HowHardInquiriesAffectYourScore

Every time you formally apply for credit, the lender pulls your report and a hard inquiry gets logged. People worry about these far more than they should. One inquiry is a small, temporary thing, and knowing how they actually work means you can apply when you need to without flinching.

Hard vs. soft

The distinction is the whole game. A soft inquiry is a look that doesn’t come from a new-credit application: checking your own credit, a pre-qualified offer, or an existing lender reviewing your account. Soft inquiries are invisible to other lenders and have no effect on your score. ³

A hard inquiry comes from an actual application: a card, a loan, sometimes an apartment. Those can nudge your score down, briefly.

< 5 pts what a single hard inquiry typically takes off a FICO Score, per FICO. The impact varies from person to person.

So the honest answer to “how many points will this cost me?” is: usually fewer than five, and it depends on your overall profile. ¹ There’s no fixed number. Be wary of anyone who quotes you one.

How long it sticks around

A hard inquiry stays on your report for about two years, but FICO only factors it in for about one. Inquiries are a minor input anyway, roughly 10% of the score. ¹ After a year, the effect has largely faded; after two, the inquiry drops off entirely.

Rate shopping is protected

Here’s the part that saves you real points: when you shop for a single big loan (a mortgage, an auto loan, a student loan), the scoring models bundle the resulting inquiries together.

• FICO counts same-type inquiries made in a short window as one. Older versions use a 14-day window; newer ones stretch it to as much as 45 days. ²
• VantageScore uses a rolling 14-day window. ⁶

To stay safe under every model, do your shopping within about two weeks. Ten mortgage quotes in that window look like one search for a loan, not ten attempts to open debt.

One application is a rounding error. A dozen unrelated ones in a month is a pattern, and that’s what scoring actually notices.

There’s a catch: this bundling applies to installment loans, not credit cards. ⁵ Several card applications in a row each count separately, so don’t go on a card-application spree.

”Can I remove an inquiry?”

Only if it doesn’t belong to you. You can’t remove a hard inquiry you authorized: it’s an accurate record, and it’ll fade on its own. But if you spot an inquiry from an application you never made, that can be a sign of fraud, and you can dispute it like any other error.