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Consumers Who Applied for Credit and Got None
CFPB credit tightness index for credit cards and auto loans, seasonally adjusted
Plays the chart through its history. Pauses are where the data set a record or moved most.
Continuation isn't available for Credit cards: Last observation was 176 days ago — too stale to project.
Continuation isn't available for Auto loans: Last observation was 176 days ago — too stale to project.
CFPB Consumer Credit Trends, from a nationally representative sample of credit records at one nationwide credit bureau. Published several months after the month it covers. The index counts consumers with a credit inquiry who opened no new account afterwards.
Credit denials as consumers live them: people who sought a card or a car loan and came away without one.
What this chart reads
- Credit Card Credit Tightness Index (CFPB)as “Credit cards”latest 2026-05-01
- Auto Loan Credit Tightness Index (CFPB)as “Auto loans”latest 2026-05-01
Sources
Credit Card Credit Tightness Index (CFPB). Source: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Consumer Credit Trends (consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-credit-trends), the all-data CSV (series "Credit Tightness Index", subgroup "all", loan type CRC, seasonally adjusted). The CFPB builds it from a nationally representative sample of de-identified credit records from one of the three nationwide consumer reporting agencies. The CCT page: "The data and analyses presented herein are the sole product of the CFPB"; the CFPB's legal notice: "Information created by the CFPB is in the public domain and you may reproduce, publish, or otherwise use it without the Bureau's permission." Source: CFPB, Consumer Credit Trends. Refreshed weekly, which re-reads the full CSV.
Auto Loan Credit Tightness Index (CFPB). Source: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Consumer Credit Trends (consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-credit-trends), the all-data CSV (series "Credit Tightness Index", subgroup "all", loan type AUT, seasonally adjusted). The CFPB builds it from a nationally representative sample of de-identified credit records from one of the three nationwide consumer reporting agencies. The CCT page: "The data and analyses presented herein are the sole product of the CFPB"; the CFPB's legal notice: "Information created by the CFPB is in the public domain and you may reproduce, publish, or otherwise use it without the Bureau's permission." Source: CFPB, Consumer Credit Trends. Refreshed weekly, which re-reads the full CSV.
Charts are drawn from Palanor's signal library and recomputed from source data on every view. Transformations (changes, indexing, year-on-year rates) are Palanor's.