The difference between a hard inquiry and a soft inquiry is simple: one affects your score, one does not. But the details matter when you are trying to protect your score while applying for credit.
What Is a Soft Inquiry?
A soft inquiry (also called a "soft pull") happens when your credit is checked without your explicit application for new credit. Soft inquiries do not affect your score and are not visible to lenders -- only to you.
Common soft inquiries:
- Checking your own credit score
- Credit card companies checking to pre-approve you for offers
- Employers doing background checks
- Existing creditors reviewing your account
- Credit monitoring services (including Storehouse360)
What Is a Hard Inquiry?
A hard inquiry (also called a "hard pull") happens when a lender checks your credit as part of an application decision. Hard inquiries do affect your score.
Common hard inquiries:
- Credit card applications
- Auto loan applications
- Mortgage applications
- Personal loan applications
- Most business loan applications
- Apartment rental applications
How Much Does a Hard Inquiry Hurt?
A single hard inquiry typically costs 3 to 7 FICO points. The exact amount depends on the length of your credit history, your current score, and how many other inquiries you have recently. People with shorter credit histories or lower scores feel the impact more.
Important timing facts:
- Hard inquiries affect your score for 12 months
- They remain visible on your report for 24 months
- After 12 months, they no longer affect your score calculation
The Rate Shopping Exception
When you are mortgage shopping, auto loan shopping, or student loan shopping, FICO groups multiple hard inquiries within a 14-45 day window and counts them as a single inquiry. This encourages you to compare rates without penalty.
This exception does not apply to credit card applications. Five credit card applications in one month are five separate inquiries.
How to Dispute Unauthorized Hard Inquiries
Under FCRA §604, lenders may only pull your credit for permissible purposes -- primarily when you have applied for credit. If you see a hard inquiry you did not authorize, you can dispute it.
To dispute:
- Identify the inquiry (name of creditor and date)
- Contact the creditor and ask for documentation of your authorization
- If they cannot produce authorization, file a dispute with the bureau citing §604
- The bureau must investigate and remove the inquiry if it was unauthorized
Storehouse360 flags all new hard inquiries in real time and generates dispute letters automatically for any inquiry you mark as unauthorized.
Start monitoring your credit report and dispute any unauthorized inquiries instantly.