A hard inquiry (also called a hard pull) is a credit check initiated by a lender when you apply for credit — it appears on your report, is visible to other lenders, and typically lowers your FICO score by 2–5 points. Most hard inquiries stop affecting your score after 12 months and drop off your report after 2 years.
A hard inquiry happens whenever a creditor or lender pulls your credit file to make a lending decision. Common triggers include: applying for a credit card, personal loan, auto loan, mortgage, student loan, or line of credit. Landlord credit checks and some utility account applications also generate hard inquiries. What does NOT trigger a hard inquiry: checking your own credit, pre-approval checks initiated by lenders (these are soft pulls), employment checks, and insurance underwriting in most states.
According to myFICO, a single hard inquiry typically lowers FICO scores by fewer than 5 points for most consumers — commonly 2–5 points depending on your overall credit profile. The impact is smaller for thick files (many accounts, long history) and larger for thin files. Consumers with fewer than six accounts or a short credit history see the largest per-inquiry impact. Importantly, someone with a 760+ FICO who has one hard inquiry will almost always remain in the 'excellent' category.
Hard inquiries stay on your credit report for 2 years from the date of the pull. However, FICO only factors hard inquiries into your score for 12 months. So an inquiry made 13 months ago still shows on your report (visible to lenders) but no longer drags down your score. After 2 years, it falls off completely.
FICO specifically accommodates rate shopping for mortgages, auto loans, and student loans. When you apply with multiple lenders for the same type of loan within a 45-day window, FICO counts all of those inquiries as a single inquiry in its scoring model. This means you can shop 3–5 mortgage lenders without additional score damage beyond the first pull — take advantage of this window when rate shopping.
For more detail on soft vs. hard inquiries, see Hard Inquiry vs. Soft Inquiry.
While one hard inquiry costs only 2–5 points, six inquiries across different credit types in a short window — credit card, auto, personal loan, etc. — can collectively reduce a score by 15–25 points and signal credit-seeking behavior to future lenders. Sequence applications deliberately rather than applying to everything at once.