How Do I Freeze My Credit, and Does It Cost Anything?

Freezing your credit is free. You ask each of the three nationwide bureaus to freeze your file, online or by phone, and federal law gives each one a single business day to do it. The freeze doesn’t lower your score, and while it’s on, a lender can’t pull your report to open a new account in your name.

That covers the most common kind of identity theft. The FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book for 2024 counted more than 1.1 million identity theft reports. Credit card fraud led the list with about 449,000.

A freeze won’t stop someone from misusing a card you already carry, but it makes a new one in your name very hard to open.

Free since September 2018

Freezes weren’t always free. Before 2018 the rules came from the states. Kiplinger reported at the time that many of them let each bureau charge $5 to $10 to place a freeze and the same again to lift it. Lifting all three for one loan application could cost up to $30.

That changed after a 2017 breach at one of the three bureaus exposed the personal data of about 147 million people, by the FTC’s count. The next spring Congress passed the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, signed on May 24, 2018. Its section 301 made freezes free to place and free to lift at all three bureaus nationwide starting September 21, 2018.

The same section stretched the initial fraud alert from 90 days to one year.

Freeze, fraud alert or lock?

The three names get mixed up, and they don’t do the same job. A fraud alert leaves your report open to lenders but tells them to verify it’s really you before they open an account. You place it with one bureau, which has to pass it on to the other two.

A lock blocks access much like a freeze, but it’s a product each bureau offers under its own terms, sometimes free and sometimes inside a paid monthly package. The fee ban and deadlines that federal law sets for freezes don’t cover it.

People who have filed an identity theft report with the FTC or the police can get an extended fraud alert, which lasts seven years.

Neither a freeze nor an alert changes your score or touches accounts you already have. Your current lenders can still see a frozen file, and so can most employers running a background check and insurers pricing a policy.

For most people the freeze is the better pick, since it blocks more than an alert does and comes with legal deadlines you can hold a bureau to.

1. Have your details ready

Each bureau asks for the same basics: your full legal name, Social Security number, date of birth and current address, plus any recent past addresses if you’ve moved. Online, you’ll also want an email address and a phone that can receive a text code.

Expect a few identity questions about old loans or streets you’ve lived on. If the bureau can’t confirm who you are online, it may ask you to call or to mail copies of your ID and a utility bill, which takes longer.

Set aside one evening and do all three in a row.

2. Freeze your file at all three bureaus

Each nationwide bureau keeps its own file on you, and a freeze at one does nothing for the other two. A lender might check any of them, so the protection works only when all three files are frozen.

Federal law sets the clock. Online or by phone, a bureau must place the freeze within one business day of your request. By mail it gets three business days from the day your letter arrives. Lifting follows the same split, with one hour for an online or phone request and three business days for a letter.

Once three confirmations have arrived, one per bureau, your freeze is fully in place.

3. Store each PIN or login

Depending on how you froze your file, a bureau either hands you a PIN or ties the freeze to an online account with a password. You’ll need it to lift the freeze, maybe years from now at a car dealership.

Write each one down with the bureau’s name and the date you froze. Keep the page with your passport or birth certificate, or put all three in a password manager.

If you lose a PIN, the bureau can still lift the freeze, but it will verify you again first, which can mean mailing copies of your ID and losing days you hadn’t planned on.

4. Freeze your kids’ files too

The same 2018 law lets a parent or guardian freeze the file of a child under 16. Most children have no credit file at all, so someone using a child’s Social Security number can build one for years before anybody checks. If a bureau has no file for your child when your request comes in, the law requires it to create a record and freeze it.

Each bureau runs its own process for children, and some still want the request by mail. The FTC lists what to have ready: a copy of your driver’s license or other government ID, proof of your address, your child’s birth certificate and your child’s Social Security card.

The freeze stays on until someone asks the bureau to remove it. Lift it before your child’s first credit card or apartment lease.

5. Lift it when you apply for credit

When you apply for a card, a loan, an apartment or a new phone plan, ask the company which bureau it checks. Then lift only that file, online or by phone, with an end date. Federal law lets you lift a freeze for a period you choose, and the file refreezes on its own when the period ends. Apply for a car loan on June 3, for example, and you might lift that one file through June 10.

Use the online route here. A lift by mail can take three business days, too slow when a dealer has the paperwork waiting. If the company can’t say which bureau it uses, lift all three for the same short window.

A child usually has no file at any of the three bureaus until someone opens credit in that name, and a parent’s freeze request makes each bureau create a record just to lock it. Adults tend to freeze after a breach letter arrives in the mail, but nobody sends one about a 6-year-old. Once all three child freezes are on, keep the three confirmation letters and any PINs in the folder with the birth certificate you copied for them.