Checking your own credit score does not lower your rating
When you look at your own credit score, it makes no difference to the number. Checking your score is a soft inquiry — a background look that credit bureaus do not report to lenders and that has zero impact on your rating. You can check as often as you want without penalty.
The confusion comes from a real thing that does hurt your score: a hard inquiry, which happens when a lender or creditor pulls your full credit report to decide whether to lend you money. Hard inquiries do lower your score, usually by a few points, and they stay on your report for about a year. But that is not what happens when you check your own score.
The distinction matters because checking your score regularly is actually one of the smartest things you can do to protect yourself. You spot errors, catch fraud early, and watch for the hard inquiries that should only happen when you have asked for credit.
Key Takeaways
- Checking your own credit score is a soft inquiry and does not affect your rating at all, no matter how many times you do it.
- Hard inquiries — which do lower your score by a few points — only happen when you apply for credit and a lender pulls your full report.
- You have the right to one free credit report per year from each of the three major bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) through AnnualCreditReport.com.
- Monitoring your score regularly helps you spot errors, detect fraud, and see which of your actions actually move the number.
The difference between soft and hard inquiries
A soft inquiry is what happens when you check your own score, when a company you already do business with reviews your account, or when an employer runs a background check. Soft inquiries are not shared with other lenders and do not appear on the credit report that lenders see. They have no effect on your score.
A hard inquiry is what a lender does when you apply for a credit card, a mortgage, a car loan, or a personal loan. The lender pulls your full credit report to decide whether to lend and at what rate. Hard inquiries show up on your credit report and are visible to other lenders. Each hard inquiry typically lowers your score by a few points — usually between 5 and 10 points, though the exact impact varies by bureau and by your overall credit profile.
Hard inquiries stay on your report for about 12 months, though their impact on your score fades over time. Multiple hard inquiries within a short window (usually 14 to 45 days, depending on the type of credit) often count as a single inquiry for scoring purposes, so shopping for a mortgage or car loan in a concentrated period does less damage than spreading the applications out.
Where to check your score for free
You have a legal right to one free credit report per year from each of the three major credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. You can order all three at once or space them out through the year. Go to AnnualCreditReport.com, which is the official site run by the three bureaus themselves. Do not use a third-party site that claims to offer free reports — many of those sites sign you up for paid monitoring services.
Your credit score is different from your credit report. The report lists your accounts, payment history, and inquiries. The score is a number calculated from that data. You get the report free once a year, but the score itself usually costs money — though many credit card companies, banks, and free monitoring services now include your score as a benefit.
If you want to check your score more than once a year, services like Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, and NerdMoney offer free score monitoring. These services make money by showing you credit offers, not by charging you. They update your score regularly and send alerts when something changes, which is useful for catching fraud or errors quickly.
What actually does lower your credit score
Hard inquiries are only one of several things that lower your score. Payment history is the biggest factor — missing a payment or paying late damages your score far more than a hard inquiry does. A single late payment can drop your score by 100 points or more, depending on how late it is and your overall history.
Your credit utilization ratio — how much of your available credit you are using — is the second-largest factor. Maxing out credit cards or carrying high balances hurts your score even if you pay on time. Closing old accounts can also lower your score because it reduces your total available credit and shortens your average account age.
Checking your own score does none of these things. It is purely informational. The only way checking your score could indirectly hurt you is if seeing the number prompted you to apply for credit you did not need, which would trigger hard inquiries. But that is a choice you make, not an effect of the checking itself.
Why monitoring your score is worth doing
Regular score checks help you catch errors before they damage you. Credit bureaus make mistakes — accounts listed under the wrong name, payments marked late when they were on time, accounts that belong to someone else entirely. These errors can lower your score significantly. If you check regularly, you can spot them and file a dispute while the error is still fresh.
Monitoring also helps you detect fraud early. If someone opens an account in your name, a hard inquiry will show up on your report before the fraudulent account appears. Catching this within days rather than months makes the dispute process faster and limits the damage.
Finally, tracking your score over time shows you which of your actions actually move the number. Paying down a credit card balance, becoming an authorized user on someone else's account, or having a late payment age off your report — you can see the effect. This feedback loop helps you make smarter credit decisions going forward.
How to dispute errors on your credit report
If you find an error on your credit report, you have the right to dispute it with the bureau that reported it. You do not need a lawyer or a paid service to do this. Contact the bureau directly — Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion — and submit a dispute in writing. Include a copy of the report with the error highlighted, a brief explanation of why it is wrong, and any supporting documents (a bank statement showing a payment was made on time, for example).
The bureau must investigate your dispute within 30 days and remove the error if it cannot verify it. If the error came from your creditor (the bank or credit card company), you can also dispute it directly with them. Send a written dispute to the creditor's dispute department, not to customer service. Keep copies of everything you send.
If a bureau refuses to remove an error after you dispute it, you can add a statement to your credit report explaining your side. This statement will not change your score, but it will be visible to lenders who pull your full report.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does checking my credit score on my bank's app hurt my rating?
No. When your bank or credit card company shows you your score, that is a soft inquiry. It does not affect your rating. Many financial institutions now include free score monitoring as a cardholder benefit specifically because checking does not hurt you.
What if I check my score and then apply for a credit card the same day?
Checking your score does not cause the hard inquiry that happens when you apply. The hard inquiry comes only from the credit card company's decision to pull your report. Checking your own score first does not change anything about that process.
How many times can I safely check my credit report?
You can check as many times as you want without any penalty. The only limit is the one free report per year from each bureau through AnnualCreditReport.com. Beyond that, paid reports or free monitoring services do not hurt your score.
Will checking my score affect my ability to get a loan?
No. Lenders only see hard inquiries on your report, not soft ones. Your own score checks are invisible to them. What matters to a lender is your actual score, payment history, and debt levels — not how often you have looked at your own number.
Can I remove a hard inquiry from my credit report?
Hard inquiries stay on your report for about 12 months and you cannot remove them. However, if a hard inquiry appears without your permission — meaning you did not apply for that credit — you can dispute it with the bureau as unauthorized. If the lender cannot prove you authorized it, the bureau must remove it.