You pay your bills on time. You don't carry debt you can't manage. By most people's logic, that means your credit file must be fine, so there's nothing to check. That logic has a blind spot: identity fraud doesn't show up as a bill you forgot to pay — it shows up as a mobile phone contract, a payday loan, or a credit card you never applied for, quietly sitting on your file until a mortgage application gets rejected and nobody can tell you why.
You have a legal right to this, and it's genuinely free
Under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and UK GDPR, every credit reference agency (CRA) operating in the UK is legally required to give you the basic information in your credit file for free, for life, whenever you ask for it — no trial period, no card details that quietly start being charged. This is called your statutory credit report. It's a plainer document than the polished, scored reports you see in paid subscription apps, but it contains the same underlying credit history.
One more thing worth knowing before you start: checking your own report is recorded as a "soft search." It never affects your credit score, no matter how often you do it — the myth that looking at your own file damages it is simply false.
Why you need to check all three, not just one
The UK doesn't have a single central credit file. Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion each hold their own separate records, and lenders choose which agency (or agencies) to report to — some report to all three, many report to only one or two. A hire purchase agreement or a mobile contract that only reports to Experian, for example, simply won't appear at all if you only ever check your Equifax file. Checking one agency gives you a partial picture; checking all three is the only way to see the full picture lenders actually see.
How to get each statutory report
- Experian: request online at their statutory report portal — note it can take a few working days to arrive by post if a passkey verification step is needed
- Equifax: register for a free account online and view or download your report as a PDF, updated daily on login
- TransUnion: request online through their statutory report portal, or by post if you prefer
If you'd rather have ongoing free access with a running score rather than a one-off report, free third-party services also work directly with each CRA: MoneySavingExpert's Credit Club (Experian data), ClearScore (Equifax data), and Credit Karma (TransUnion data) are all free for life and update monthly.
What to actually look for once you have all three
- Addresses you don't recognise. An old address you never lived at, or a current one that isn't yours, can indicate someone has used your details to apply for credit elsewhere.
- Financial associations you don't recognise. A "linked" person you've never had a joint account or mortgage with can quietly affect your score through their credit behaviour.
- Hard searches you didn't authorise. Every credit application leaves a visible hard search. A hard search from a payday lender or retailer you've never dealt with is one of the clearest signs someone tried to open credit in your name.
- Accounts you don't recognise, including defaults. Look specifically for accounts marked as missed payments or defaults for services you never signed up for.
Negative information — missed payments, defaults, County Court Judgments — stays on your file for six years from the date it was registered, and is automatically removed after that. This is exactly why an unresolved fraudulent entry doesn't just fade away on its own; it needs to be actively disputed.
What to do if you find a fraudulent or incorrect entry
Contact the credit reference agency directly and raise a dispute on the specific entry — most CRAs have a formal "errors on my credit report" process for this. The agency then contacts the lender or company that supplied the information and gives them a set window to respond (Equifax, for example, gives the data supplier 21 days). While the dispute is open, a note is added to your file flagging that the entry is under investigation.
If the dispute doesn't resolve in your favour but you still disagree with the entry, UK law gives you a separate, specific right: you can add a Notice of Correction — a short statement, up to around 200 words, explaining your side — directly to your credit file under the Consumer Credit Act 1974. Any lender who looks at your file afterward will see your explanation alongside the disputed entry.