Inquiries do affect your credit report in some situations, and other times they have no affect at all. The degree that a credit report is affected is going to vary from person to person based on your credit history and the reason for the inquiry.

Score Reduction

On average, one inquiry can lower your score less than five points. Your score could be reduced by a greater number of points if you have a limited credit history.

Soft Inquiry

A soft inquiry will not hurt your credit score. A soft inquiry is when someone accesses your credit report for purposes other than extending you credit, such as a prospective employer or if you access your own credit file.

Hard Inquiry

Hard inquiries count against you. Whenever someone accesses your credit report for purposes of extending you credit, because you applied, it's a hard inquiry.

Scoring Models

If you start shopping for a mortgage on Nov. 1 and you find your mortgage loan on Dec. 1, 30 days later, all mortgage inquiries made in that 30-day window do not count against you. The old FICO credit scoring model will also count all mortgage shopping inquiries made 14 days prior to Nov. 1 as one inquiry. The new model goes back 45 days. The lender can choose to use either model. Auto loans and student loan inquiries are treated the same as mortgage inquires.

Recent Inquiries

Lenders are on the look out for too many recent inquiries because they don't know if you were approved for those loan requests or not. All inquiries drop from your file after two years.

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