 TITLE: Is There a Hard Pull on My Credit When I Apply for a Credit Card? CONTENT: How a Credit Card Application Can Impact Your Credit\n----------------------------------------------------\nA hard inquiry is a record showing someone has checked your credit report—with your permission—to evaluate you for some type of credit application. This happens whenever you apply for a new credit card.\nDepending on how developed your credit history is, a single hard inquiry may have little to no impact on your credit scores. This is not as true for people who have poor credit or less in their credit file: These consumers may see a slight drop in their scores as a result of the hard pull.\nIf you have multiple hard inquiries in a short period of time, this could have a greater impact on your credit scores than if you have just one. Lenders may view this as a sign that you're seeking a significant amount of credit, which could indicate that you are having financial troubles and are at risk of overspending. And for consumers with little credit history, multiple applications represent an even greater risk.\nThere are, however, some situations where an inquiry or group of inquiries do not affect your credit scores. The first is a soft inquiry, or soft pull, which is recorded in your credit file whenever you check your own credit report or when a lender checks your score to preapprove you for an offer. If you've received credit card preapprovals in the mail, these are typically the result of a soft inquiry. Soft pulls do not affect your scores.\nAdditionally, multiple hard inquiries that occur when you are rate shopping, say for an auto loan or mortgage, are typically counted as just one if the applications are submitted within a certain period of time, usually about two weeks but sometimes up to 45 days. These don't hurt your credit because credit scoring models such as FICO consider interest rate shopping to be a good practice when taking on new credit. END