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Home > Guides > Stop pre-approved credit offers
Opt out at optoutprescreen.com or by calling 1-888-5-OPT-OUT (1-888-567-8688). The online or phone opt-out lasts five years; to make it permanent, complete the signed form the site mails you and return it by mail. This stops the prescreened credit and insurance offers that come from the four major credit bureaus.
Those "you're pre-approved" letters are not sent by your bank out of admiration. Under US federal law, the big credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, and Innovis) are allowed to sell lists of consumers who meet a lender's criteria: a credit score band, a zip code, no recent bankruptcy. Lenders buy those lists and mail offers to everyone on them. That is why the envelopes keep coming even if you have never done business with the sender.
The opt-out site exists because the same law that permits prescreening requires the bureaus to offer a way out. One opt-out request covers all four bureaus at once, which is the part most people miss: you do not need to contact each bureau separately.
The five-year opt-out can be done online or by phone in a few minutes. The permanent version cannot, because the bureaus want a signed form to confirm it is really you making an indefinite request. After you choose the permanent option online, they mail you a form; you sign it and mail it back in the postage-paid envelope provided.
| Opt-out type | How | Lasts |
|---|---|---|
| Five-year | optoutprescreen.com or 1-888-5-OPT-OUT | Five years, then offers resume |
| Permanent | Sign and return the mailed form | Indefinite, until you opt back in |
| Opt back in | Same site or phone number | Immediate; useful when mortgage or auto shopping |
Two things people get wrong: first, opting out does not hurt your credit score. The bureaus flag your file so lenders stop pulling prescreen lists; no hard inquiry is involved. Second, if you are about to shop for a mortgage or car loan, you may want to opt back in temporarily, since prescreened offers are sometimes the most competitive rates you will see.
Plenty, unfortunately. The opt-out covers only prescreened offers sourced from the bureaus. It does not stop offers from banks you already do business with (they market to their own customers directly), local business mailers, or anything addressed to "current resident." For the broader junk-mail problem, you need the separate opt-outs: DMAchoice for direct marketers, and the usual mailbox discipline of tossing what you do not want. Canadians have a parallel but separate system: the Canadian Marketing Association's do-not-contact service, since optoutprescreen.com is US-only.
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