Soft vs. hard inquiries
When you check your own credit — in an app, on your bank's site, or at annualcreditreport.com — it's a 'soft' inquiry. Soft inquiries are invisible to lenders and never change your score.
A 'hard' inquiry happens when you apply for new credit and a lender pulls your report to decide. Only hard inquiries can nudge your score down, usually by a few points.
Check as often as you like
You can look at your own score every day without any harm. In fact, checking regularly is one of the healthiest credit habits — it's how you catch errors, fraud, and surprises early.
Monitoring tools and your credit card's free score both use soft pulls, so none of them cost you points.
What a hard inquiry really does
A single hard inquiry typically drops your score by fewer than five points and fades within a year; it stops affecting your score after 12 months and drops off your report after two years.
The real caution is applying for many accounts in a short window — a pile of hard inquiries can signal risk. Space out applications, and when rate-shopping for one loan, do it within a short period so it counts as a single inquiry.
Make checking a routine
Pick a day each month to review your reports and score. Confirm your accounts are yours, balances look right, and no unfamiliar inquiry appears.
If something's wrong, you can dispute it yourself for free — the sooner you spot it, the easier it is to fix.
Checking your own credit is always free, always a soft pull, and never hurts your score — so do it often. Subefy lets you watch all three bureaus in your language and explains every change in plain terms. Credit disputes are always free.