There are two kinds of inquiries (or pulls) that can occur on your credit report: “hard” inquiries and “soft” inquiries. While both types of credit inquiries enable a third party, such as you or a lender, to view the information in your credit report, only hard inquiries can negatively affect your credit score.

A soft inquiry typically occurs when a person or company checks your credit report as part of a background check or to make a prescreened offer of credit. A soft inquiry may be recorded in your credit report, depending on the credit bureau, but it does not affect your credit score.  

Hard inquiries generally occur when a financial institution, such as a lender or credit card issuer, checks your credit report when making a credit decision. Hard inquiries will impact your credit score and they may remain on your credit report for two years.