Building strong credit can give you an advantageous financial position, but it requires a bit of effort to keep it as such.
All items on your credit report can have a positive or a negative effect on your credit score. Even though the impact of inquiries is minor compared to some other items, having too many inquiries on your report can look bad in the eyes of creditors.
Generally, hard inquiries remain on credit reports for up to two years before they expire. However, there are cases where you can take action and remove hard inquiries from your report.
Check out the guide below and learn when and how you can do it.
What Are Inquiries in a Credit Report?
A request to review the credit report of a consumer is called a credit inquiry. There are two types of credit inquiries:
- Hard inquiry – occurs when creditors or lenders request to see the credit report of a potential borrower and deducts five points from their credit score.
- Soft inquiry – occurs when consumers themselves or authorized requestors (usually for pre-approval) request to see the credit history of an applicant, without affecting their credit score.
Even though only hard inquiries have a direct effect on your credit score, both hard and soft inquiries appear on credit reports.
Can You Remove Hard Inquiries From a Credit Report?
Hard inquiries impact your credit score for up to one year, and they remain on your credit report for up to two years, after which they are automatically removed.
In normal circumstances, it’s impossible to remove inquiries from credit report before their expiration. However, in certain situations disputing hard inquiries and asking for their removal is not only possible, but also encouraged.
When Is Disputing a Hard Inquiry an Option?
When an authorized requestor, such as a credit card company, a bank, a loan company, or even a landlord, requests to examine your credit report, the hard inquiry in your report is valid and can’t be disputed.
For example, a hard inquiry might occur when you are applying for:
- A credit card
- A home, car, or other types of loan
- Housing or rental
or requesting for a credit limit increase.
Having said that, sometimes you may find a hard inquiry in your report, and you haven’t applied for or requested any service that warrants a hard inquiry. This kind of mistake can happen as an accident, or in more serious cases, as a result of identity theft. Either way, you should dispute such errors and ask for hard inquiry removal when it happens.
Please note that not all suspicious items on your credit report are indicators of fraudulent activity. Most of the time, they appear because of an error by the credit bureau, in which case they should be removed.
However, sometimes you may not recognize the inquiry because the creditor you applied with uses a different name for its business. In such cases, the hard inquiry is valid, and it can’t be removed from your report.
How to Dispute a Hard Inquiry
If you believe that an unauthorized hard inquiry is dragging your credit down, you should take the following steps to deal with it:
1. Request a free copy of your credit report
Each credit bureau can provide you with a free copy once every 12 months. Make sure you regularly obtain each of your free copies and make a habit of checking them for inaccuracies.
2. Look for suspicious hard inquiries in your report
Check the hard inquiries section in your report and see if there are any checks you don’t recognize. Take detailed notes of the items you believe to be unauthorized.
3. Contact the creditor first
Credit bureaus create their credit reports with the information provided to them by creditors and lenders. Try to contact the company that reported the inquiry you believe to be invalid and ask them to remove it, to avoid filing an official dispute.
Sometimes, the first three steps get the job done, and the hard inquiry removal process ends with the creditor correcting their mistake. If they refuse to cooperate, you will need to contact the bureau that reported the invalid hard inquiry and ask them to remove it.
4. File an official dispute
Highlight the inaccurate information in the report and send it to the credit bureau that created it. With the copy, send out an official dispute letter in which you state that you ask for the removal of hard inquiries on a credit report and explain why you believe the information may be inaccurate. If you have documentation to back up your claim, like bank statements, or FTC identity theft reports, be sure to submit them as well.
5. Wait for the bureau’s response
Credit bureaus have between 30 and 45 days to investigate your dispute and come up with an answer. If they can find evidence that the hard inquiry on your report is legit, it will remain on your report. Otherwise, it will be removed.
The Bottom Line
In summary, a hard inquiry in a credit report is an indication that the consumer has applied for credit, a loan, or another financial service. By itself, a single hard credit inquiry doesn’t affect the credit score too much, but multiple hard inquiries can raise eyebrows.
Removing inquiries from a credit report is only possible, when the inquiry is incorrectly reported, due to an error or identity theft. Besides hard inquiries, disputing late payments, repossessions, charge-offs, or other incorrect information on your credit report can help you improve your credit score and better protect yourself against identity theft.
This is why it is essential to regularly check your credit report and examine it thoroughly.
FAQs
Will removing inquiries increase credit score?
The removal of hard inquiries on a credit report may not always increase your credit score, and when it does, it will only slightly boost it slightly.
Can you pay to remove hard inquiries from your credit report?
Valid hard inquiries are generally not removed from credit reports. Fraudulent inquiries or ones reported by mistake can be removed by filing for a dispute.
How long does it take for credit score to go back up after hard inquiry?
It usually takes credit bureaus between one and two months to reflect the changes after removing inquiries or other inaccurate information in your credit report.
