How to Get Your Free Credit Report (And How to Read It)

Checking your credit report is something that you should be doing at least once a year—likely even more. The information in your credit report determines your credit score, so if there’s anything amiss, it’s important to catch it before it hinders your ability to secure credit down the line.

But how do you check your credit report? Luckily, you can get it for free if you know where to look. Learn more about how to check your credit report for free so you can work toward improving your financial health.

What’s in your credit report?

Credit bureaus collect information about the status of your accounts, your payment history, inquiries into your credit, and public records such as foreclosures and bankruptcies and compile them in the form of a credit report.

Though the information in your credit report determines your credit score, you generally won’t find your score listed on your free credit report. Here’s what you’ll find instead:

• Identifying personal information. This will include your name and any names you have used in the past, Social Security number, birth date, current and former addresses, and phone numbers.
• Credit account information. This includes current and past accounts identified by type and name of creditor. For example, you’ll see if you have a mortgage with Citizens Bank. It also includes the current balance, credit limit, payment history, and date of origination and closure.
• Accounts in collections. Any time you’re extremely late on payments and these debts are sold to a collection agency or internal collection department, this will appear on your credit report. Reports also include information on overdue child support. These have an especially negative impact on your credit and stay on your report for seven years.
• Public records. If you have any liens, bankruptcies, foreclosures, and civil suits against you, your credit report will list them and their outcomes. For example, if you lost a house because you couldn’t pay the property taxes, this will be on your credit report.
• Inquiries. Any time a company checks your credit, this gets marked down in your credit report. So if you apply for credit cards with five different issuers, you’ll see each one listed separately in your report.

How companies use your credit report

In the U.S., the three major credit reporting agencies are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Usually, creditors and lenders will access your credit report from one of these agencies when attempting to determine your eligibility for credit products.

Once you receive a loan or a credit card, the lender or creditor will also report back to the credit bureaus when you miss payments or make your payments on time.

Why you should be checking your credit report

It’s extremely common to find an error on your credit report. In fact, one study found that 44% of people who checked their credit reports found at least one error.

Financial institutions, landlords, insurance companies, and even employers use your credit report to indicate your financial trustworthiness. So if you have inaccurate reports about your debt or payments, it can have drastic consequences on your ability to take out a loan, secure an apartment, or even get a new job.

Additionally, an estimated 9% of Americans over the age of 16 reported an identity theft incident within the past year, according to 2021 data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The cost of that identity theft was a collective $16.4 billion.

Checking your credit report regularly can help you put a stop to identity theft before it causes too much damage. You might be able to see red flags that someone’s using your credit, like applications for new loans or credit cards that you didn’t submit.

How to get your credit report for free

There are several ways to get your credit report for free, but the main one is AnnualCreditReport.com. This is the official site established by the three major credit bureaus.

While there are other options, always do your research before using one. There are many fraudulent websites out there that might promise a free credit report, but then just steal your personal information when you submit it. Others might be legitimate, but their main goal might be to harvest your information to offer you financial products.

AnnualCreditReport.com

By federal law, you’re entitled to access your credit reports for free once a year.

But during the COVID-19 pandemic, the three credit reporting agencies decided to offer free weekly reports to help people better manage their finances. This was supposed to be a temporary measure, but it’s now permanent — meaning you can check your credit report for free using AnnualCreditReport.com once a week.

This service is jointly operated by the three major credit bureaus, so it provides comprehensive access to your financial information. It’s by far the easiest free way to check your credit report and what I recommend for most people since it curates all three reports in one without trying to get you to sign up for anything else.

Here’s a quick primer on how to use AnnualCreditReport.com:

1. Fill out the form to request your free credit reports. The form asks for your name, birthday, Social Security number, and address.
2. Choose which agencies you want to get reports from. You can choose from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Most people will want to choose all three unless you’re looking for something specific from one of the agencies.
3. Verify your identity. When I checked my reports, I had to enter my phone number and email to receive a one-time verification code. However, you may need to answer additional verification questions to prove it’s you.

Other services

These services are legitimate ways to get your credit report for free. However, they make money by offering you financial products based on your credit.

So if you don’t want to deal with these offers, just use AnnualCreditReport.com instead. I’d only recommend these sites if you’re already using them for their identity theft protection or other offerings. They can also be good if you need to check your credit report and you’ve used up your free weekly check from AnnualCreditReport.com.

• Credit Karma: This service lets you check your TransUnion and Equifax credit reports as often as you want, with updates occurring every 7 days. You’ll also get free daily credit monitoring.
• Credit Sesame: Create a free account to access your credit score and your TransUnion credit report each month.
• Experian: You can check your credit report from Experian once every 30 days free of charge. You’ll need to create an account, but that also comes with free credit monitoring.

What to look at in your free credit report

It’s a good idea to review your credit report regularly so you can check for common errors that might negatively impact your score. If you’ve never looked at one before, consider learning how to read a credit report first. This will help you know what to look for. Here’s a quick guide on what to watch out for.

Personal information

Red flags to watch for:

• Name spelled incorrectly
• Address is wrong
• Social Security number is wrong
• Birthdate is wrong

The personal information section isn’t used to calculate your credit score. However, it is how lenders identify you for loans and other products. Ideally, it will have all of your correct information, as well as any personal statements (such as if you have a security freeze or fraud alert in place).

The good news is that even if your personal information isn’t all correct, credit bureaus will likely still be able to match all of your loans or credit activity to your profile.

The bad news is that having incorrect information — like a Social Security number that’s off by one digit or a birthdate with the wrong day — could be a sign of identity theft. This happens because scammers might not have all of your personal information, so they guess in the hopes that the transaction will go through.

Accounts section

Red flags to watch for:

• Inaccuracies in account histories, closures, delinquencies, and dates
• Information that’s more than seven years old
• Accounts you didn’t open

Every time you open a credit card or take out a loan, it goes into the accounts section of your credit report. It will list the type of account as well as the date you opened it, the loan amount or credit limit, the current account balance, and whether or not you’ve made all of your payments on time.

First, check to make sure you’re responsible for all the accounts listed. Someone else’s account can end up on your report by mistake. Of course, this could also be a sign of fraud if someone opened an account in your name without your knowledge.

Next, look for any delinquencies or other negative information that’s more than seven years old. Negative items like these should be removed from your credit report after seven years, and if they’re still listed after then, you can have them taken off.

Public records

Red flags to watch for:

• Chapter 7 bankruptcies still on your report after 10 years
• Chapter 13 bankruptcies still on your report after 7 years
• Events listed you weren’t involved in

If you ever go through a bankruptcy, civil suit or judgment, or lien, it will be listed in this section of your credit report. It also lists any instances where your overdue debt has been sent to collections.

This information can be especially harmful to your credit score, so make sure there are no events listed that you weren’t involved in and that all information is accurate and not outdated.

If you had a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy in the past, these should only stay on your credit report or 10 or 7 years, respectively. If you’re still seeing them listed after that point, reach out to the credit bureau to have them remove it.

Inquiries

Red flags to watch for:

• Suspicious credit inquiries you didn’t make
• Businesses you’ve never heard of making a credit inquiry

In the inquiries section, you’ll see “soft” inquiries, which are only visible to you, and “hard” inquiries, which occur when a lender pulls your credit report to verify your level of risk when issuing credit. Hard inquiries could affect your credit, so make sure there aren’t any inquiries you didn’t authorize listed.

An example of a soft inquiry might be seeing if you’re preapproved for a loan or credit card. The lender will do a preliminary soft credit check to make sure you initially qualify for the product. Then, when you submit your actual application, it might run a hard credit check to dive deeper into your credit history before approving you.

If someone is using your credit for fraud, you might see soft or hard inquiries that you don’t recognize. Luckily, credit inquiries show the name of the creditor, the business type, and the date of the inquiry. This can help you narrow down where your credit might have been used and help you put a stop to it.

What to do if you find errors

See something that doesn’t look right in your free credit report? Here are the steps on how to dispute an error on your credit report.

1. Notify the credit reporting agency in writing. You should include information on what the problem is, as well as any documentation that proves your case.
2. Dispute the inaccuracies with the business that reported them. Sometimes, the problem is as simple as a clerical error. But if the problem is more serious, like saying you missed payments when you didn’t, then you may need to furnish more information to prove your case.
3. Wait for the credit bureau or business to respond. After receiving your letter, the credit bureau must investigate your dispute. After it makes a decision, it then has five business days to send you a notice. The credit-reporting business also has a responsibility to update the credit bureau if they make corrections to your information.

FAQs

Bottom line

With options like AnnualCreditReport.com sanctioned by the federal government, there’s no reason to pay to check your credit report. Using this service regularly can help you stay on top of your credit history and stop attempted fraud or identity theft in its tracks.

There are other free options out there, and they can work great if you’re already using these tools for their credit monitoring services. But just watch out for services that want you to sign up for additional credit products or services.

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