 TITLE: How to Remove Hard Inquiries From Your Credit Report CONTENT: What Is a Hard Inquiry?\n-----------------------\nA hard inquiry occurs when you apply for a new loan or credit card. It involves the lender checking one or more credit reports to determine whether you meet its creditworthiness criteria. This is also sometimes called a hard credit check or hard pull.\nHard inquiries differ from soft inquiries in two major ways. First, hard inquiries occur when you apply for a loan, credit card or other financing.\nSoft inquiries, on the other hand, can happen upon your request—such as when you want to check your credit report—or even without your knowledge, which happens when lenders check your credit before sending you a preapproval offer.\nSecond, soft inquiries don't affect your credit score at all, while each hard inquiry typically knocks a few points off your credit score. The more hard inquiries you have on your reports, the riskier you'll be viewed by prospective lenders. Why? Because applying for different types of credit relatively often could indicate financial instability, and that translates to risk in a lender's eyes.\nHard inquiries stay on your credit reports for two years before they fall off naturally. If you have legitimate hard inquiries, you'll likely need to wait until the 24-month period is over to see them disappear.\nNot all hard inquiries impact credit scores. When you're rate shopping for an auto loan or mortgage, you may have several hard inquiries, as lenders check your credit to determine what terms and rate to offer. As long as you apply for the loans within a 14-day period (or sometimes slightly longer), credit scoring models will consider them as one inquiry. END