Is Equifax free?

Wollit Team3 minute read · Updated 1st July 2024

Equifax offers two services in the UK: a free statutory report, and a paid subscription that costs £14.95 a month and gives you access to your full credit report and score. However, there are ways to get this for free as well. Here’s how.

Which Equifax services are free in the UK?

Equifax offers two services in the UK:

Free statutory credit report. This is a basic credit report that is available online and provides a snapshot of your credit history. While it’s free, it doesn’t give you as much detail as your full Equifax credit report.
Full access to your credit report and score. Unlike the statutory report, this is a premium service that costs £14.95 a month.

However, there are two ways to access your Equifax credit report and credit score for free:

You can sign up to a 30-day free trial of Equifax Credit Report & Score, Equifax’s premium subscription. You can cancel anytime without any cost within the first 30 days.
Or you can sign up to ClearScore. ClearScore partners with Equifax to bring you your full credit report and score for free. In exchange, ClearScore earns a commission every time you sign up to one of the products advertised on its website (like a credit card, or a loan).

What does the Equifax Credit Report & Score service offer?

The Equifax Credit Report & Score service costs £14.95 per month after the initial 30-day free trial. This service includes access to your credit report and score, just like what you get for free from ClearScore.

However, Equifax’s premium service does come with a few additional features that might be worth it:

Daily updates to your credit report and score. ClearScore updates monthly.
A ”traffic light” system colour-coded so you can quickly understand which areas from your credit report may need your attention.
WebDetect. This identity protection feature is meant to help keep your personal information safe. This includes monitoring websites commonly used by fraudsters to trade sensitive data. If Equifax detects any of the information you've asked them to monitor on these sites, it will alert you immediately. You can have Equifax keep monitoring up to 6 email addresses, 6 telephone numbers, 12 cards, 6 bank accounts, and also your driving licence number and National Insurance number.
SocialScan. While Experian, for example, also offers a service similar to WebDetect, SocialScan is something we’ve only seen Equifax offer. This service searches around 100 social media sites and lets you know what personal information about you is available to the public. This is often one of the main “attack vectors” for fraudsters, so knowing how to better protect yourself on social media is essential if you want to stay safe.
Premium customer service support. Unlike credit monitoring services like ClearScore which only offer a limited customer service line, if you pay the £14.95 that Equifax charges for its service, you can expect a dedicated line of support.

Is the Equifax Credit Report & Score subscription worth it?

It depends. Knowing exactly what influences your credit score and by how much can be valuable, but you can get similar information for free from ClearScore.

Also, the identity fraud protection service can be very useful as well, but if you’re concerned about fraud you probably can achieve even more protection at a lower price by registering for CIFAS protective registration, which tells lenders to run extra checks if they receive an application in your name.

You also need to be mindful that Equifax is only one of three credit reference in the UK, and you’ll need to pay attention to the other two as well: Experian and TransUnion. This means that you might want to subscribe to Experian’s service as well, and use something like Credit Karma or MoneySuperMarket for your TransUnion credit score and report.

However, £14.95 a month just for a bit more detail is probably not worth it for most people. That’s because, at the end of the day, what matters most for your credit score is the action you take to improve your credit history.

The good news is that now there are many apps that can help you build and improve credit. One such app is Wollit.

Wollit works by reporting a fixed-fee monthly subscription as a loan repayment to all credit reference agencies, including Equifax. This helps you build a history of timely debt repayments, which is the main factor that matters for your credit score. Checking your credit score and report is great, but if you’re looking for an app that can actually improve it, you might get more mileage from a credit-building app like Wollit, and at a similar cost.