One of the most persistent myths about credit scores is that checking your own score hurts it. It does not. The confusion comes from not understanding the difference between the two types of credit inquiries: hard inquiries, which do affect your score, and soft inquiries, which do not appear in your score calculation at all.
What a hard inquiry is
A hard inquiry, also called a hard pull, occurs when a lender or creditor checks your credit report as part of an application process. Applying for a credit card, a mortgage, an auto loan, a personal loan, or a student loan all generate hard inquiries. Landlords who check credit as part of a rental application and some employers conducting background checks may also generate hard inquiries. Hard inquiries remain on your credit report for two years and typically lower your score by a small amount, usually 5 to 10 points, for up to one year.
What a soft inquiry is
A soft inquiry occurs when you check your own credit, when a lender checks your credit as part of a pre-approval or prescreening process, or when an existing creditor reviews your account. Checking your score through your bank app, Credit Karma, or annualcreditreport.com are all soft inquiries. When you receive a pre-approved credit card offer in the mail, the company that sent it ran a soft pull on your report. None of these affect your credit score regardless of how often they happen.
How much hard inquiries actually matter
New credit inquiries account for roughly 10 percent of a FICO score, which is the smallest of the five factors. A single hard inquiry typically drops a score by fewer than 10 points for most people with established credit histories, and the impact diminishes further after a few months. The practical implication is that applying for one credit product you genuinely need is unlikely to meaningfully affect your financial life. Applying for five credit cards in a single month is a different matter, both because of the inquiries and because of what it signals about credit-seeking behavior.
Rate shopping is treated differently
When you shop for a mortgage, auto loan, or student loan with multiple lenders in a short window, the credit bureaus and scoring models recognize this as rate shopping rather than multiple credit applications. FICO scores group multiple inquiries of the same type within a 45-day window and count them as a single inquiry. This means you can get quotes from five mortgage lenders in the same month without five separate score impacts. This protection applies to mortgages, auto loans, and student loans but not to credit cards.
You can see all inquiries on your credit report
Your credit report from each bureau includes a section listing all inquiries, both hard and soft, from the past two years. Reviewing this section when you check your report lets you verify that every hard inquiry corresponds to a credit application you actually made. An unfamiliar hard inquiry could indicate that someone has applied for credit in your name, which is worth investigating. You can access your reports for free through annualcreditreport.com.