Contents
Introduction
Find out what credit bureau (formally known as consumer reporting agencies) Discover pulls for credit card applications. For the purposes of this post, we only looked at data from 2014 onwards. We are also only looking at cards issued by Discover and not cards that run on their payment network.
You can also read other posts in this series by clicking below:
Table Key & Combined Stats
To keep things easy, we will use the following acronyms.
EX = Experian
EQ = Equifax
TU = TransUnion
NI = No information
The number next to the acronym represents the number of data points we have. In total we have 448 data points sourced from the Credit Boards Credit Pull page. Of those applications:
- 112Â or ~25% of all applications pulled an Experian credit report
- 233 or ~52%  of all applications pulled an Equifax credit report
- 103 or ~23% of all applications pulled an TransUnion credit report
| Abbrevation | State Name | Credit Bureau Pulled |
| AL | Alabama | Â EX: 2 EQ: 3 |
| AK | Alaska | Â EX: 1 EQ: 1 |
| AZ | Arizona | Â EX: 1 EQ:4 |
| AR | Arkansas | Â TU: 2 |
| CA | California (CA) | Â EX: 19 EQ: 44 TU: 17 |
| CO | Colorado | Â EQ: 7 |
| CT | Connecticut | Â EX: 1Â EQ: 4 TU: 1 |
| DE | Delaware | Â EQ: 1 TU: 1 |
| FL | Florida | Â EX: 10 EQ: 21 TU: 12 |
| GA | Georgia | Â EQ: 14 TU: 8 |
| HI | Hawaii | Â EX: 2 EQ: 1 |
| ID | Idaho | Â EX: 2 |
| IL | Illinois | Â EX: 16 TU: 5 |
| IN | Indiana | Â EX: 1 EQ: 4 |
| IA | Iowa | Â EQ: 1 |
| KS | Kansas | Â EX: 1 EQ: 2 |
| KY | Kentucky | Â EQ: 2 TU: 1 |
| LA | Louisiana | EX: 1 EQ: 4 |
| ME | Maine | Â EQ: 2 |
| MD | Maryland | Â EX: 2 EQ: 4 TU: 1 |
| MA | Massachusetts | Â EX: 2 EQ: 8 |
| MI | Michigan | Â EX: 2 EQ: 4 TU: 1 |
| MN | Minnesota | Â EX: 4 EQ: 6 |
| MS | Mississippi | Â EX: 1 EQ: 3 TU: 1 |
| MO | Missouri | Â EX: 1 EQ: 4 TU: 1 |
| MT | Montana | Â EQ: 1 TU: 2 |
| NE | Nebraska | Â EX: 1 |
| NV | Nevada | Â EQ: 8 |
| NH | New Hampshire | Â EX: 1 EQ: 1 |
| NJ | New Jersey | Â EQ: 9 TU: 1 |
| NM | New Mexico | Â EQ: 1 TU: 1 |
| NY | New York | Â EX: 7 EQ: 30Â TU: 8 |
| NC | North Carolina | Â EX: 6 EX: 3 TU: 8 |
| ND | North Dakota | Â EQ: 1 |
| OH | Ohio | Â EX: 7 EQ: 11 TU: 2 |
| OK | Oklahoma | Â N/A |
| OR | Oregon | Â EX: 1 EQ: 2 TU: 1 |
| PA | Pennsylvania | Â EX: 3 EQ: 12 TU: 3 |
| RI | Rhode Island | Â N/A |
| SC | South Carolina | Â EX: 2 EQ: 3 TU: 1 |
| SD | South Dakota | Â EQ: 1 |
| TN | Tennessee | Â EX: 1 TU: 1 |
| TX | Texas | Â EX: 11 EQ: 30Â TU: 15 |
| UT | Utah | Â EQ: 1 |
| VT | Vermont | Â TU: 1 |
| VA | Virginia | Â EX: 1 EQ: 5 TU: 2 |
| WA | Washington | Â EX: 2 EQ: 5 TU: 2 |
| WV | West Virginia | Â EQ: 1 TU: 1 |
| WI | Wisconsin | Â EX: 3 EQ: 1 TU: 5 |
| WY | Wyoming | Â N/A |
| DC | District Of Colombia | Â N/A |
What Happens If Your Report Is Frozen?
Discover won’t approve you with a frozen report, they also won’t accept a PIN to access a frozen report. Instead you’ll need to unfreeze your report first.
Our Verdict
As you can see Equifax is used more than half the time with the other two bureaus nearly being pulled one quarter of the time each. Discover doesn’t have a lot of cards worth considering, mainly just the Discover it & Discover it Miles (and possibly the Discover it Secured for people with bad credit).
