credit account types — like credit cards, car loans or personal loans — shows lenders you can handle different types of credit. Because this is such a small factor in credit score calculations, your scores won’t suffer if you don’t have more than one type of credit, but you may get higher credit scores if you do.
- Recent credit: This factor considers how recently and how many times you’ve applied for and opened new accounts. Applying for new credit generates a hard inquiry, which can temporarily lower your scores.
How to check your credit scores
Since checking your own scores is a soft inquiry, you can do it as often as you want without fear of it lowering them. Here are a few ways to check your credit scores:
- Credit Karma. You can get your free VantageScore 3.0 credit scores and reports daily from two of the three major credit bureaus: Equifax and TransUnion.
- Your bank or credit card issuer. Many financial institutions offer customers free access to one of their FICO or VantageScore scores.
- Directly from the credit bureaus. Each of the three main bureaus (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) offers services to access your scores.
How can I improve my credit scores?
Making on-time payments, paying off debt and keeping balances low can all help improve your credit scores over time. Payment history is an especially important factor in score calculations, so making payments on time each month is key. Paying down your balances will lower your credit utilization ratio, which may also improve your credit.
While you’re working on your scores, aim to keep your credit utilization below 30%, and try not to take on new debts that could hinder your progress. For example, a new credit card might be good for your overall credit utilization ratio, but not if it tempts you to overspend.
What’s next? Monitoring your credit
Checking your own credit scores is safe to do and can be a good habit to form. Credit Karma provides free VantageScore® 3.0 credit scores, as well as free credit reports, from TransUnion and Equifax. You can use these scores to track your credit-building progress.
Alongside checking your credit scores, consider signing up for credit monitoring. Credit Karma’s credit monitoring services can help you spot potential inaccuracies on your credit reports by alerting you to unusual activity, like new hard credit inquiries.
FAQs about checking your credit scores
No, checking your credit score yourself will not lower it. This is known as a soft inquiry or soft credit pull, which has no effect on your credit scores. A hard inquiry, which can temporarily lower your scores, happens when you apply for new credit and a lender checks your credit report.
Payment history is typically the most important factor in calculating credit scores. Both FICO and VantageScore models weigh payment history more heavily than any other factor.
Your credit scores can be updated any time, even daily. However, you likely won’t see noticeable changes more than about once a month since lenders tend to report new information once per billing cycle. Keep in mind that lenders and creditors may report to the bureaus at different times, which could result in scores that don’t reflect your most up-to-date information.
The first step of improving your credit scores is to review your credit scores and reports. These provide insights into how you’ve handled various types of debt. Make sure to dispute any inaccurate information with the credit bureaus.
From there, focus making on-time payments consistently. Credit utilization, or how much of your available credit you’re using, is another major factor. Try to keep your balance below 30% of your total limit to help your scores.