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Credit score
India has four RBI-registered credit bureaus. They are not competing opinions on your creditworthiness — they are separate warehouses, all scoring 300–900, and your lender decides which one it reads.
| TransUnion CIBIL | Experian | Equifax | CRIF High Mark | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RBI registration | 5 March 2012 | 17 February 2010 | 26 March 2010 | 25 November 2010 |
| Legal entity | TransUnion CIBIL Limited | Experian Credit Information Company of India Private Limited | Equifax Credit Information Services Private Limited | CRIF Credit Information Services Private Limited (formerly CRIF High Mark Credit Information Services Private Limited) |
| Score range | 300–900 | 300–900 | 300–900 | 300–900 |
| Why you'd see it | India's oldest bureau brand, and the one most lenders name first. | A full-service bureau that publishes a six-input factor list and a three-level grievance ladder. | The bureau with the longest-standing Indian registration, and a formal free-report request route. | The most explicit bureau about dispute mechanics — and about your route to the Ombudsman. |
| Free report (one per year) | Free annual report + score | Free annual report + score | Free annual report + score | Free annual report + score |
| Published escalation ladder | First-level support only | 3 levels published | First-level support only | 3 levels published |
| Bureau page | TransUnion CIBIL page → | Experian page → | Equifax page → | CRIF High Mark page → |
Registration data is from RBI's register of certificate-holding CICs; everything else is each bureau's own published material. No bureau is ranked, and no score comparison is offered.
The hub is organised by what you are trying to do.
What a credit score is — the report behind it and the 300–900 scale.
How the one-free-full-report-per-bureau-per-year entitlement works.
The dispute process, the 30-day rule and the ₹100-per-day compensation.
Enquiries, the RBI-mandated alerts, and unauthorised checks.
The fraud playbook: lender, bureau, and the government channels.
What bureau guidance supports, and realistic timelines.
The questions the comparison always raises.
All four, once each during the calendar year — you cannot know which bureau a given lender will pull, and each bureau holds data reported to it on its own cycle, so the reports can differ. The free report is an entitlement at every one of them.
Because they hold different data snapshots. Lenders report to each bureau on its own schedule, and bureaus update on their own schedules too, so a loan closed this month can still be open at one bureau and closed at another.
Lenders choose by product and internal policy, and many pull more than one. CIBIL is the name most borrowers meet first, but a rejection can come from any bureau's data, so check them all rather than treating one as canonical.
Yes — the RBI rule applies to every registered bureau: one free full credit report including the credit score, once in each calendar year (January–December), electronically on request and after authentication, with the link prominent on the bureau's own home page.
Reviewed 23 Sept 2026. Rules change — the RBI directions and each bureau's own pages are the authority, and this hub links straight to them.