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Why did your score drop after taking out credit?
Find out how an enquiry on your credit report impacts your score, and how applying for credit can cause your score to dip.
See your credit score today
Check your credit score and report in minutes. It’s free, forever.
Did you know that it’s fairly common to experience a drop in your score? There are various factors that make your score fluctuate, and it’s important is to understand which of these have impacted your score so that you can take action.
While taking out credit and using it responsibly can improve your credit score in the long run, you may see a drop in your score after you’ve applied for credit. This is because a hard search, or a hard enquiry, has been conducted on your credit report to assess your creditworthiness.
To slowly increase your score again, be sure to keep your account payments up-to-date and your credit card balances low. You should also avoid making too many credit applications in a short space of time, as this presents you as a risk to lenders.
The best way to understand why your score is changing is to log in to ClearScore and check your credit report. On there we list your credit insights, detailing the factors that may be affecting your score.
Written by Isabelle Coetzee
Freelance Copywriter
Isabelle is a freelance finance writer and journalist in Cape Town. She helps make managing your personal finances calm, clear and easy to understand.