How to Freeze Your Credit in 15 Minutes (and Why Every Retiree Should)
A credit freeze is one of the greatest tools you have to keep identity thieves away from your finances.
While a credit freeze can make sense for people at any stage in life, retirees may especially benefit since scammers often target older adults. In 2025, people aged 60 and older reported $48.5 million in losses from identity theft, according to the most recent internet crime report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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What is a credit freeze?
A credit freeze restricts access to your credit report so that bad actors can’t take out loans or credit in your name. It’s a deterrent to prevent scammers from borrowing money under your account, should they manage to get access via a data breach or a similar event.
Freezing your credit is a preventative measure. That means it won’t stop fraud that’s already taken place on existing credit cards or bank accounts, but it can help protect you from future fraud.
You’ll need to temporarily remove your freeze (or “thaw” your credit) when you need lenders to be able to access your credit, like if you’re applying for a new credit card or renting an apartment. Once you are done, you can then freeze your credit again, essentially setting up a layer of defense against cybercriminals.
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How to freeze your credit in 15 minutes
You can freeze your credit quickly and for free. The process is fairly simple, but you will need some personal information handy, including the following:
- Social Security number
- Date of birth
- Address history
- Email address
- Phone number
- Identify-verification information (i.e., driver’s license)
Once you have this information, you can contact the three major credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — to freeze your credit report. You must contact all three credit bureaus separately, and that may include creating separate online accounts for each of them.
Freezing your credit online is generally the fastest route, but you can also mail your request to their headquarters or contact a representative on the phone. You can visit the official pages of Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion to request a credit freeze.
What happens after you freeze your credit
Freezing your credit will not affect your credit score or interrupt your current credit card usage. You can still pay bills and purchase items with your existing cards.
This measure will make it harder, but not impossible, for identity thieves to steal your information. These criminals have multiple ways to obtain information, but freezing your credit can limit the financial damage of their activities. In addition to freezing your credit, you may want to set up fraud alerts. These alerts let you know if suspicious activity is taking place on your accounts so you can address the issue immediately.
People spend many years building up their nest eggs, and a credit freeze is an important step in helping to preserve the portfolio that you have built. A credit freeze won’t make you immune to every scam, but it can shield you from some of the worst-case scenarios.