 TITLE: Do Rejected Credit Applications Affect Your Credit Scores? CONTENT: How Does a Hard Inquiry Affect Your Credit?\n-------------------------------------------\nHard inquiries remain on your credit report for up to two years and could have a minor negative impact on your credit scores. The impact often decreases over time, and generally doesn't last more than a few months. But you might experience larger score drops if you're new to credit or have multiple hard inquiries during a short period.\nWhile each new application you submit could lead to another hard inquiry, you can (and should) shop for loans from different lenders to try to get the best rate. Recognizing that this is savvy rather than risky behavior, credit scoring models typically consider multiple hard inquiries as one inquiry if they are for the same type of loan and occur within a specific rate-shopping window.\nFor example, FICO will \"deduplicate\" (or treat as one inquiry) student loan, auto loan and mortgage hard inquiries that occur within a 14- to 45-day window (depending on the type of FICO® Score☉ ). FICO® Scores also won't consider hard inquiries from these types of loan applications that occurred within the last 30 days.\nVantageScore®, another credit scoring company, uses a 14-day shopping window and slightly different rules. It deduplicates hard inquiries on a wider range of account types, including credit cards and personal loans, but doesn't have the 30-day buffer period.\nAlso, know that a credit check could lead to a soft inquiry rather than a hard inquiry, and these never impact your credit scores. Soft inquiries can occur when someone checks your credit for a reason other than approving or denying a credit application, such as when you check your own reports or apply for a prequalification or preapproval. END