Hard vs soft credit check: What’s the difference? - Earnest | Earnest

Hard vs soft credit check: What’s the difference?

By Carolyn Morris | Published on October 21, 2025

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Even if you’re new to borrowing money, you may know that the process often involves an inquiry into your credit report, also known as a credit check. But not all credit checks are equal. Some are considered “soft credit pulls” while others are “hard credit pulls.” But what’s the difference? And which kind of inquiry actually hurts your credit? Here’s what every borrower should know about soft pulls vs hard pulls.

What is a soft inquiry?

A soft credit inquiry (also called a soft credit check, soft check, soft credit pull, or soft pull) occurs when a company or person looks at your credit report for a reason other than underwriting a loan.

Some lenders, for example, will perform a soft pull to peek at your credit history so they can give you estimated loan terms or pre-approval. Getting pre-approvals is just part of shopping around, and it doesn’t indicate any serious commitment from the borrower. For that reason, a soft pull is usually enough to get pre-approved. But if you decide to move forward with a real-deal loan application, that’s a much more committing step. So, the lender will generally conduct a more rigorous hard credit pull at that point.

Keep in mind that not all lenders stick to soft pulls for pre-approval. Some skip straight to hard pulls, which can negatively affect your credit. (Always ask the lender or creditor if you’re not sure.) At Earnest, however, our two-minute Rate Check is always a soft inquiry and never hurts your credit¹.

Checking your own credit score is also considered a soft credit pull. If you currently have a credit card, the issuer may also occasionally perform a soft credit inquiry for account maintenance, which could lead to your card’s credit limit changing.

Besides underwriting a loan and checking your own credit, there are additional reasons for a soft pull to occur:

How does a soft inquiry affect my credit score?

Soft credit checks will not hurt your credit and are only visible to you when you review your credit report. If someone other than yourself looks at your credit report, they won’t see any of the soft inquiries.

Keep in mind that applying for an apartment, signing up with a new internet or cable service provider, or renting a car can lead to either type of inquiry. It can be difficult to tell which kind of credit pull a lender or service provider will use. So, if you’re unsure, ask the provider before completing an application.

What is a hard inquiry?

When you’re ready to complete a full application to borrow money — whether that’s opening a new credit card or filling out a student loan application — lenders typically perform a hard pull on your credit as part of the underwriting process. This allows your credit report to be reviewed more thoroughly by the financial company.

It doesn’t matter whether or not your application is approved: regardless, a hard pull typically lowers your credit score by a few points and will remain visible on your report (by both you and outside parties) for two years. If you make too many hard-pull inquiries in a short period of time, it can impact your credit score even more negatively. When lenders see several credit applications in a short period of time, they assume that you have poor money-managing skills and are unable to pay your debt with your existing income. That makes it seem less likely that you’ll be able to pay your lender back.

How does a hard credit inquiry affect my credit score?

According to credit scoring agencies Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO) and VantageScore, which create the most widely used consumer credit scores, hard credit inquiries can have an impact on consumers’ credit scores — but it’s often only a small change (a few points) and it’s not permanent.

Hard pulls can have the greatest impact on borrowers with only a few open credit accounts. The impact may increase the more inquiries you have. However, there is an exception to the rule. If you’re shopping to find the best rate for a loan or mortgage, creditors view this as responsible behavior and typically give you a pass. VantageScore considers all inquiries made within a 14-day window as one inquiry, and FICO considers multiple mortgage, auto, and student loan inquiries made within 14 to 45 days as one inquiry. This “one” inquiry will still cause a small, temporary change to your credit, but it’s much better than having to deal with the cumulative impacts of multiple hard pulls.

While hard inquiries remain on your credit report for two years, they only impact your FICO credit score for up to one year. (VantageScore states that a credit score will generally be back to its starting point within a few months of a hard inquiry.)

Your FICO score is determined by the following factors, which are each weighted differently in FICO’s credit score calculation:

It is important to note that credit card utilization and payment history have a greater impact on a person’s credit score than the other factors listed.

These are a few of the most common situations that might incur a hard credit pull:

Soft inquiry vs. hard inquiry visualized

Here’s a brief recap of the situations that might result in a soft pull vs hard pull on your credit.

Hard Credit Check
Soft Credit Check

Requesting your own credit report through Transunion, Equifax or Experian
No
No
Applying for a student loan
Yes
No
Checking your rate through Earnest
No
Yes
Applying for a car loan
Yes
No
Applying for a mortgage
Yes
No
Applying for a personal loan
Yes
No
Applying for a credit card
Yes
No
Pre-qualifying for a credit card
No
Yes
Background check for job
No
Yes
Applying for an apartment
Maybe
Maybe
Applying for a line of credit or to increase your credit limit
Yes
No
Rate shopping through interest rate comparison sites
No
Yes

How to remove hard inquiries from your credit report

While a single inquiry likely won’t drop your credit score to the point where it affects your ability to get a good interest rate, it’s still useful to know what types of inquiries are being made on your behalf — just in case something is amiss.

The three major credit bureaus — Experian, Transunion, and Equifax—are required to provide you with a free, full credit report once per year upon your request. It’s good to review these reports occasionally to make sure there’s nothing strange or inaccurate showing up on your report, such as a hard inquiry you don’t recognize. If you see a hard inquiry you didn’t request, it could be a sign of identity theft — that someone is applying for a credit offer on your behalf or is posing as you. You can dispute these inquiries with the bureau to get them resolved.

How do I boost my credit score?

There are a number of ways to build up your credit and improve your score over time. Here are a few tried-and-tested strategies.

1. Monitor your credit report and create a plan of action

You can monitor your credit report and credit score in several different ways. If you’re seeking information about your score specifically, you can get free credit updates from Experian, Credit Karma, and many other sites. Your credit card issuer may also have a service allowing you to regularly check your score and see detailed information about your file for free. You can also request your full credit report for free once per year from annualcreditreport.com.

Some of these websites also provide insights as to what’s impacting your score, which can be helpful as you assess how to move forward. For example, if you have a habit of applying for new credit cards every time you make a big purchase, or saying yes to pre-approved credit card offers to capitalize on signup bonuses, that could impact your score over time. If you just closed an old account, just paid off your student loans, or just took out new loans, all that can impact your credit, too.

Additionally, you can see whether you have had late payments that are affecting your score, or whether you have an old account open with a balance you’ve forgotten about. Once you know what’s bringing down your score, you can create a plan of action to resolve it.

2. Set up AutoPay

Your payment history makes up 35% of your score, so making on-time payments on your debts is one of the most important things you can do to prove your creditworthiness. It shows credit card companies and potential lenders that you’re not a risk, and it makes it easier for them to say yes to your applications. Strong payment history could also help you lower your interest rates if you choose to refinance later down the line.

To keep your payment history strong and consistent, consider setting up AutoPay on all your accounts. That way you’ll avoid missed payments. Just make sure you also have money in your checking account to cover the full amount of the automatic payment.

Bonus? Some companies, like Earnest, will even give you an interest rate discount in exchange for signing up for AutoPay². That discount will effectively lower your monthly loan payments and could even shorten the amount of time it takes to pay off your debt.

3. Lower your credit utilization rate

Your credit utilization ratio is the percentage of total credit available to you that you’re using at any one time. For example, if all your credit card limits and lines of credit combined add up to $15,000 and you rarely carry a balance of more than $1,500, you have a credit utilization rate of 10%.

This number makes up 30% of your credit score and can demonstrate to lenders how responsible you are with money. The assumption is that, if you’re using most of the credit available to you, you may be overspending. If you’re only using a small portion of your available credit, however, creditors assume you’re living well within your means.

You can lower your credit utilization rate by getting more credit. That could be opening an extra credit card or applying for an increased credit limit on an existing card. You can also lower your ratio by paying down your balances. To keep your credit utilization ratio low, consider using cash or debit cards more frequently — and using credit cards less.

4. Beef up your credit history

Signing up for a credit card (or getting added as an authorized user on a parent’s account) is one of the fastest ways to improve your credit score — as long as you make all of your payments on time. If you’re a current college student or new graduate and don’t have enough credit to qualify for a new card, however, it can take more time to improve your credit history.

Fortunately, some services now allow you to report payments for rent, cell phone, internet, or streaming services to credit bureaus so they can add these to your personal credit history. This can help you quickly thicken a thin credit file.

5. Don’t close your old accounts

The length of your credit history is one of the biggest components of your credit score. That’s because, the longer you’ve been making on-time payments, the more trustworthy you seem to credit bureaus. While it may seem like a good idea to close an old account you aren’t using, this can decrease the length of your credit history and impact your score negatively. It’s generally best to leave such accounts open if they’re not costing you money in annual fees. (If you do need to close a card, make sure you do what you can to minimize the credit impacts.)

Alternatively, if you have multiple credit cards with the same company and you want to close one of them, you may be able to ask the company to transfer your available credit from the account you want to close into one you want to keep open. For example, if you want to close credit card A, which has $5,000 of available credit, and you want to keep credit card B, which has $6,000 of credit available, you could ask to combine the two so that credit card B now has $11,000 of credit. While this will result in closing one of those accounts, it can help maintain a healthy credit utilization rate, as you’ll have the same amount of credit available to you but will (hopefully) be spending the same amount as you did before.

6. Pay off delinquencies

If you see any delinquencies — accounts with missed or late payments — on your credit report, be sure to address those quickly. Paying off delinquencies is one of the best ways to boost your credit score fast. If you’re unable to make payments, it’s better to contact your lender or credit card company to ask about your options than to ignore the bill, which can drive you deeper into the hole.

7. Consider refinancing your debt

Your debt-to-income ratio and your credit utilization rate can both impact your credit score. One way to decrease these ratios and improve your score is to pay down your debt. This can take a long time. Fortunately, there are tools you can use to reduce your monthly payments and potentially speed up the repayment process. One of those tools is refinancing.

Refinancing gives you the opportunity to exchange your current debt for a single new loan with new terms. If you have good to excellent credit, you could even qualify for a lower interest rate on your debt. That could help you lower your monthly payment, save money over the life of the loan, and potentially get out of debt faster³.

See how much you could save with Earnest

The bottom line is that your credit score is one of the most important tools you have to access low-cost financing for education, home purchases, car loans, and other types of credit. Keeping an eye on your credit file and score can help you improve poor credit and meet your personal finance goals.

Refinancing could help you reduce your debt burden, get out of debt faster, and boost your credit score over the long term. Even better news? When you apply for pre-approval through Earnest, we’ll conduct a soft credit check, which means no negative impact to your credit score. Use our student loan calculator today to find out how much you could save.

About the Author

Carolyn Morris

Carolyn is a content marketer and editor who specializes in financial services. With over a decade of experience in the financial services industry, Carolyn has a passion for demystifying the loan application and repayment process for students and their families.