Hard inquiries fall off your credit report after two years. However, the impact of hard inquiries on your credit score usually lasts for only about one year. After that, while the inquiry may still be visible on your report, it generally no longer affects your credit score. To summarize:
- Hard inquiries stay on your credit report for up to 2 years.
- They typically affect your credit score for only 12 months.
- Multiple hard inquiries within a short period (usually 14 to 45 days) related to rate shopping (like for a mortgage or auto loan) are generally treated as a single inquiry for scoring purposes.
So, you can expect hard inquiries to disappear completely from your credit report after two years, and their influence on your credit score to wane after about one year.
