Do credit card pre-approvals hurt your credit score?

Receiving a prescreened offer or using a tool to check for pre-approval can be a great way to understand your credit card options. And getting pre-approved for a credit card typically won’t impact your credit scores.

Keep reading to learn how the terms prescreen, pre-approve and prequalify are used, what the “pre” in pre-approval means, and how card issuers can check your eligibility without hurting your credit.

What you’ll learn:

• You might receive a pre-approval offer from a credit card issuer if your financial profile matches basic cardholder eligibility requirements. Or you could check whether you’re pre-approved on your own, often through an online experience.

• Credit card pre-approval doesn’t typically impact your credit scores because the process usually involves a soft inquiry.

• Applying for a credit card that you’re pre-approved for requires a hard credit inquiry, which could cause credit scores to drop temporarily. 

• Getting pre-approved doesn’t guarantee approval, but it can give you an idea of what cards you’re more likely to be approved for.

Credit card pre-approvals let you check credit card offers, often without harming your credit scores. You may see an option to get pre-approved when you’re looking at cards online. Or you may have gotten an invitation in the mail to check offers. 

If you’re trying to figure out what it all means, it’s important to remember a few things:

• Issuers might use terms such as pre-approval, pre-qualification and prescreening to refer to the process of letting people check for potential credit card offers. 

• Whether you checked yourself, were invited to check or received an offer, it usually means your credit reports have been reviewed and you match basic cardholder requirements. If you want to follow through with the credit card offer, you’ll still need to apply.

• Offers don’t guarantee that you’ll be approved for a new credit card. It simply means that the credit card issuer has determined you’re a good candidate based on the information in your credit report.

You might receive prescreened offers in the mail, but there are also ways to check yourself. One option is Capital One’s pre-approval tool. It lets people check for credit card offers without impacting their credit scores. Pre-approval requires some basic info and often takes less than a minute.

Checking for pre-approved credit card offers won’t hurt your credit because typically, pre-approval involves a soft inquiry. Also known as a soft pull or soft credit check, a soft inquiry doesn’t affect your credit scores. It’s simply a way for lenders to determine whether you may qualify for their credit card offer.

If you choose to apply for a credit card you’re pre-approved for, it triggers a hard inquiry. Hard inquiries can remain on credit reports for two years. But they may not affect credit scores for that long. For example, FICO credit scores only consider hard inquiries from the past 12 months. 

Even if the effect on your credit scores is temporary, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says “only apply for credit that you need.” Applying for many credit cards in a short period could hurt your scores and look bad to lenders.

Pre-approval can help take the guesswork out of your credit card search. If you know what credit card you’re likely to be approved for, you could avoid unnecessary hard inquiries—and the resulting dip in your credit scores.

Credit card issuers also often use pre-approval to market promotional offers. These offers might include perks like competitive interest rates and ways to avoid annual fees and earn rewards.

Boosting your credit scores can help you attract better credit card offers. Here are some things that may help you increase your credit scores and pre-approval odds over time:

• Use credit responsibly. Responsible credit use includes making on-time payments, staying within your credit limits and not opening too many accounts at once.

• Stay under your credit limit. Experts recommend keeping your credit utilization ratio, or the amount of available credit you’re using across all your revolving credit accounts, below 30%. 

• Dispute errors on your credit report. You don’t want inaccurate information harming your credit. If you find errors on your credit reports, dispute them with the credit bureau. 

Monitoring your credit can help you understand what else you can do to improve your score. You could use a tool like CreditWise from Capital One. CreditWise is free and available to everyone, even if you don’t have a Capital One card. And using CreditWise won’t hurt your credit scores. You can also get free copies of your credit reports from each of the three major credit bureaus by visiting AnnualCreditReport.com. 

If you’d rather not receive pre-approval offers, you can opt out for five years or permanently by going to optoutprescreen.com or calling 888-5-OPT-OUT (888-567-8688).

Exploring pre-approved card offers can help you make an informed decision about applying for a new credit card. Plus, being selective with credit card applications may help minimize the number of hard inquiries that appear on your credit report. And pre-approval typically won’t hurt your credit scores.

You can use Capital One’s pre-approval tool to browse potential card offers without harming your credit. Check out this guide for getting pre-approved for a Capital One credit card to learn more.

New to credit or looking for your next credit card?

• Check for pre-approval offers with no risk to your credit score.

• Earn unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase, every day with Quicksilver.

• Explore Capital One’s credit cards for building credit with responsible use.