How often should I check my credit report?

At minimum, once a year per bureau. That's the basic case for catching errors before they affect a mortgage, auto loan, or credit application. Right now, all three bureaus offer free weekly reports through annualcreditreport.com — so you can review more often at no cost. Step it up to monthly during active dispute work, and every two weeks if you're recovering from identity theft. Less often when nothing is changing, more often when something is.

What federal law gives you

The Fair Credit Reporting Act gives every consumer the right to a free copy of their credit report from each of the three bureaus — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion — once every 12 months. The official site for these free reports is annualcreditreport.com. It's the only federally-authorized site for the free annual reports.

In recent years, the bureaus have voluntarily expanded that access. As of writing, all three bureaus offer free weekly reports through annualcreditreport.com. That access can change, but the legal floor — once per year per bureau — is permanent.

These free reports don't include your credit score. They include the actual content of your credit file: accounts, payment history, balances, inquiries, public records, and personal information.

How often is reasonable

A simple framework:

• At minimum: once a year, all three bureaus. Catching errors before they affect a major application is the basic case for annual review.
• During active credit work: monthly. If you're disputing items, paying down balances, or trying to make material changes, monthly reviews let you see what's working and what isn't.
• Before a major application: 60-90 days ahead. A mortgage, auto loan, or major credit application is the worst time to discover an error. Review well in advance so there's time to dispute and correct anything that's wrong.
• After identity theft or fraud concerns: every two weeks, all three bureaus. New unauthorized items can appear quickly, and catching them early matters.

The other framing that works: check more often when something is changing, less often when nothing is.

What to look for when you review

A useful checklist for each bureau's report:

• Personal information — Is your name, address, employer, and date of birth correct? Are there old addresses you've never lived at?
• Accounts — Do you recognize every open and closed account? Are the balances and statuses correct?
• Payment history — Are any payments marked late that were actually on time? Are any "current" accounts actually past due?
• Collections — Do you recognize each collection? Are the balances and dates correct? Are any past the 7-year reporting window?
• Public records — Are any judgments or bankruptcies listed that shouldn't be?
• Hard inquiries — Do you recognize each one? Did you actually apply with that lender?

Anything that doesn't match reality is a candidate for a dispute.

Where the three bureaus differ

Reviewing all three bureaus is important because they don't have identical data. A late payment might show on Experian and TransUnion but not Equifax. A collection might be on Equifax only. An address change might have propagated to two of the three but not the third.

If you only review one bureau, you only see one-third of the picture. Errors on the other two are still there and still affecting your score in different ways depending on which bureau a lender pulls.

What CreditRefresh does on this front

The platform pulls your reports automatically on a regular schedule. The pulls are soft inquiries, so they don't affect your score. The AI reviews each pull for new or changed items — new accounts, new balances, new inquiries, new collections — and flags anything worth attention.

This isn't a replacement for occasionally looking at your reports yourself. It's a way to make sure nothing material slips by between your reviews. If something significant changes on one of your reports, the platform sees it and surfaces it.

What not to do

A few patterns worth avoiding:

• Don't pay third-party sites for what's free. Anything that asks you to subscribe to access your credit reports is selling you something you can get free at annualcreditreport.com.
• Don't ignore an outdated report. Errors don't fix themselves. An item you saw last year and didn't dispute is still there.
• Don't dispute everything at once without reading it. Even with CreditRefresh, you approve each letter. Glance at what's being disputed before approving.

Checking your reports is the cheap, easy part of credit work. Acting on what you find is where the actual work happens.