When Do New Inquiries Post to My Credit Report?

When you apply for a loan, the creditor requests a copy of your credit report. This action, known as an inquiry, can negatively affect your credit score depending on how and with whom you shop for a loan.

What Makes Up Your Credit Score

Your credit score is a number between 300 and 850 that credit report agencies calculate based on various aspects of your financial history, primarily your tendency to make timely payments. The agencies account for the types of credit you have, how much of it is new, how much money you owe creditors and how long you've had credit. New credit accounts make up 10 percent of your credit score, which is why inquiries into your credit history matter.

Types of Inquiries

When you apply for a job, your employer may request a copy of your credit history. Businesses you don't know may also do this for their own reasons. These types of inquiries don't affect your credit score, while inquiries that result from you shopping for new credit do count. New credit includes credit cards, auto loans and mortgages. A single inquiry of this type can lower your credit score, typically by fewer than five points according to MyFICO, the consumer branch of FICO, the company responsible for the credit scoring system.

Time Restrictions

There are two ways a credit reporting agency may report inquiries, and a creditor can choose which to regard when evaluating you as a borrower. Both methods disregard credit inquiries that occur within the 30 days before you obtain a loan. The older of the two methods counts all credit inquiries within 14 days before this 30-day period as a single inquiry while the newer method does so for inquiries that occur within 45 days before the 30-day period.

Minimizing the Damage

To keep your credit score as high as possible, pay all bills on time, as your payment history makes up 35 percent of your score. You can find out your current score through a website such as FreeCreditReport.com, FreeCreditScore.com or FreeScore.com, all of which (despite their names) charge you a membership fee of usually $14.95 per month to view your credit score. Gather as much loan information from creditors' websites and brochures as you can before you apply for loans to minimize the number of inquiries on your credit history. Keep your application period within the 30-day limit to minimize the effects of inquiries on your credit score.