Who Can Check Your Credit Report?

Your credit report contains sensitive information about your financial history. Lenders use this information to decide whether to approve you for a loan or credit card. Landlords look at it to decide whether you can make rent payments as a potential renter. Knowing who is allowed to view the report can help you understand if someone is viewing your information who shouldn't be.

Fair Credit Reporting Act

The Fair Credit Reporting Act lists who can access your credit report and for what reasons. Besides yourself, any person or organization that looks at your credit report must have a legitimate reason to do so. If a legitimate reason doesn't exist and your report is still accessed, the person or organization that does so faces fines and imprisonment up to a year.

Who Can Access

Lenders and merchants have reasons to look at a person's credit report. Because of this, they pay a membership fee to credit bureaus so that they can easily access a person's credit history. For the privilege of the easier access, the lender or merchant signs a contract that they will only access the credit histories of people they are considering for employment, credit or other legitimate reasons. Organizations that work with credit agencies include insurance companies, landlords, credit card companies, potential employers, law enforcement and mortgage companies.

Potential Employers

Potential employers are treated differently than other organizations when they want to view credit reports. Employers don't need to see the details of a credit report. They only need to know how a person manages debt and repays it to see if you are financially responsible. Because of this, when employers request a credit history, they receive only a modified version of the history.

Inquiries

Every time someone views your credit report, a "hard inquiry" is noted on your credit report. Even when you request a copy of your own credit report, an inquiry is recorded, though personal requests are listed as a "soft inquiry." The more hard inquiries that are made for your credit report because of an application you made, the lower your credit score will be. Each hard inquiry can reduce your credit score between one and five points.