How much does a hard inquiry lower your credit score?

FICO publishes its own figure for what one inquiry costs, and given how hard inquiries get talked about online, it’s smaller than most people expect. The exact sentence on myFICO reads: “For most people, one additional credit inquiry will take less than five points off their FICO Scores.”

The figure is a population average, though, and two words in that sentence carry most of the weight. “Most people” leaves room for files where an inquiry costs more. “Additional” means one more on top of whatever is already there, so the sentence tells you nothing precise about what a fourth card application in the same month costs.

What the major sources actually say

FICO, VantageScore and Experian each publish a figure, and they don’t match.

The gap between FICO’s “fewer than five” and VantageScore’s “five to 10” isn’t a contradiction you need to resolve. They’re different models built on different math, and each company is describing its own. When a lender tells you which score it uses, use that company’s figure.

What none of them publish is a point table. Nobody outside the scoring companies can tell you that your inquiry cost exactly three points, and anyone claiming that precision is guessing.

Why the same inquiry costs different people different amounts

FICO places inquiries inside the “new credit” category, which it says makes up about 10% of a FICO Score. Inside that slice, an inquiry is weighed against everything else in your file.

If your report has 15 accounts and a 12-year history, one inquiry is a small new fact sitting on top of a lot of established information. If your report has two accounts that are 18 months old, that same inquiry is a much larger share of what the model knows about you, and FICO says inquiries can carry more weight for people with few accounts or a short credit history.

Clusters matter too. FICO’s explanation of rate shopping draws a line between loan shopping and card applications: “if a credit report shows several consecutive credit card applications, the consumer might be seeking multiple new lines of credit.” Several card applications in a few weeks look like a person who needs credit, and the model treats that pattern as more risky than any single inquiry suggests.

The inquiry is often not the only thing that moved

People regularly see a 15 or 20 point drop after opening a card and blame the inquiry. Usually the inquiry is the smallest piece. When the account opens, three other things can change at once:

• Your average age of accounts falls, because a brand-new account joins the average.
• A new balance may appear, which raises utilization if it’s a card.
• The new account itself counts as recent credit in the “new credit” category.

If you only applied and were declined, there’s no new account, and the inquiry is the only new fact. That is the cleanest case for FICO’s “fewer than five points” figure.

When a few points actually matter

For most of life, a handful of points is noise. It matters when you’re close to a hard line, and mortgage lending is full of hard lines because lenders often set their own minimums (called overlays).

Example. Say you’re three months from applying for a mortgage, and your three scores are 615, 623 and 660. Lenders typically use the middle one, so your qualifying score is 623, and the lender you want requires 620.

Now say you apply for a store card to get a discount, and the card issuer pulls only the bureau that reported the 623. For illustration, suppose that inquiry costs that score four points, which would sit inside FICO’s “fewer than five” range:

• New scores: 615, 619 and 660
• New middle score: 619
• Lender minimum: 620

Your qualifying score went from three points above the line to one point below it. The card saved you $40 at checkout, and the inquiry could cost you the loan you were planning, or push you into a costlier price tier. The four-point figure here is an assumption for the example, not a published value, but the arithmetic shows why people near a cutoff should stop applying for anything else. The middle score rule explains how lenders pick which number counts.

Deciding whether an application is worth it

Treat each hard inquiry as a small, temporary cost that lasts up to 12 months in FICO’s math. Then ask two questions.

1. Is anything big coming in the next year? A mortgage, a car loan or an apartment you really want. If yes, hold off on any optional application, especially new cards.
2. Is the benefit real and lasting? A card that replaces a high-interest balance, or a loan you actually need, is usually worth a few points for a few months. A sign-up discount usually isn’t when a bigger application is close.

If you do apply for several loans of the same type, do it inside a short window so FICO can group them. The details, including the 14-day and 45-day spans, are in rate shopping without wrecking your score.

Your next moves

Pull your reports and count the hard inquiries from the last 12 months, since those are the ones FICO Scores still consider. If one of your reason codes on a score disclosure mentions inquiries, that’s a sign they’re weighing on your file; reason codes explains how to read those statements.

If a big application is coming, write down the date each recent inquiry ages past 12 months and plan around those dates. The free inquiry tracker will lay that calendar out for you. And if any inquiry on the list isn’t one you recognize, don’t just wait it out: look at it, because an unknown inquiry can be the first sign of someone applying in your name.