How Often Can One Safely Check Their Credit?

It's important to keep an eye on your credit report to ensure that the information is accurate and up-to-date. Lenders, landlords and even employers may use your credit report, which reflects your responsibility level, to make major decisions that affect your life, so you're wise to ensure it portrays you as well as possible. Because you need to check your credit report for validity, and because checking your own score does not indicate a risk of taking on more debt, doing so does not lower your score.

Self-Checking

When you check your own credit report through a legitimate source, it's considered a soft inquiry and it has no negative impact on your credit score. You may check your report as many times as you'd like and it won't lower your score, but you need to get your report from a reliable source.

Credit Report

The Federal Trade Commission recommends checking your score once per year through the Annual Credit Report website, which is run by the three major credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. Through the website, you are entitled to one free copy of your credit report from each of the credit bureaus annually. You may order your reports all at once or separately, over the course of the year. After receiving your free reports, you may go through the individual credit bureaus to check your credit score without any negative effects. The FTC warns against using other so-called "free" credit reporting websites, as they may later charge for other services.

Reporting Errors

Checking your credit report often may actually improve your credit score if you find any errors. Report any discrepancies immediately in writing to both the reporting credit bureau and the creditor in question. Write a letter explaining the issue and provide copies of any documentation you have. Credit bureaus must investigate the problem unless they deem it to be frivolous, and they usually do so within 30 days of receiving a complaint.

Considerations

Even if you've recently made a payment to an account, that doesn't mean it will be immediately reflected on your credit report. Creditors report to credit bureaus at various times throughout a month-long cycle, so you may have to wait before seeing your actions reflected on your report. For example, if you've paid off a credit card and you pull your credit report two days later, the account may still show that you have a balance because the creditor hasn't yet updated the bureaus. Conversely, you should aim to keep your spending to 30 percent or less of your credit limit because creditors may report to the bureaus at any point in the month, not just at the end. Therefore, even if you intend to pay the card off at the end of the month, charging it up at any point could reflect poor financial management skills.