Updated 4/23/2026 | Casey Fleming | You’ve no doubt heard that running credit will hurt your credit score.  How true is this?  Well, kind of.  Let’s take a look.

First, you should understand the difference between a hard credit pull and a soft one.  According to American Express, “(A hard pull) should happen only when you formally request some form of credit, whether you’re borrowing money or opening a new electric utility service.”  In other words, if you are asking for anyone to extend you credit of any sort, they will usually, if not always, perform a hard credit pull.  A soft pull, on the other hand, “…happens when you check your own credit report or when a business checks it without you requesting credit.”

Who Performs a Soft Credit Pull?

If you have a credit card, your credit card issuer will perform a soft credit pull annually to determine if your circumstances have changed.  They use this information to either offer you more credit, or to take away the credit they’ve already extended.  A mortgage company will perform a hard pull when you apply for a loan, but then perform a soft pull right before they fund your loan – again, to determine if your circumstances have changed since you submitted your application.  (This is why you’re not supposed to buy a Ferrari while you’re in escrow for your new home.  Yes, one of my clients did that.)  The good news is that a soft credit pull will not hurt your credit score.

Does a Hard Credit Pull Hurt Your Credit Score?

A hard credit pull generally happens when you are asking anyone to extend you credit.  This does hurt your credit score, but not right away and not always.  It helps to understand why applying for credit hurts your credit score.  Your score is a measurement of how likely it is that you will not be able to pay back the credit you’ve asked for, on time, as agreed.  Note that they are not just interested in knowing they’ll get their money plus profit back, but also whether or not they can just sit back and cash your payments, or if they’ll have to work for it.  If you are statistically likely to pay late, the creditor is likely to have to extend effort to collect the money.  Even if they are successful, that costs money and that expense will be built into the cost of extending you credit.

When you apply for credit, you are asking for credit that you have not yet demonstrated you have the ability and willingness to repay.  From a creditor’s viewpoint, this is obviously riskier than not extending you any credit at all.  So, your score drops a little.  How much?  The credit scoring models are proprietary, so no one can answer definitively. No one knows the recipe for the soup except the companies that write the software and the credit bureaus. From what I’ve seen in my practice, it appears the answer is “It depends.”

First., the better your score to begin with, the lower the impact of the credit pull. Second, it seems to depend on whether the type of credit you’re applying for is new to you. Never had a car loan? Applying for a car loan wmight hurt your score worse than someone who has had one before (and of course who paid it back in full, on time.) Finally, let’s make a distinction between your credit score and your credit history. If you have a history of bad credit – late payments, collections, charge-offs and such – a new pull appears to hurt your score even more.

If your score drops, how fast will it recover?  Again, no one can answer for sure (except the folks who wrote the software, of course.)  But it appears that your score recovers in 6 to 12 months.  If you have been granted the credit, 6 to 12 months of on-time payments will not only help you recover your original score, but probably force it higher than it was before, because you’ve demonstrated the willingness and ability to pay back even more debt as agreed.

If an Inquiry Hurts Your Credit Score, Should You Avoid Multiple Credit Pulls, then?

There is a lot of misinformation about this.  In the past, the software models dinged your score for each hard credit pull.  But if you are in the market for a mortgage (or car loan, or any other credit) doesn’t it make sense to shop around?  Multiple inquiries simply mean you are being responsible with your credit and looking for the right deal.  A number of years ago the credit bureaus recognized this, and the software was redesigned to treat multiple credit inquiries for the same purpose as one.

How would they know the difference?  Not anyone can run your credit.  A company that wants to run your credit has to sign up with a credit reporting agency.  When doing so they must document that they have a legitimate interest, that they will only run credit for that purpose, and that they have your permission to run credit.  When I run your credit, the bureaus know that I’m a mortgage lender and that the purpose of the inquiry is an application for a mortgage.  When a car dealership runs your credit, it’s for a car loan.

According to Experian, “Having multiple hard inquiries within a short period of time can be predictive of credit risk, so having too many inquiries for different types of credit can result in a lower credit score.  …hard inquiries related to mortgage, auto loan and student loan applications are entirely ignored for 30 days from the date of the inquiry. So if you settle on a loan during that 30-day time period, your scores will not be affected by inquiries.  After those inquiries have aged past 30 days, they still may not be counted as independent inquiries by credit scoring models. That’s because FICO® considers similar loan-related inquiries that have occurred within 45 days of each other as a single inquiry in the scoring process.” (Emphasis added.)

Deeper Dive: Do Multiple Credit Inquiries Affect Your Score?

Translation: Running credit for a home loan doesn’t hurt your credit score for the first 30 days while you’re shopping, and multiple inquiries while shopping for a loan will only hurt your score as one inquiry.  Shopping for the sake of comparing offers does no harm.  (According to Experian, who certainly knows more than I do.)

How Long is a Credit Report Good For?

Generally, if you close within 90 days of the inquiry, we can use that credit report.  Please note, however, that we (or any lender) will do a “soft pull” right before funding to make sure that your situation hasn’t changed. (So don’t change it, please!)

Your Inquiry Hurt Your Credit Score: How Does that Impact You?

If your credit score is too low, you won’t be granted any credit at all.  There are many lenders who specialize in bruised credit, however (for a price) so almost anyone can obtain credit if they want to badly enough. The pricing on your mortgage, however, is heavily dependent on loan-to-value ratio and credit score.  So, a high score will not only assure you of getting the loan you want, but better pricing and terms.  Specifically:

• Under 620 is considered “poor” and you’ll pay a high premium for the loan.
• 620-660 is considered “fair” and you’ll pay a little less.
• 660 – 680 is considered “average” and your pricing will be a little better.
• 680 to 700 is “above average” and pricing again improves.
• 700 is the benchmark for “good” credit.
• 700 – 760 is good.  Some lenders will have a price break at 720.
• The highest rating begins at 740 or 760, depending on the lender.  Most lenders will offer the best pricing at 760.  Once you are above 760, your score no longer impacts your pricing.  760, 800, 820, it doesn’t matter – you’re going to get the best price possible.

One final note: The “score” you get from online credit sites, or your bank, or elsewhere will not be the same score that we get when we pull your credit.  It should be close, but it sometimes isn’t.  This is because the credit bureaus use proprietary versions of the FICO or Vantage software.  The scores come from the bureaus, and are only issued from a hard credit inquiry.  Online credit sites and banks performing soft credit pulls can only guess at the algorithms.  Also, your score shopping for a car loan may be different than your score shopping for a home loan, or a credit card.  The score is purpose specific.  It’s a measurement of how likely it is you’ll default on the credit requested.

You Can Hurt Your Credit Score if You Try

You can certainly hurt your credit score if you try hard enough, but for most folks just running your credit has no impact on whether you are going to be granted credit, or how much you’ll pay.  Just for fun, here’s one of my favorite articles of mine of all time:  Ruin Your Credit in an Hour (This was very fun to write.)

The bad news is you will hurt your score when you run credit.  The good news is that it will probably have no negative impact on you, and you can shop for your mortgage all you want.

Did You Know You May Not Have a Score?

You can’t hurt your credit score if you don’t have one.  However, you also can’t get the loan you want most of the time.  We call this thin credit, and there are solutions to this kind of issue.  For a deeper dive, read this: Thin Credit – What Is It, How Do You Fix It?

The bottom line: If you think you have credit issues, talk to me. We can talk through your credit history and I can assess whether you are likely to be approved for a home loan, and whether you are likely to pay a premium for your mortgage.

Casey Fleming, Mortgage Advisor and Author of The Loan Guide (2014) and Buying and Financing Your New Home (2023) and Insider’s Guide to Reverse Mortgages (2025)

NMLS 344375 / DRE 00889527

About Casey Fleming: Casey Fleming is a veteran mortgage advisor (NMLS 344375, CA DRE 00889527) and Author of The Loan Guide, Buying and Financing Your New Home, and The Ultimate Guide to Reverse Mortgages. He writes extensively about real estate finance, the real estate market, and the relationship between economics and finance. He advises clients throughout California, and is based in the heart of Silicon Valley.  He writes articles regularly for several online publications, is a subject-matter expert for two prominent finance-related sites, and is regularly quoted in articles for many other publications.

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How Many Points Does an Inquiry Drop Your Credit Score? – Experian

Soft vs Hard Credit Inquiries: What’s the Difference? (americanexpress.com)

Ruin Your Credit in an Hour – Financial Help Desk

Do Multiple Loan Inquiries Affect Your Credit Score? – Experian