A credit pull is good for four months on a conventional mortgage. Fannie Mae’s Selling Guide requires that all credit documents be no more than four months old on the date you sign your note, measured from the day the credit bureau generated the report.1Fannie Mae. Allowable Age of Credit Documents and Federal Income Tax Returns If closing slips past that window, your lender has to pull a fresh report before funding, and that new pull can change your rate, delay closing, or affect whether you still qualify.
How the Four-Month Clock Works
The rule is written as four months, not 120 days.1Fannie Mae. Allowable Age of Credit Documents and Federal Income Tax Returns Because most months carry 30 or 31 days, the window usually runs between 120 and 124 calendar days. Lenders track it as four calendar months from the report date to the note date.
The clock starts on the exact date the credit bureau generated your report, not when you applied and not when your lender received it. Every lender that sells loans to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac follows this standard, and it applies to both the primary borrower and any co-borrowers.
The same four-month cap covers the other credit documents in your file: employment verification, income records, and asset statements. If your report is refreshed, expect your lender to ask for updated pay stubs, bank statements, and employment verification that also fall inside the new window.
VA and FHA Loans
VA home loans use a 120-day limit. Your credit report must be less than 120 days old on the date you sign your note, whether the loan goes through automatic underwriting or VA’s prior-approval process. For new construction, the VA extends that window to 180 days.2U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. VA Home Loan Credit Report Requirements
FHA loans follow HUD’s own guidelines. The timeline is similar to conventional loans, but requirements can differ in specific situations. Ask your lender for the exact validity window if you’re pursuing an FHA-insured mortgage.
If Your Credit Report Expires Before Closing
Construction delays, contract extensions, and slow appraisals can all push a closing past the four-month mark. When that happens, your lender has to obtain a new or updated credit report before funding.1Fannie Mae. Allowable Age of Credit Documents and Federal Income Tax Returns That refresh becomes the new document of record, and the four-month clock restarts from the date of the updated report.
A refreshed pull can go three ways:
- Your score is the same or higher. Loan terms stay put, and closing proceeds on schedule.
- Your score dropped slightly. Your lender may need to re-run the file through underwriting, which can add several days. A small dip may not change your rate, but it depends on whether you crossed a pricing threshold.
- Your score dropped significantly. Your interest rate could rise, your loan program could change, or you could stop qualifying altogether. New debts, missed payments, and higher credit card balances during the waiting period are the most common causes.
The lender will also expect refreshed income and asset documentation to accompany the new credit report.
The Pre-Closing Credit Check You Should Expect
Even if your original report is still inside its four-month window, expect another credit check right before closing. Fannie Mae advises lenders to use an undisclosed debt monitoring service throughout the loan process, from application through closing, to catch new debts or inquiries that appeared after the original pull.3Fannie Mae. Undisclosed Liabilities – Attacking This Common Defect
Lenders that don’t use a monitoring service are advised to pull a new three-bureau credit report or a soft pull no more than three days before closing.3Fannie Mae. Undisclosed Liabilities – Attacking This Common Defect You’ll typically also sign a certification at closing confirming you haven’t taken on any new debt since applying. A new auto loan, a fresh credit card, or a large financed purchase discovered at this stage can delay or derail your closing. Don’t open new accounts or make major purchases once you’ve applied.
Shopping Multiple Lenders Without Stacking Inquiries
Comparing lenders is worth doing, and the scoring models are built to let you do it. Recent versions of the FICO Score treat all mortgage-related hard inquiries within a 45-day window as a single inquiry for scoring purposes. Older FICO versions use a shorter 14-day window for the same consolidation.4myFICO. How Soft vs Hard Pull Credit Inquiries Work VantageScore models also use a 14-day rolling window.5VantageScore. Thinking About Applying for a Loan? Shop Around to Find the Best Offer
You usually can’t control which model your lender uses, so the safe move is to cluster all your mortgage applications inside two weeks. The consolidation only applies within the same loan type. Shopping for a mortgage and an auto loan in the same two weeks won’t be grouped together.
A single hard inquiry lowers a FICO Score by fewer than five points for most people. Hard inquiries stay visible on your report for two years but only affect your score for the first twelve months.6myFICO. Does Checking Your Credit Score Lower It? Soft pulls, including a lender’s initial pre-qualification check, don’t affect your score at all.
Fixing an Error Before It Costs You
If something on your report is wrong and it’s pulling your score down, you have two options, and the right one depends on your timeline.
The standard dispute process runs through the credit bureaus. Once you file, the bureau generally has 30 days to investigate. Submitting additional documents during that window can extend the investigation by 15 days, and disputes filed after you received your free annual credit report can take up to 45 days total.7Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How Long Does It Take to Repair an Error on a Credit Report That timeline can eat well into your four-month validity window, so file disputes as early as you can, ideally before you start shopping for a mortgage.
If you’re already mid-application, ask your lender about a rapid rescore. This process typically takes three to five business days instead of the standard 30-day cycle.8Equifax. What Is a Rapid Rescore? You can’t request one yourself. Your lender initiates it by sending proof of the correction, such as a paid-off balance or a creditor letter, directly to the bureaus. A rapid rescore is most useful when a small bump would push you into a better rate tier or clear a minimum qualification threshold.