What is the difference between a hard pull and a soft pull?

At a glance#

What a hard pull is, and what a soft pull is#

A hard pull is a lender’s request for your credit file made because a lending decision is pending. The request is recorded in the file, other lenders can see it, and it feeds into the score calculation. You consent to it explicitly on the application form.

The same thing also goes by the name hard inquiry. The two terms are interchangeable; forms, reports and help pages use one or the other. From here on this article says hard pull only.

A soft pull is a request for your file made without a pending lending decision: when you check your own report, when a lender screens you for a prequalification offer, or when a lender you already hold an account with reviews your file. The name soft inquiry means the same. A soft pull is visible only to you and has no effect on the score.

The difference between a hard pull and a soft pull therefore lies in the purpose of the request, not in the technology. The same file can be requested as either, depending on why it is being requested. What that file contains and how it comes into existence is covered in How do I build a US credit report from scratch?.

Why a single hard pull is rarely the problem#

A US credit score spreads its assessment across five factor groups, and several scoring models exist side by side, which makes the question “what is my score” less precise than it sounds. How the two main model families differ is set out in How FICO and VantageScore differ.

Hard pulls sit in the group called new credit. The largest model vendor weights that group at ten percent for the general population, and the group also contains newly opened accounts, so hard pulls share those ten percent with something else. The vendor adds that the weights shift with the individual profile.

A single hard pull is therefore rarely the reason for a rejection. What a lender reads is the pattern, several lending decisions in a short period. A cluster of hard pulls reads as a growing need for credit, whether or not the applications were approved.

Rate shopping for loans is grouped, cards have no such promise#

Anyone comparing offers for a mortgage, a car loan or a student loan naturally triggers several hard pulls for the same purchase. The model vendor groups such hard pulls inside a time window so that comparing offers is not penalised, and the length of that window depends on the score version. For credit cards the vendor makes no such statement; its description names mortgage, auto and student loans. Anybody filing three card applications in one week therefore plans on three separate hard pulls.

Some lenders count new accounts, not scores#

A card lender can refuse an application because of how many new accounts a person opened recently, regardless of the score. Such application rules work on the account list in the report, not on the hard pull as such. The best known of these rules is covered in What the 5/24 rule means. For card applications this is a second reason why order matters more than it does for an installment loan.

Worked example: skip the hard pull, or open the account?#

The practical question is rarely “will this hard pull hurt me”. It is “is this application worth its place in my sequence”. The factor weights published by the model vendor allow a rough answer.

The weights are those for the general population. The vendor states explicitly that they shift with the profile, so for an empty file they are an approximation. The account in the example is approved, used and paid on time from the first billing cycle.

A hard pull touches one group carrying ten percent, and it shares that group with newly opened accounts. An account that is opened and serviced touches all five groups, and the three heaviest of them turn positive once the first reporting cycle has gone through.

Someone who avoids a hard pull by never opening an account saves something in the smallest group and gives up the effect in the three largest, which together carry eighty percent of the weight. With an empty file that is not a close contest.

The reverse holds just as firmly. An application that is likely to be declined delivers the hard pull and none of the five effects. The realistic chance of approval is therefore the real selection criterion, not the size of the welcome bonus.

What this means for applicants from abroad#

A credit history built in another country does not travel. Whether somebody arrives from Germany, Austria, Switzerland or anywhere else, the first US application meets an empty file: not a bad file, but no file at all.

In that position a hard pull that does not lead to an open account costs twice. The hard pull is visible to the next lender, and nothing has been built. A declined application leaves the hard pull behind all the same.

The practical consequence is a sequence rather than a wish list. First comes the product that starts the file and that a newcomer without history has a realistic chance of getting. Which identification number a lender accepts at that stage is covered in ITIN or SSN for US credit cards. The products with stricter application rules follow later, with gaps in between. Newcomers who start with the most attractive welcome bonus often spend a hard pull on a rejection.

How to read the inquiry list in your own report#

A credit report lists inquiries in a section of their own, split into hard pulls and soft pulls. Each entry shows the lender that made the request and the date. What the inquiry list does not show matters just as much: whether the application was approved. A hard pull that led to an account looks the same as a hard pull that led to a rejection.

There is a single statutory source for the free reports that consumers are entitled to by law. The consumer protection agency says so unusually plainly: only one website is authorised to issue them. Other sites imitate its name, down to deliberate typos in the address, and sell subscriptions instead.

Three things are worth checking in the inquiry list:

1. Lenders you do not recognise. An unfamiliar name is either a review by a lender you already hold an account with, or a sign that someone applied for credit in your name.
2. Duplicate entries. The same lender twice on the same day for one application is a reporting error and can be disputed.
3. Hard pulls without an account. These belong in your own records, so that you know how many applications went nowhere.

An incorrect entry can be disputed, and the procedure is set out in law. It starts with somebody reading the report.

An application order that holds up#

The order of applications is the one real lever in this whole subject. Three rules follow from the factor weights in the worked example.

Open first, optimise later. As long as no history exists, every reported account is worth more than every avoided hard pull. The first application goes to the product with the most realistic approval chance for a file without history, not to the one with the largest bonus.

Space applications out, do not stack them. No grouping is promised for card applications. Several applications in the same week create a cluster of hard pulls that the next lender sees. Spacing also gives the first account time to pass its first reporting cycle, and a reporting cycle is the moment the account starts to count.

Strict rules last. Lenders with their own application limits decide on the number of new accounts as well as on the score. Applying there early burns the opportunity; applying there late means arriving with a file that can carry the decision.

What these three rules cannot do: turn a young file into an old one. Length of history is the one input that cannot be accelerated. The clock starts with the first account and not before.

When managing hard pulls is not worth the effort#

Four situations show when it is not worth managing hard pulls at all:

• You need one account and no more. A single hard pull for a product you will use does not deserve planning. Submit the application.
• A major loan is coming up. Before a mortgage or a car loan, the right way to handle card applications is not to make any. No card bonus makes up for worse terms on the main loan.
• You pay interest on a card balance. Carrying a balance from month to month costs more in interest than any fine tuning of the application order can gain. In that case the relevant subject is statement date versus due date, not the score.
• The file is empty and stays empty. Without a reported, actively used account, no history comes into existence. Avoiding hard pulls without ever opening an account leads to a score that does not exist.

The score is a by-product of accounts that are serviced correctly. The score is not a goal in its own right.

Inquiries you did not trigger#

Not every entry in the inquiry list goes back to an application you made. Three cases come up regularly and are easily confused.

The account review. A lender you already hold an account with checks your file from time to time. An account review is a soft pull and harmless, and it appears only in the version of the report you request yourself.

The prescreened offer. A lender buys a list of profiles that match an offer and writes to those people. Building that list is a soft pull as well. A preapproved letter in the mailbox therefore means no hard pull; applying in response to the letter does.

The application in your name. Somebody else applies for credit using your identity. The result is a hard pull, and the risk of such an application is the reason the inquiry list is worth reading regularly. The longer a fraudulent application goes unnoticed, the more work the correction takes. What to do once card fraud has happened is covered in What to do about card fraud.

The practical dividing line is simple: did you submit a form? If not, and a hard pull still appears in the report, the hard pull needs checking.

The most common mistakes#

• Treating prequalification as approval. A prequalification says that an offer might fit your profile. The real application is a second step, and the second step triggers the hard pull.

• Stacking applications to “bundle the damage”. Grouping is described for installment loans, not for cards. With cards, the next lender simply sees several hard pulls.

• Overlooking utilization. Hard pulls are the smallest lever. Credit utilization sits in the group weighted at thirty percent and changes every month, so there is more to gain there.

• Never looking at the report. Checking your own file is free and a soft pull. Without that check, an unknown or mistaken hard pull goes unnoticed and cannot be disputed.

• Using the wrong site for the free report. Only one statutory source exists. Look-alike sites copy the name and sell subscriptions.

• Keeping no record of applications. Without your own list, it is impossible to say months later which hard pull belonged to which account, and which one never led to an account.

What you can do in practice#

Before each application, read the credit check notice on the form itself, not the product advertising next to it. Write down the date, the lender, the product and the outcome. Pull your own report regularly and compare the inquiry list against your notes.

A single table is enough for this, one row per application: date, lender, product, hard pull or soft pull, outcome. The table costs a minute per application and is, months later, the only way to match a hard pull in the report to a real event. Without the table, every unexplained entry stays unexplained.

Plan the order before the first application goes out. The order is the one lever in this subject that is fully in your hands.

People who run a company in the US keep a second file that works and is reported differently. How the two relate is covered in Business credit versus personal credit.

Related topics#

• ITIN or SSN for US credit cards
• Building US business credit from abroad
• How credit utilization works
• Statement date versus due date
• How FICO and VantageScore differ
• Does a card application hurt your score?