How to Freeze Your Credit at All 3 Bureaus (Free, 2026)

A credit freeze blocks new lenders from pulling your report, which stops fraudulent accounts before they open. We placed freezes at all three bureaus on one afternoon, and the longest took ten minutes.

#What a Credit Freeze Actually Does

A credit freeze, also called a security freeze, tells the three nationwide credit bureaus to block new creditors from pulling your file. When a lender can’t see your report, they refuse to open the account. That’s how a thief holding your Social Security number is stopped from signing up for a card, a loan, or a new phone line in your name.

According to the FTC’s guide on credit freezes, placing, lifting, and removing a freeze is free at each of the 3 bureaus, and the FTC states that a freeze “doesn’t affect your credit score.” The CFPB’s explainer on security freezes confirms that 0 fees apply at any stage.

Soft pulls still go through.

Your existing card issuer can still review your account, an employer running a background check you authorized still sees what they need, and your own annual credit report at annualcreditreport.com still works. The freeze only stops the hard pulls that come with a brand-new credit application, which is the exact surface identity thieves use.

What a freeze can’t do is also worth saying out loud. It won’t stop someone from draining a checking account, taking over an email login, or using a card number that was already issued. For those, our guide on setting up passkeys covers the login half, and you can keep your iPhone secure without buying antivirus you don’t need.

#Why Freeze All Three Bureaus?

Lenders pull different bureaus. Freeze only one and the thief shops the other two.

There’s no central “freeze switch,” because the three bureaus are independent companies. As background, Wikipedia’s article on credit bureaus confirms that the U.S. operates with 3 main consumer reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion), none of which share a master toggle. The federal law that made freezes free in 2018 standardized the process but didn’t merge the bureaus, so you place three separate freezes, one at each, and you only do it once.

#How to Freeze Your Credit at Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion

Online is fastest. Phone works as a fallback if verification fails.

Equifax. You’ll need your Social Security number, date of birth, current address, and answers to a few knowledge-based questions. Go to the Equifax credit freeze page, create or sign in to your myEquifax account, and request a security freeze. Phone option: 1-800-685-1111. In our testing, the online flow took about five minutes from start to confirmation email.

Experian. Visit Experian’s freeze center, create or sign in to an Experian account, and request the freeze. Phone option: 1-888-397-3742. Experian asked extra identity questions in our test, including past addresses we hadn’t lived at in years, so the flow took closer to ten minutes. Have your old addresses handy.

TransUnion. Open TransUnion’s credit freeze portal, sign in or create a Service Center account, and toggle the freeze on. Phone option: 1-888-909-8872.

Save the PIN or recovery method each bureau offers, since lifting later is faster when you can authenticate quickly. And use a real password manager for each bureau account.

#Credit Freeze vs Credit Lock vs Fraud Alert

Three controls, three different scopes, and only one of them is what people mean by “freeze.” Here’s a quick comparison.

Control	Cost	Strength	Lift mechanism
Security freeze	Free at all 3 bureaus	Blocks new credit pulls; federally guaranteed	Online or phone, minutes
Credit lock	Paid app or bundle	Bureau-specific contract, weaker legal protections	Toggle in vendor app
Fraud alert	Free, 1 year	Lender must verify your identity, doesn’t block pulls	Auto-expires, renewable

Locks are paid.

A credit lock is a product each bureau sells, often inside a credit-monitoring subscription. It can be convenient, but it’s a contract with the bureau, not a right under federal law, so the protections are weaker if something goes wrong. Anyone telling you a paid lock is “the same as a freeze” is selling you a subscription you don’t need.

A fraud alert is a flag on your file that tells lenders to take extra steps to verify your identity. It’s free, lasts one year, and identity-theft victims qualify for an extended seven-year alert. An alert doesn’t stop the pull but adds friction, which is why a freeze is the stronger move when you have time for it.

#How Do You Temporarily Lift a Freeze?

You lift a freeze any time you actually want a credit pull, like applying for a card, a mortgage, a car loan, a new phone line, or a rental.

The first option is a scheduled thaw: lift the freeze for a date range, often anywhere from one day to a few weeks, and it re-locks automatically when the window closes. The second is a creditor-specific lift: some bureaus let you lift only for one specific lender, which keeps the file frozen against everyone else.

In our testing, the temporary lift at Equifax activated in under a minute after we picked the thaw window inside the online portal, and TransUnion was similar. Experian was a little slower in real-world reports we’ve seen but still effectively instant for online lifts. If you’re under any deadline, do the lift online rather than by phone, save the confirmation, and only thaw the bureaus the lender will actually pull from.

Once the thaw closes, the protection snaps back without another fee.

#Freezing a Child’s or Family Member’s Credit

Yes for a child you’re the parent or legal guardian of. Federal law lets you place a freeze on a minor’s file at no cost, and most bureaus will create the file specifically so they can freeze it, because most children don’t have one yet. A thief with a clean SSN attached to a minor can spend years opening accounts before the kid ever applies for credit.

Forms, not online.

The process is form-based instead of fully online at most bureaus. You’ll need a copy of the child’s birth certificate, a copy of your own ID, proof you’re the parent or guardian, and the child’s Social Security number, usually mailed to a specific freeze address listed on the bureau’s site.

For an elderly parent or another adult, you can only place a freeze on their behalf if you’re their legal guardian or hold a power of attorney that covers it. Otherwise, walk them through their own setup using the same three steps above.

#Freezing Your Credit After Identity Theft

If you already know your identity has been used, the order matters. Slow down and do it in this sequence:

• File a report at IdentityTheft.gov to generate an official FTC affidavit. You’ll need this number to dispute fraudulent accounts.
• Place a security freeze at all three bureaus using the steps above, so no new accounts can be opened from this point forward.
• Add a one-year fraud alert at any one bureau (it propagates to the other two automatically) for the friction layer.
• Pull your free credit reports from annualcreditreport.com and review every line for accounts you don’t recognize.
• Notify the specific creditors of any fraudulent accounts and dispute them in writing with your FTC affidavit attached.

After the immediate fire is out, look for how the theft started. If a breached login was the route in, check whether your email is on the dark web and rotate every password tied to that address. If your phone is part of the story (suspicious calls, SIM-swap, weird forwarding rules), our guide on signs your phone is compromised is a calmer place to start than a panic.

Then harden logins.

Two account-level upgrades pay for themselves. Move important logins to passkeys so a leaked password can’t take you over again, and our comparison of passkeys vs passwords vs 2FA explains the order most people should go in. Then take the data-broker step too: thieves shop your home address and phone number on broker sites, so remove your info from data-broker sites to make the next attack harder.

#Bottom Line

Open three browser tabs and freeze at Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion today. It’s free under federal law, it doesn’t dent your credit score, and it shuts the door on the most common identity-theft surface in the country. When you actually need credit yourself, lift the freeze for a few days at the bureau the lender will pull from, save the confirmation, and let it snap back. That one hour of setup is the strongest free defense most Americans have.

#Frequently Asked Questions