How To Order Your Credit Report

It is ideal that you order your credit report once a year to see if there is any mistakes on it. If you are buying a new home soon, it is strongly recommended that you order your credit report before you start the mortgage application.

There is a common misunderstanding that you need to pay for your credit report. This is not correct. Credit report is always FREE for you to request by mail(If you would like to get it online, you need to pay for that). Only if you want to know your credit score, then you have to pay. TransUnion and Equifax are two major credit bureaus in Canada. The process to request the credit report is very similar between these two. I would pay special attention to the report from Equifax since I believe most of the creditors in Canada use the copy from Equifax.

To obtain the credit report from Equifax, you need to download the Credit Report Request Form. In the request form, you need to fill out information such as your name, current address, your previous addresses within last five years, your date of birth, social insurance number(optional), the name and last 4 digits of a major credit card you have, have you ever been denied credit before. After you fill out those information, you need to mail the request form along with two pieces of your personal identification like driver’s license and health card to get your request processed.

After you have all the required documents mailed to Equifax, you should expect to receive the copy of your personal credit report via regular mail within 5 to 10 days.

For process to obtain your credit report from TransUnion, please follow this link.