What Credit Bureau Does Discover Pull?

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:

  • 112 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  EX: 2 EQ: 3
AK Alaska  EX: 1 EQ: 1
AZ Arizona  EX: 1 EQ:4
AR Arkansas  TU: 2
CA California (CA)   EX: 19 EQ: 44 TU: 17
CO Colorado  EQ: 7
CT Connecticut  EX: 1 EQ: 4 TU: 1
DE Delaware  EQ: 1 TU: 1
FL Florida  EX: 10 EQ: 21 TU: 12
GA Georgia  EQ: 14 TU: 8
HI Hawaii  EX: 2 EQ: 1
ID Idaho  EX: 2
IL Illinois  EX: 16 TU: 5
IN Indiana  EX: 1 EQ: 4
IA Iowa  EQ: 1
KS Kansas  EX: 1 EQ: 2
KY Kentucky  EQ: 2 TU: 1
LA Louisiana EX: 1 EQ: 4
ME Maine  EQ: 2
MD Maryland  EX: 2 EQ: 4 TU: 1
MA Massachusetts  EX: 2 EQ: 8
MI Michigan  EX: 2 EQ: 4 TU: 1
MN Minnesota  EX: 4 EQ: 6
MS Mississippi  EX: 1 EQ: 3 TU: 1
MO Missouri  EX: 1 EQ: 4 TU: 1
MT Montana  EQ: 1 TU: 2
NE Nebraska  EX: 1
NV Nevada  EQ: 8
NH New Hampshire  EX: 1 EQ: 1
NJ New Jersey  EQ: 9 TU: 1
NM New Mexico  EQ: 1 TU: 1
NY New York  EX: 7 EQ: 30 TU: 8
NC North Carolina  EX: 6 EX: 3 TU: 8
ND North Dakota  EQ: 1
OH Ohio  EX: 7 EQ: 11 TU: 2
OK Oklahoma  N/A
OR Oregon  EX: 1 EQ: 2 TU: 1
PA Pennsylvania  EX: 3 EQ: 12 TU: 3
RI Rhode Island  N/A
SC South Carolina  EX: 2 EQ: 3 TU: 1
SD South Dakota  EQ: 1
TN Tennessee  EX: 1 TU: 1
TX Texas  EX: 11 EQ: 30 TU: 15
UT Utah  EQ: 1
VT Vermont  TU: 1
VA Virginia  EX: 1 EQ: 5 TU: 2
WA Washington  EX: 2 EQ: 5 TU: 2
WV West Virginia  EQ: 1 TU: 1
WI Wisconsin  EX: 3 EQ: 1 TU: 5
WY Wyoming  N/A
DC District Of Colombia  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).

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

30 Comments
newest
oldest most voted

Bo
Bo (@guest_1871016)
July 8, 2024 06:40

DP (7/8/2024): Discover It, New York
Pulled Experian: Unable to process application due to credit freeze.

Reza
Reza (@guest_847261)
November 21, 2019 18:30

Discover it miles in Nov. 2019 from Indiana. They pulled from EX, I was desperately hoping for an inquiry on my EQ report based on the above data points, but it wasn’t (EQ:4, EX:1, thinking that EX may be an error in reporting).

TimberMeadow
TimberMeadow (@guest_748082)
April 13, 2019 21:21

Alaska: EX

TomND
TomND (@guest_675403)
November 19, 2018 19:48

In North Dakota, Discover pulled Experian in November 2018.

Linda
Linda (@guest_672573)
November 14, 2018 16:47

DiscoverIt Cash Back: 11/12/2018 Georgia, Pulled Experian. Approved 12k

ANM
ANM (@guest_648937)
September 28, 2018 12:53

I was just approved for a DiscoverIT Chrome for Students card, and they pulled EQ. I live in NY.

sean
sean (@guest_631430)
August 20, 2018 16:30

Pulled Experian. Virginia. July 2018

Andrew Donshik
Andrew Donshik (@guest_626854)
August 3, 2018 23:48

CT – pulled EQ

Pctek
Pctek (@guest_600908)
May 31, 2018 12:25

NJ Resident. Discover tried to pull my experian but it was frozen, asked them (via chat) to pull my unfrozen equifax instead and they did. Approved in mid 2018.

Superman
Superman (@guest_672245)
November 14, 2018 00:27

+1 in CA. Discover prequal n/a due to EX freeze. Submitted anyway w/o prequal and got app pending phone call. Rep asked me to thaw EX, I offered PIN, but Rep declined PIN. I agreed to EQ, approved instantly.

Jay
Jay (@guest_585174)
April 23, 2018 00:27

MA resident, they pulled equifax in December of 2017 for the dicover it card.