Your Guide to a Free Credit Report

According to the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (FACT Act) you are entitled to one free credit report each year so you can monitor your credit and fight identity theft. Annualcreditreport.com was created by three credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, to fulfill this purpose. The steps below will walk you through obtaining your credit report for free. The process can be tricky, because each company likes to sell you promotions. This process can also be very lengthy and only gives you your credit report, not your credit score. So we recommend you use Identity Guard for a faster and more efficient means at obtaining both your credit report and credit score!

But if you must do it the hard way, here are the steps:

1. Go to annualcreditreport.com
2. Select your state of residence and press the “Request Report” button.
3. Fill out the form, which requests your personal information (Name, Social security number, Address, etc.) and press Continue.
4. You will then be prompted to select which credit reporting company you would like your credit report from. You may also choose to select more than one or all of them.
5. You be lead to the credit reporting’s website corresponding to the one you chose. Follow the steps for the credit bureau you chose below.

Note: If you are having trouble answering personal/financial questions on a credit bureau’s site when prompted, Experian’s questions tend to be the simplest.

Equifax

1. You personal information should already be on the page. Press Continue.
2. You will be prompted to answer financial question, to verify your identity. Press Continue, when you are done.
3. You will be sent to a page telling you to get your FICO credit score. This is optional, and will cost you money. So, click on “No Thanks, I Don’t Want to Know My Score” to continue.
4. You will then be sent to a page with more offers that will cost you money. If you are here for just the free credit report, make sure your answer to all the offers is “No”. Then press Submit to continue.
5. You should then see your credit report! If you don’t, you will get a message that they were not able to deliver your report, which can be due to a number of reasons, but probably because you answered a personal question incorrectly.
6. When you are done viewing your credit report click on “Return to Annualcreditreport.com” in the menu on the top of your page.

Experian

1. You will be prompted to enter the last four digits of your social security number.
2. You will be brought to a page with promotions, if you are here for just the free credit report, just go to the bottom of the page and click on the button where it says “No, Thanks”.
3. You will be brought to your order summary, which should be $0 if you did not order anything, except your free report. You must accept their terms and conditions before continuing.
4. You must now answer a few questions about your finances and personal information.
5. When you are finished you should be brought to you credit report, if you have answered all of your questions correctly.
6. When you are done viewing your credit report click on “Return to Annualcreditreport.com” in the menu on the top of your page.

TransUnion

1. You personal information should already be on the page. Press Continue.
2. You will be prompted to create a username and password. And accept a service agreement.
3. The next page will ask you for your email address, so that they can send you a notification when it is time to get your next free credit report. You can either say “Yes, Keep Me Informed” or “No, Thanks”.
4. You will then be prompted to answer financial and personal questions to verify your identity. If you do not know the answers to these questions, you will not be able to move on.
5. Continuing on, there may be promotions for services such as obtaining your credit score or other monthly or yearly service. If you are here for the free credit report, make sure you do not accidently choose one of these services, because you will be prompted for your credit card information and then charged.
6. You should then see your credit report, when you are finished!
7. When you are done viewing your credit report click on “Return to Annualcreditreport.com” in the menu on the top of your page.

This process can be very time consuming, ranging from 20 minutes to a few hours! For your convenience, we recommend using Identity Guard instead. Identity Guard is cheap, and provides you with more information: unlimited access to all bureau’s credit reports and scores.