Hard Inquiries: How Long They Count and When They Shouldn't Be There

The two-year rule

A hard inquiry happens when a creditor pulls your full report because you applied for something — a card, a loan, financing. These are allowed to affect your score and appear on your report, but only for two years. Past that window, they're supposed to drop off on their own; when they don't, that's a straightforward reporting-period challenge.

Permissible purpose

More importantly, a hard inquiry is only allowed to exist if the company had a legitimate reason to pull your file — generally, that you applied for credit with them, or a comparable permissible purpose under the law. An inquiry from a company you never applied to, with no account of theirs anywhere on your file, doesn't have an obvious legitimate basis. That's worth challenging on its own, separate from how old it is.

Why this is often overlooked

Inquiries feel minor compared to a collection or a charge-off, but they do factor into scoring, and an unauthorized one is a real inaccuracy — not just clutter. If you don't recognize a hard inquiry and can't connect it to an account you actually opened, it's worth raising rather than assuming it's fine.