How long do hard inquiries stay on your credit report?

The visible mark outlives the scoring impact, which is why churners track both dates separately. The score cost of a single inquiry is small, usually under 5 points, and it decays fast. What keeps inquiries relevant to churners for the full 24 months is the second audience: human and automated underwriting systems that count them when deciding approvals, with thresholds that vary sharply by issuer.

This guide covers the exact timelines, the real point costs, which issuers care about inquiry counts and how much, and the habits that keep an aggressive application schedule from tripping the sensitive ones. Claims are current as of October 2026.

The 2 timelines: scored vs visible

Every hard inquiry has 2 timelines. For the first 12 months it is an input to your FICO score, weighted inside the new-credit slice that makes up about 10 percent of the formula. The effect is front-loaded: the small dip lands immediately and fades over the following months even before the 12 month line, because the formula cares most about very recent credit-seeking.

From month 12 to month 24 the inquiry scores as nothing and shows as history. Underwriters see it, automated rules count it, and manual reviewers read a row of 8 inquiries in 14 months as a pattern, score notwithstanding. At 24 months the bureaus delete it entirely.

VantageScore keeps a similar shape but can count inquiries for the full 24 months, per Experian, but every credit card approval decision that matters in churning runs on FICO variants, so the 12-and-24 framing is the one to plan around.

What an inquiry costs in points

FICO’s published guidance puts a single hard inquiry at fewer than 5 points for most people, and the churner experience matches it. On a thick file with years of history, an application often moves the score 2 to 4 points; on a thin or young file the same pull costs more (myFICO gives no number; applicants report up to about 10), because each new signal is a bigger share of the total evidence.

Stacking matters less than people fear and more than zero. 6 inquiries in a year on an established file costs roughly 15 to 25 points all-in by applicant reports, since no bureau publishes a figure, much of it recovered within months as the older pulls age past their heavy window. The score math of a full churning year, inquiries plus new accounts plus age dilution, runs 20 to 40 points down before recovery, covered with data in does churning hurt your credit score.

The asymmetry worth internalizing: inquiries are the cheapest line item in an application’s credit cost. The new account that follows weighs more, lasts longer on average age, and occupies a 5/24 slot for 24 months.

By bureau: Experian, Equifax, TransUnion

From Experian, Equifax and TransUnion’s own guides, checked October 22, 2026. All 3 reports are free every week at AnnualCreditReport.com, a change the FTC says is now permanent (updated July 31, 2026). Pull all 3 before a big application month: issuers pull different bureaus, so your count can differ by report.

How many inquiries is too many

FICO puts new credit, inquiries included, at about 10% of the score. myFICO says people with 6 or more inquiries can be up to 8 times more likely to file for bankruptcy than people with none, which is why underwriters notice clusters even after the score stops counting them.

Loans get an exception cards do not. FICO counts mortgage, auto and student loan inquiries made within 14 days (older versions) or 45 days (newer versions) as 1, and ignores them for the first 30 days (myFICO, checked October 22, 2026). Credit card applications never get that treatment.

Hard vs soft, and which is which

Soft inquiries never touch a score and never show to lenders: checking your own reports, credit monitoring apps, preapproval and prequalification checks, and the account reviews issuers run on existing customers all land soft. Hard inquiries come from actual credit applications: cards, loans, some deposit account overdraft lines, and occasionally utility or phone contracts.

2 churning-relevant edge cases. Issuer preapproval tools (Amex, Capital One, Citi, Chase and Discover all run them as of October 2026) use soft pulls and convert to a hard pull only when you submit the real application, which makes them free reconnaissance before spending an inquiry. And credit limit increase requests vary: Chase says a request will likely bring a hard inquiry and Amex says one might, so practice differs by issuer, worth a search per issuer before asking.

Issuer inquiry sensitivity

Issuers weigh inquiry counts very differently, and the differences are the practical reason this topic matters. As of June 2026, community data points put the issuers in rough tiers.

Most sensitive: US Bank and Barclays. US Bank denials reportedly trigger around 4 to 5 outside pulls in 12 months alongside its 5/12 new-account rule, and Barclays reads cleanest under roughly 6/24 with spacing between its own applications. Both approve more readily with an existing banking relationship. Before you apply, read the Barclays 6/24 rule.

Rule-based issuers: Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo. These issuers encode velocity into account-count rules: 5/24 at Chase, 2/3/4 plus 7/12 and 3/12 at Bank of America, and a published limit of 1 new card every 4 months at Wells Fargo, plus its 48-month bar on repeat bonuses. Inquiries matter at the margin; the counted rules decide. Before you apply, check Wells Fargo’s credit card application rules.

Most tolerant: Amex and Capital One. Amex frequently approves with no new hard pull at all for existing cardholders, and its limits live elsewhere (the once per lifetime rule and pop-up jail). Capital One pulls all 3 bureaus for one application, the heaviest single-application footprint, but tolerates busy files within its own velocity rules.

Which bureau gets pulled

Most issuers pull 1 bureau per application, and which one varies by state and product: Chase leans Experian, Amex leans Experian, Citi often pulls Equifax, Barclays TransUnion, with regional variation throughout. Capital One is the exception that pulls all 3.

The consequence: your 3 bureau reports carry different inquiry counts, and an issuer’s sensitivity applies to the report it actually reads. A churner with 7 inquiries on Experian and 2 on TransUnion looks busy to one lender and quiet to another. Community-maintained pull databases track issuer-state combinations; checking which bureau an issuer pulls in your state before applying is standard practice in the r/churning community, and spreading applications across issuers that read different bureaus stretches what a 12 month window can hold.

Managing inquiries as a churner

4 habits keep inquiries from ever blocking an approval.

1. Sequence the sensitive issuers first. A US Bank or Barclays card belongs early in a churning career, while the file is quiet, never as application 9 of a busy year. The application order flowchart builds this in. The U.S. Bank credit card rules explain its 5/12 screen.

2. Use soft-pull preapprovals before real applications at issuers that offer them. A declined preapproval costs nothing; a declined application costs the inquiry it just spent.

3. Count by bureau, not in total. Before an inquiry-sensitive application, check the report that issuer pulls in your state and decide against that number.

4. When a denial cites too many inquiries, call. Reconsideration lines reverse inquiry-count denials regularly when the rest of the file is strong, with scripts in the reconsideration guide. An inquiry-based denial with an otherwise clean profile is the most winnable call in churning.

The wider system, where inquiries sit alongside 5/24 math and spend planning, lives in the complete churning guide.

Inquiries, new accounts, and 5/24, untangled

3 separate clocks start at every approval, and conflating them produces most of the bad advice on this topic. The inquiry clock runs 12 scored months and 24 visible ones, as above. The new-account clock weighs on the new-credit and age slices of the score for roughly a year, and dilutes average age for as long as the account exists. The 5/24 clock is a counting rule, never a score input: the account occupies a Chase slot for 24 months from opening, whether the card is open, closed, or forgotten.

A denied application starts only the inquiry clock. No account opened means no 5/24 slot used and no age effect, which is why a denial costs far less than people assume: a few points for a few months, and a free shot at reconsideration besides. The reverse also holds: an approval on a no-pull Amex application starts the account and 5/24 clocks while skipping the inquiry entirely.

When planning a year, count slots first, accounts second, inquiries third. That priority order matches how the gatekeepers actually decide: Chase counts slots, the score counts accounts, and only the sensitive issuers in the tier list above count pulls.

One planning example ties the threads together. A churner at 3/24 wants a US Bank card, a Chase Ink, and an Amex Gold this year. The right order: US Bank first while Experian and TransUnion still read quiet, the Ink second (business cards skip the personal report, so it spends an inquiry without adding a counted account), and the Amex last, where an existing relationship makes a no-pull approval likely. Same 3 cards in reverse order and the US Bank application walks into an inquiry-count denial. Sequencing is free; denials cost a pull and a month.

Removing inquiries: what works and what wastes time

An inquiry you authorized is permanent for its 24 months. Dispute services and credit-repair templates that promise inquiry removal are selling noise: the bureaus verify authorized pulls with the lender and leave them standing, and the score recovers on its own schedule faster than most disputes resolve.

Inquiries you never authorized are different and worth acting on. A pull you do not recognize gets a dispute with the bureau showing it, on identity-theft grounds, and bureaus remove unverifiable inquiries. The CFPB says the bureau forwards the dispute to the company that pulled your report, which generally has 30 days to investigate. Check the lender name against your application history first: rental applications, utility setups, and phone financing generate legitimate pulls people routinely forget, and car dealerships famously generate several from one showroom visit.

The honest summary: the only inquiry management that works is the kind done before applying. Sequence the sensitive issuers early, use soft preapprovals, and let time do the rest. Every inquiry on your file today is worth 0 score points in a year and gone from the record in 2, which makes waiting the only reliable fix.

Related guides

• Rebuilding credit after a churning run
• Credit freezes and churning: which bureau to thaw
• Does credit card churning affect a mortgage?

FAQ

How long do hard inquiries stay on a credit report?

24 months on the report. FICO scores only consider the most recent 12; after that an inquiry is visible to underwriters and invisible to the formula. At 24 months it deletes.

How many points does a hard inquiry cost?

Under 5 for most established files per myFICO, more on thin ones (applicants report up to about 10), fading over months and ending at 12. The new account that follows the inquiry costs more than the inquiry does.

Do card inquiries get combined like mortgage shopping?

No. Deduplication windows cover mortgages, auto, and student loans. Each card application is its own scored inquiry, which is why spacing beats batching.

Can inquiries get me denied with a good score?

Yes. US Bank and Barclays deny on recent inquiry counts regardless of score, per June 2026 data points, and Bank of America enforces hard new-account limits. The fix is sequencing: sensitive issuers first, and reconsideration calls when a strong file gets the inquiry denial anyway.

The other half of application cost math: what closing a card does to your score.

How long do hard inquiries stay on Experian?

2 years. Experian keeps a hard inquiry on your report for 2 years, and FICO scores count it for the first 12 months.

How long do inquiries stay on TransUnion?

Up to 2 years for hard inquiries. TransUnion says soft inquiries can also stay up to 2 years, but only you can see them and they never affect your score.

How many hard inquiries is too many?

There is no fixed number. myFICO says people with 6 or more inquiries can be up to 8 times more likely to file for bankruptcy, so 6 in a year is where underwriters start to notice, and sensitive issuers react sooner.