Money Clarity

How to check your credit score free in India

You are entitled by RBI direction to one free full credit report every calendar year from each of India’s four credit bureaus - TransUnion CIBIL, Equifax, Experian and CRIF High Mark. That is four free reports a year, not one, and almost nobody uses more than one of them. Checking your own score is a soft enquiry and never lowers it.

The problem: people pay for something they are owed, or avoid it entirely

Two mistakes dominate. The first is paying a subscription for a score that is free by law. The second is not checking at all, because of a persistent belief that looking at your own score damages it. Both are expensive in different ways.

Checking your own report is a soft enquiry and has no effect on your score, ever
A hard enquiry is when a lender checks it because you applied for credit - only that one counts
Free score widgets inside apps are usually real, but they show one bureau, and lenders may pull a different one
Your four bureau reports frequently disagree, because not every lender reports to all four

How big the gap between bureaus can be

This is the part that matters practically. If you check one bureau and a lender pulls another, you can be rejected by a number you have never seen.

Scores across bureaus commonly differ by 20 to 50 points on the same person, because each holds a different subset of your accounts
A lender chooses which bureau to pull - you do not get to nominate the flattering one
A small co-operative bank or an NBFC may report to only one or two bureaus
An error sitting on one bureau and not the others is invisible until the wrong lender pulls the wrong report

How to get each of the four, free

Each bureau runs its own request flow for the statutory free annual report. Budget about twenty minutes for all four, once a year.

TransUnion CIBIL: request the free annual Credit Information Report from cibil.com using PAN and identity verification
Equifax: request the free annual report from the Equifax India consumer portal, or by the downloadable request form
Experian: free annual Credit Information Report through the Experian India consumer site
CRIF High Mark: free annual report through the CRIF India consumer portal - the most commonly forgotten one
Space them out - one per quarter gives you year-round coverage at no cost

What has changed recently, and why old advice is wrong

RBI’s Master Direction on Credit Information Reporting materially changed the timing, and most articles have not caught up.

Lenders now report to bureaus twice a month, on the 15th and the last day of the month - not monthly
That means a payment or a closure can show up in as little as two weeks, not the 45 days people still quote
Bureaus must notify you by SMS or email whenever your credit report is accessed
Corrections must be resolved within 30 calendar days, and beyond that you are owed Rs 100 per day

What Unyfy does here

Unyfy runs an Equifax soft pull at signup, free, with your explicit consent, and shows the report alongside your actual transactions rather than as a number on its own.

One free pull at signup on the free plan; refreshed twice a month on Premium at Rs 99 a month
It is a soft enquiry and does not affect your score
The point is the pairing - a score next to the EMIs, card balances and charges that produced it
This does not replace your four statutory bureau reports, and you should still pull all four annually

Common questions

Does checking my own credit score lower it?

No. Checking your own report is a soft enquiry and has no effect on your score, no matter how often you do it. Only hard enquiries — where a lender pulls your report because you applied for credit — are visible to other lenders and can weigh on your score.

How many free credit reports am I entitled to in India?

One full credit report per calendar year from each of the four bureaus — TransUnion CIBIL, Equifax, Experian and CRIF High Mark. That is four free reports a year in total. Most people use one and pay for the rest, or check none.

Why is my CIBIL score different from my Equifax score?

Because each bureau holds a different set of your accounts. Not every lender reports to all four. Differences of 20 to 50 points on the same person are ordinary, and a lender chooses which bureau to pull, so the score you have seen may not be the one that decides your application.

How quickly does a payment show up on my credit report?

Faster than most articles say. Under RBI’s current direction, credit institutions report twice a month — on the 15th and the last day — so an update can appear within about two weeks rather than the 30 to 45 days that is still widely quoted.

Pull all four, once a year, spaced across quarters. Read the account list, not just the number - the number is a summary of the list, and the list is where the errors are. Hundreds of users we have walked through this found at least one account detail wrong on at least one bureau.

Written by Danish Mirza, founder of Unyfy. 14 years in Indian lending and collections at Standard Chartered, Barclays, Ola Money and Uni Cards.
Last reviewed 2026-09-09.