Freeze your credit. Stop identity theft.
Key Findings
- Over 1 million Americans filed identity theft reports in 2023 — credit-related fraud accounts for nearly 1 in 3 cases.
- Freezing all three major credit bureaus reduces new-account fraud by up to 95%, making it the most powerful single step you can take.
- Credit freezes have been free by federal law since September 2018 (Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act).
- Identity theft victims spend an average of 200 hours and $1,343 resolving fraud — prevention is vastly cheaper than recovery.
- 60.3% of identity theft types — including credit card, loan, and utilities fraud — are directly blocked by a credit freeze.
Check if you are at Risk
You can use the free tool called Have I Been Pwned as a fast way to check whether your information was part of a significant data breach. Have I Been Pwned searches your email address against a massive database of compromised records and returns a list of data breaches that includes your email address. If Have I Been Pwned finds your information in several breaches, then you are at a higher risk of identity theft, and we recommend keeping your credit frozen when you don’t need to use it.
Latest Data Breaches:
Freeze Your Credit Often
How many times each year do you apply for a new credit card, auto financing, or another type of loan? Probably not very many, compared to the other days in a year. When you apply for credit is when your files should be thawed so that a lender can approve your new account.
For the other 300+ days of the year that you are not applying for new loans or credit cards, keep your credit frozen. This approach ensures you keep your identity theft risk as low as possible.
Freezing your credit is like putting a lock on your credit report, and only you have the key. Always freeze your credit when you don’t need to use it. Everyone should have credit monitoring at a minimum, which is less protection than a freeze.
If your credit is already frozen, see Guides to Unfreeze.
