Does Checking My Own Credit Report Lower My Score?

Does checking your own credit report lower your score? If you've heard that when a lender checks your credit it can have a negative impact on your credit rating, then you may be wondering what effect (if any) checking your own credit report has.

Keeping up to date with your latest report and score is important to maintain a healthy credit profile, so let me go ahead and put any fears you may have about this to rest.

There are two different sorts of credit pulls - a soft inquiry, and a hard inquiry. A soft inquiry does not have any effect on your credit score, but a hard inqury will lower your score.

When you check your own credit report, it is usually a soft inquiry, so it has no effect on your credit score. To be considered a soft inquiry, the credit pull must be conducted through a first or second party service. When you use the credit bureaus directly, or a website which is owned by one of the credit bureaus, or the official annualcreditreport.com, it will usually be considered a soft inquiry.

When a third party pulls a complete report on you, it will be considered a hard inquiry, and cost you about 5 points on your credit score. Needless to say, you don't want too many of those, and it probably isn't a good idea to have your mortgage broker brother check your credit for you either.

To summarize this information, you generally do not need to worry about checking your own credit report, so long as you take care to do it through an official source.

What If I Want to Check My Score?

Sometimes, just checking your credit report isn't good enough. You want to know what your credit score is, and unfortunately, I don't know of a way to get that for "free" (at least with no strings attached; either you're paying for it or someone else is).

There are trial programs where you can initially check your score for $0, but if you don't cancel the subscription, you will eventually be charged, usually on a monthly basis.

Still, that's not necesarilly so bad. Having up to date information on your credit score and credit report every month isn't exactly the worst thing that can spend you money on.

One such trial program is here: Get My Credit Score

But does it hurt your score? In theory, it shouldn't since it is your own score you are checking, and you are using an official company with inside access, rather than letting a mortgage broker or a commercial, unconnected company check your score.

If you want some credit tips, advice, and strategies, make sure to sign up using the form below. I get thank you letters from people quite frequently for the information I give, and I'd love to hear from you as well.