Credit freeze or credit lock: Which one you actually want

For most people the answer is a freeze. It is free by federal law at Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, the bureau has to lift it within one hour when you ask online or by phone, and your rights come from the Fair Credit Reporting Act rather than from a company’s terms of service. A lock blocks the same thing, new credit opened in your name, from an app. Whether a lock costs anything depends on the bureau: when we checked on October 2, 2026, Equifax’s lock was free, Experian’s came only with a paid membership, and TransUnion no longer offered one.

Both tools work one bureau at a time. A freeze or a lock at Equifax does nothing to your Experian or TransUnion file, so real protection means acting at all three.

What each bureau offers, checked October 2, 2026

Lock offers change with each bureau’s product lineup, which is one more reason not to build your protection on them. The freeze rules below do not change unless Congress changes them. To place one, start at the Equifax, Experian and TransUnion freeze pages.

What the law guarantees with a freeze

Free freezes became federal law on September 21, 2018, through an amendment to section 605A of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The statute sets rules every nationwide bureau has to follow:

• Cost: nothing to place, lift or remove a freeze.
• Speed: a freeze requested online or by phone must be in place within one business day, and a request to lift it must be honored within one hour. By mail, the bureau has three business days for either.
• Duration: until you remove it. You can lift it for a set period instead of removing it, and TransUnion lets you schedule a temporary lift up to 15 days in advance.
• Children: a parent or guardian can freeze the file of a child under 16 at no cost, usually by mail with a birth certificate or other proof of authority. If the bureau has no file on the child, the law requires it to create a record so the freeze can be placed.

A freeze does not lower your credit score, and it does not stop you from pulling your own reports. If a bureau mishandles one, for example by failing to lift it on time before a loan closing, sections 616 and 617 of the FCRA let you sue for damages for willful or negligent violations. A lock works under the user agreement you accept when you sign up, and the bureau can rewrite that agreement. When free freezes arrived in 2018, the FTC put the choice plainly: “If you want a free freeze guaranteed by federal law, then opt for a freeze, not a lock.”

Who can still see a frozen report

A freeze stops a new lender from pulling your file to approve an application. Section 605A also lists who it does not stop:

• companies where you already have an account, and collectors working for them, when they review or collect on that account;
• insurers underwriting a policy;
• employers, landlords and background screening companies;
• law enforcement and courts acting under an order or subpoena, child support agencies, and agencies investigating fraud or collecting taxes;
• companies that screen files for prescreened credit offers;
• a credit monitoring service you signed up for, and you.

So a freeze does not hide you from a tenant screening or an insurance quote, and it will not stop prescreened card offers in your mailbox. To end those offers, opt out at OptOutPrescreen.com, as the FTC explains. If a company tells you your freeze blocked its request, lift the freeze at that bureau for the day you need.

When a lock is worth having

At Equifax, the free lock is a reasonable choice if you would rather tap a button in an app than log in to lift a freeze. You have to pick one of the two for your Equifax file, since Equifax will not run both. What you give up is the statute: the one-hour deadline and the right to sue apply to freezes.

At Experian, paying for a membership just to get CreditLock buys little, because the free freeze already lifts and returns in real time online. The membership makes sense only if you want the other things it bundles, such as monitoring of all three reports, and you would pay for those anyway.

At TransUnion, the freeze is the only option.

The usual argument for a lock is speed for people who apply for credit often. The fix costs nothing: ask the lender which bureau it will pull and lift the freeze only there, for the dates of the application. A car dealer or mortgage lender may pull more than one bureau, so ask before you walk in.

Freezing everything in one sitting

1. Open a free account at each of the three bureaus and place the freeze. Use the bureau’s own site; you do not need any paid product to freeze.
2. Store the logins in a password manager, along with any PIN a bureau mails you. Losing them is the main hassle of a freeze, because you will have to prove your identity again before the bureau lifts anything.
3. Add the smaller bureaus. Innovis, a fourth credit bureau, freezes for free online, by phone or by mail and mails you a 10-digit PIN. NCTUE, which keeps phone, pay TV and utility account histories, offers a free freeze online or at 1-866-349-5355. ChexSystems, which banks check before opening checking and savings accounts, takes freeze requests online, at 800-887-7652 or by mail; lift it before you open a bank account.
4. Freeze your children’s files if they are under 16, by mail at each bureau.
5. Before any application, ask which bureau the lender uses and lift that freeze for the dates you need. It goes back on by itself when the period ends.

Where a fraud alert fits

A fraud alert is the third tool, and it works differently. It does not block access to your file; it tells lenders to verify your identity before they open an account. You place it at one bureau, which must pass it to the other two. An initial alert lasts one year. An extended alert, available with an identity theft report, lasts seven years and takes you off prescreened offer lists for five. Both are free and come with free copies of your reports.

After a data breach or a lost wallet, an alert and a freeze together cost nothing. If someone has already used your identity, follow the steps in what to do in the first 24 hours of identity theft, which include a faster way to remove fraudulent accounts than a regular dispute. To check all three files for free, see where to get your free credit reports.