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Straight Answers · Refinancing
Does refinancing hurt my credit score?
Bayley Clarke · Mortgage broker on the road · Last checked 24 August 2026 · 3 min read
The short answer
Not really. Yes, it's an enquiry on your credit file, but home loan finance is a very secure way of getting lending, so the banks don't really see it as much of a risk if you've just refinanced. You own property.
Your score is probably not going to change much beyond an enquiry saying you applied with a certain lender on a certain date. The applications that genuinely wreck a file are a different animal, and the difference is worth two minutes of your time, because a lot of people use this worry as the reason to never look at their loan.
The 40 second version. The rest of this page is the detail underneath it.
What actually lands on your file
When you apply to refinance, the new lender runs a credit check, and that check leaves an enquiry on your file. An enquiry is a line of record: you applied for a home loan, with this lender, on this date. That's the whole entry.
It is a record of the application, not a verdict on you. Anyone who has ever taken out a loan, opened a credit card or switched lenders has enquiries sitting on their file. On its own, one more line saying you applied for a home loan is one of the least interesting things a credit file can hold.
Why the banks don't read it as risk
Look at it from the lender's side of the desk. Home loan finance is about as secure as lending gets: the loan is tied to a property, and the person applying to refinance already owns property. That is not what financial trouble looks like.
So a refinance enquiry doesn't read as a warning sign. It reads as housekeeping. Someone with a mortgage checked whether their loan was still the right one. That is all the line says.
The enquiries that do the damage
Now the other end of the spectrum. If you were to go out and enquire for a bunch of payday loans, that is seen as very high risk, and it will significantly hurt your score. So don't do that.
The difference is what the file says about you. One considered application for a loan secured against a property tells a boring story. A string of applications for high-cost unsecured credit tells a story of someone scrambling for cash, and lenders read files exactly like that: as a story, not a number.
If your file already carries some of that history, that is not a reason to hide from it. It is a reason to know what's on there before a lender does, so the application goes in with eyes open.
The honest bit: the score was never the real question
I meet a lot of people using the credit score worry as the reason to leave a tired loan alone. If that's you, this page just took the excuse away. The enquiry is trivial.
But here's the part that costs me business: the enquiry not mattering doesn't mean the refinance is automatically worth doing. If your current loan is already sharp, or you're likely to sell in the near future, the costs of moving can eat the saving, and the right answer is to stay put. A refinance that goes nowhere is the one version of this where you wore an enquiry on your file for nothing.
So run the decision in the right order. Work out whether the move clears its own costs first. Apply second. The score barely enters into it either way.
Want the answer before anything touches your file?
A call with me puts nothing on your credit file. No application, no credit check. We look at what you're on, what's out there, and whether a move actually clears its own costs. If the answer is stay put, I'll tell you to stay put, and your file never knows we spoke.
No application, no credit check, nothing on your file. Just the numbers.
Next question
Is it worth refinancing for a 0.25% rate difference?The threshold question: when the saving is real and when it is churn.
Related answers
What credit score do I actually need for a home loan? What does refinancing actually cost? Should I call my bank's retention team myself?Got a question this page didn't answer? Send it to me and it goes on the list.