Equifax vs TransUnion Canada (2026): One Inquiry, Two Clocks

Apply for a credit card today and Equifax Canada will drop the inquiry from your file after three years. TransUnion Canada will keep it for six. Same application, same week, same person — two published rules, both sitting on the bureaus' own websites.

Almost every Canadian article on this subject answers a different question: why are my two scores different? The standard reply is three reasons — different scoring models, different lenders reporting, different update timing. That is true, and it is a symptom. The cause nobody writes about is that the two bureaus keep the same events for different lengths of time, and each publishes its own calendar.

What are Equifax Canada and TransUnion Canada?

They are two private companies that collect your credit history and sell reports on it. Neither is a government agency, and neither is obliged to hold the same information as the other.

The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada is direct about the count: "In Canada, there are 2 main credit bureaus: Equifax, TransUnion." There is no third consumer bureau here. If you have read about a third bureau or about a particular US scoring model, you were reading about the United States.

Both build your file from what lenders send them. FCAC notes they "only collect information about your credit activity in Canada."

Why your two scores are different numbers

Three things drive the gap: different scoring formulas, different lenders reporting to each bureau, and different update timing. That explanation is correct as far as it goes, and every competing page stops there.

FCAC confirms the first: "Credit bureaus and lenders use different formulas to calculate your score, but they don't share the exact details." It also notes the score you see may differ from the score a lender sees, because lenders weight information their own way. Scores generally run from 300 to 900.

The second reason is coverage. A lender that reports to one bureau and not the other leaves a hole in one file.

But treat all of that as the symptom. If you want to know why one number is lower, the question with a published answer attached is: what is still on that file that has already aged off the other one?

How long each bureau keeps the same event

This is the comparison nobody publishes, and both halves of it are public. Everything below is taken from Equifax Canada's consumer education page and TransUnion Canada's customer support FAQ, read September 2026.

Three rows are worth stopping on.

The inquiry row is the one that catches people. Three years versus six is not a rounding difference. An application you made four years ago is invisible to Equifax and still visible to TransUnion.

The consumer proposal row is the one that matters most to the people reading it. Both bureaus offer the same headline — three years after you satisfy the proposal, or six years, whichever comes first. But the six-year clock starts at different events: Equifax counts from the date you filed; TransUnion counts from the date you defaulted. If you struggled for a year before filing, those are two different dates and two different finish lines.

The closed-account row runs the other way. TransUnion keeps positive credit information for twenty years, and says the retention "benefits most consumers by recognizing their previous involvement with the credit granting industry." Equifax keeps a closed account paid as agreed for up to six. Good history you built a decade ago may exist on one file and not the other.

One caveat that belongs on the page: neither bureau's page carried a publication date when we read it in September 2026. An undated rule is worth re-checking before you rely on it.

What a three-year gap actually does to an application

Consider a hypothetical applicant who applied for three cards during one month four years ago. This is an illustration of the mechanism, not a prediction about anyone's outcome.

Today, those three inquiries are gone from their Equifax file — the three-year window closed a year ago. On their TransUnion file, all three are still visible and will be for another two years.

So a lender pulling Equifax sees an applicant with no recent credit-seeking. A lender pulling TransUnion sees someone who applied for three cards in a month. Nothing about the applicant changed. Neither bureau is wrong. They are running different clocks.

TransUnion adds a useful qualifier here: "In general, scores only consider inquiries from the last 12 months," and it excludes from scoring any inquiry where you requested your own report, where a lender verified your identity to offer you credit, or where an existing lender reviewed your account. So a visible inquiry and a scored inquiry are not the same thing — but a human underwriter reading the file sees everything that is visible.

Which bureau will a Canadian lender actually pull?

Most Canadian lenders do not publish it, and any page telling you confidently which bank uses which bureau is guessing. We are not going to guess either.

There is a reliable method, though, and it uses information you already have a right to see. The inquiry section of your own credit report lists every company that pulled it and when. Pull both reports, compare the inquiry lists, and you will have an evidence-based answer for the lenders you have actually applied to — which is more useful than a generic table.

Worth knowing while you do this: checking your own report is a soft inquiry. FCAC is explicit that soft inquiries "only appear on the version of your credit report that you can see" and "don't affect your credit score." You can check both as often as you like.

What is actually in an Equifax Canada file?

The same categories of information as any credit file: who you are, what credit you hold, how you have paid it, and who has asked about you.

FCAC lists what a Canadian credit report may contain: your credit cards, loans and lines of credit; NSF payments and bad cheques; bankruptcies and court decisions; debts sent to collections; inquiries from lenders; registered items such as a lien; and notes like consumer statements and fraud alerts.

Equifax's own retention page is the more specific document, and it is the source for the Equifax column above. The headline it leads with: most negative information stays about six years, closed accounts paid as agreed stay up to six years from closure, and hard inquiries stay three.

What is actually in a TransUnion Canada file?

The same kinds of records, under a calendar that varies by province in a way Equifax's published page does not.

TransUnion publishes province-by-province retention for bankruptcies and judgments. Bankruptcies run six years from discharge in BC, Yukon, NWT, Nunavut, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick — and seven in Ontario, Quebec, PEI and Newfoundland. Judgments run six years in that first group, seven in Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland, and ten in PEI. It attributes the variation to provincial credit reporting legislation.

Equifax's equivalent page states flat national periods and no provincial breakdown. If you live in PEI, Ontario, Quebec or Newfoundland, that difference is not academic.

When an error is on one report and not the other

Disputes are per-bureau. Correcting your Equifax file does nothing to your TransUnion file.

Because the two bureaus build their files from separate feeds, an error frequently appears on one and not the other. A lender that reports to only one bureau can only create an error at that one.

The practical consequence is that you have to check both and, if something is wrong on both, file twice. Each bureau runs its own dispute process through its own contact channels. We are not quoting turnaround times here because neither bureau publishes one we could verify.

TransUnion also makes a point worth repeating for anyone about to dispute: fixing one negative item may not move your score if others remain, or if new balances and inquiries landed in the meantime.

Which one should you check?

We are not going to name a better bureau. There isn't one — they hold different data under different rules. Use a decision rule instead:

• If you know which bureau your lender pulls — because you checked your own inquiry list — check that one.
• Before a large application, a mortgage or a car loan, check both. You cannot control which one the lender uses.
• If you are waiting for something to age off, check the one with the longer clock. For an inquiry or a closed account that is TransUnion; for a bankruptcy discharge it depends on your province.
• If the two scores differ and you want to know why, compare the files rather than the numbers. Look for entries present on one and absent from the other.

Both reports are available to you free. Our guide to building credit in Canada covers what to do once you have read them, and credit utilization explains which balance figure each bureau actually receives.

Retention periods are quoted from Equifax Canada's "How Long Does Information Stay on Your Credit Report?" education page and TransUnion Canada's customer support FAQ, both read September 2026. Neither page carried a publication date. General statements about Canadian credit reporting are from the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada at canada.ca. We have no commercial relationship with either credit bureau, we do not sell credit reports or scores, and this page carries no affiliate links.

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