How long do hard inquiries stay on your credit report?

Generally, you’ll see two types of inquiries appear on credit reports: soft inquiries and hard inquiries.

While soft inquiries show up on your credit reports, they don’t appear to lenders and don’t affect your credit scores. But hard inquiries are different. They can affect your credit scores and typically stay on your report for two years. 

Learn more about hard inquiries and how they can affect your credit.

Key takeaways

• A hard inquiry can stay on your credit reports for up to two years, but certain credit-scoring models only consider inquiries from the most recent 12 months.

• Lenders perform hard inquiries when you apply for loans or other major lines of credit.

• The impact of a hard inquiry may depend on your credit history.

When you apply for a new credit card, a home loan or another line of credit, the potential lender will request information about your credit history. This action is called a hard inquiry, or hard pull, and you’ll typically see it appear on one or more of your credit reports.

Hard inquiries fall off of your credit reports after two years. But your credit scores may only be affected for a year, according to credit-scoring company FICO®. 

“Although FICO Scores only consider inquiries from the last 12 months, inquiries remain on your credit report for two years,” the company says.

But a potential lender may have a different approach. Lenders may be concerned if you have too many hard inquiries on your credit report within a short period of time.

If you’re shopping around for a mortgage or car loan, it makes sense that you might be comparing rates with different lenders. Rate shopping within a certain time frame—generally 14 to 45 days, depending on the credit-scoring model—could be treated as just a single hard inquiry. This could keep your score from dropping several times in quick succession.

Credit inquiries make up about 10% of your total FICO score. But keep in mind that there are other credit-scoring companies and models, like VantageScore®, that a lender could use.

A hard inquiry typically only causes credit scores to drop by about five points, according to FICO. And if you have a good credit history, the impact may be even less. 

If you’re looking to secure a large loan, like a mortgage, you may not want to apply for other new credit around the same time, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). This may help minimize the risk that your credit scores will drop before you apply for the larger loan.

You could keep up with your credit by reviewing your credit reports from the three major credit bureaus: TransUnion®, Experian® and Equifax®. You can retrieve free copies by visiting AnnualCreditReport.com.

And you can use CreditWise from Capital One to see your TransUnion credit report and your VantageScore 3.0 credit score. Using CreditWise won’t hurt your credit scores, and it’s free for everyone, whether or not you’re a Capital One account holder.

You may be able to remove a hard credit inquiry from your credit report if it’s reported in error or the result of identity theft or fraud. You can learn more from the CFPB. 

Although hard inquiries can remain on your credit reports for up to two years and temporarily lower your credit scores, responsible credit use can help you overcome any drops. By monitoring your credit scores, you’ll be better able to decide the right time to apply for a new credit card. You can even use the CreditWise Simulator to test how applying might affect your credit scores. 

Ready to explore credit card options? Capital One has cards for fair, good and excellent credit. You can even check pre-approval offers without impacting your credit scores.