Equifax opt out & limit how your data is used

Equifax lets you opt out of the sale and sharing of your data. The opt-out is free, takes four steps, and Equifax allows up to 15 days to process your request.

But—

This is not the opt-out most people think they are looking for.

It does not delete your credit file. It does not change your credit score. It does not stop a lender, an insurer, or a landlord reading your credit report.

Nothing in this guide affects any of that, because no opt-out can.

What you can stop are three separate uses of your data, and each one has its own form: the sale and sharing of your personal information, prescreened credit and insurance offers, and marketing emails.

This guide covers all three, starting with why the credit file itself cannot be removed.

Federico Morelli

Opt-out process:
About five minutes

Removal time:
Within 15 days

Requirements:
Your name and address

Cost:
free

This guide is part of Incogni’s free educational resources.

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How to opt out of Equifax step by step

Why you cannot opt out of a credit bureau

Most opt-out guides follow one shape: a site publishes your details, you send a removal request, the listing disappears. Equifax does not work that way, and the reason is legal rather than technical.

A people search site holds public records it bought or collected. No law tells it to keep them, so a removal request works.

Equifax is a credit bureau.

Banks, card issuers, and lenders send it a record of how you handle money—what you borrowed, whether you paid on time—and Equifax sells that record to companies deciding whether to lend to you.

A federal law called the Fair Credit Reporting Act, or FCRA, sets the rules for all of it. The file is there because that law says it can be.

What the law actually gives you

The FCRA gives you several rights over your credit file. Deleting it is not one of them.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau publishes a plain summary of those rights.

It says a credit bureau has to correct or delete information that is wrong, incomplete, or unproven, usually within 30 days. It also says the bureau can keep reporting anything it has checked and found to be correct.

While you can’t remove your profile, like you would with a standard people search site, you can have wrong information removed—but that’s about it.

Why state privacy laws do not help here

Some states have privacy laws that let you order a company to delete your data. Those are the laws that make people search sites remove you.

But they were written with a gap in them, and credit data sits in that gap.

Equifax says as much in its privacy statement.

It does not delete credit data, banking data, or anything it keeps in order to catch fraud. Two laws put that data out of reach: the FCRA, and a banking privacy law known as Gramm-Leach-Bliley.

How to stop Equifax selling and sharing your data step by step

Before you start: This form covers the sale and sharing of your personal information for marketing purposes. It does not stop prescreened credit offers, which run through a separate industry website, and it does not change your credit report. Both are covered further down this page.

The form runs across three screens: choose the right you want to use, say who you are, then submit. There is no account and no password.

Step 1. Open Your Privacy Choices

Go to myprivacy.equifax.com.
If you would rather start from the main site, scroll to the bottom of any equifax.com page and click “your privacy choices” in the footer bar. Both routes reach the same form.

Step 2. Enter your name and address

Fill in your first name, last name, street address, city, state, and zip code.
These details are how Equifax locates your records, so use the address it is most likely to hold for you. If you have moved recently, the previous address is often the better match.

Step 3. Find your record and request its removal

Below the address, Equifax asks for your date of birth, Social Security number or ITIN, email, and mobile number. The page states that none of them are required, but that they make it easier to locate your information and complete the request.
Then tick the acknowledgement box and click “go to next step”.

Step 4. Choose the right you want to use

The form opens with three options and allows only one per request.
“Right to limit use” restricts how Equifax uses sensitive information such as your Social Security number and precise location.
“Right to opt-out” asks Equifax to stop sharing and selling your personal information to third parties. This is the one most people are looking for.
“Right to opt-in” reverses an earlier opt-out.
Select “right to opt-out” and click “continue”. If you want the limit on sensitive data as well, you have to send the form twice—the confirmation screen at the end has a button for that.

Step 5. Check the confirmation

The confirmation screen states that the request has been received and will be processed within 15 days.
There is no reference number anywhere on it, so take a screenshot if you want a dated record of the request.
Use “submit another request” if you also want the limit on sensitive personal information, or “return to privacy preference center” if you are finished.

How to stop prescreened credit and insurance offers

This is a different system on a different website.

Credit bureaus are allowed to put your name on lists that lenders and insurers buy, then use to mail you preapproved offers.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) permits that, and the same law gives you the right to stop it.

The request goes through optoutprescreen.com, the official industry site run jointly by Equifax, Experian, Innovis, and TransUnion.

One request covers all four. The Federal Trade Commission says you will be asked for your name, address, Social Security number, and date of birth.

How to stop marketing emails and affiliate sharing

Two smaller controls, both separate from the forms above.

Marketing emails

Click “unsubscribe” at the bottom of any Equifax marketing email.

If you have an Equifax account, you can also manage this at my.equifax.com under “my account”. Equifax notes that customers still receive administrative emails about their account either way.

Affiliate sharing

This one is separate from selling your data.

You can ask Equifax to stop passing your details to other companies in its group for marketing, and to stop passing them to outside companies for marketing.

You can also ask it to stop sharing information about how you handle credit with the rest of its group for everyday business.

Equifax lists a dedicated line for this: 1-866-807-7461, open 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. Eastern, seven days a week.

Alternative opt-out methods

By phone

Call Equifax Customer Care on 1-866-295-6801 for opt-out, limit-use, and other privacy requests.

Lines are open 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Eastern Monday to Friday, and 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Eastern on Saturday and Sunday.

By mail

Authorized agent paperwork goes to Equifax Information Services LLC, P.O. Box 740041, Atlanta, GA 30348.

Through California’s state platform

If you live in California, one request can reach every data broker registered with the state at once. It goes through the state’s DROP platform at privacy.ca.gov/drop. Equifax says it checks that platform at least every 45 days.

What to expect after opting out

How long it takes

The confirmation screen gives 15 days. Equifax’s published numbers suggest it is usually far quicker: for 2025 it reports 1,647,164 opt-out requests from California residents, all of them granted, with a median completion time of one day.

What actually changes

Equifax stops selling and sharing your personal information with other companies for marketing. If you also used the prescreen opt-out, your credit file stops being used to build those preapproved offer lists.

What does not change

Your credit report, your credit score, and the data Equifax holds as a credit bureau all stay as they are, for the reasons set out earlier. Lenders, insurers, and employers with a legal reason to read your file can still do so.

When you have to do it again

The prescreen opt-out is the one with an expiry date. Five years after an online or phone request, your name can go back on those offer lists unless you mailed the signed permanent form. Set a reminder, or send the form.

Troubleshooting

Optoutprescreen.com will not load

The site is restricted to connections inside the United States and its territories, so a location error usually means a VPN or an overseas connection. Disconnect the VPN, or call 1-888-5-OPT-OUT instead.

You are still getting prescreened offers

The Federal Trade Commission says requests are processed within five days, but that it can take several weeks before the offers stop, because some companies already had your details. Offers that were never based on prescreening will not stop at all, since they never used your credit file.

You cannot tell which opt-outs you have already sent

The three systems do not share records, and each gives its own confirmation. The myPrivacy form ends on a confirmation screen, optoutprescreen.com issues a confirmation number, and marketing emails simply stop. If you are unsure, sending a request again does no harm.

You want to receive offers again

Both main opt-outs reverse. Use “right to opt-in” on the myPrivacy form, and the opt-in option at optoutprescreen.com or on 1-888-5-OPT-OUT.

Other brokers that may have your data

Equifax is a credit bureau, so the rules here are different from every other opt-out. A credit file is not something you can delete, and no service can delete it for you.

The marketing side is another matter.

The name, address, and phone number you just asked Equifax to stop selling also sit with hundreds of companies that are not credit bureaus and have no legal reason to keep them.

People search sites and marketing data brokers buy the same public records, publish them, and refresh them on their own schedule. Each one runs a separate opt-out.

Incogni covers that side of the problem.

It sends removal requests to 420+ data brokers and repeats them every 60–90 days. It cannot reach your credit file, because nothing can.

FAQ

Does opting out of Equifax affect your credit score?

No. Your score is worked out from what sits in your credit file, and none of these opt-outs change that file. The prescreen opt-out only stops your file being used to build mailing lists. You can still apply for credit exactly as before.

Can you delete your Equifax credit file?

No. Equifax says in its privacy statement that it does not delete credit data, banking data, or anything it keeps in order to catch fraud. Two federal laws sit behind that: the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and a banking privacy law called Gramm-Leach-Bliley. Having a credit file is not a choice you get to make, which is why these controls change how your data is used instead of removing it.

Is 1-888-5-OPT-OUT a real phone number?

Yes. The Federal Trade Commission lists 1-888-5-OPT-OUT (1-888-567-8688) as the official line, and optoutprescreen.com confirms that both the site and the number are operated jointly by the four credit bureaus. One call covers all of them.

What is the Equifax scandal?

There is more than one. The most recent came in January 2025, when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered Equifax to pay a $15 million penalty. It found that Equifax had not checked complaints about errors properly, had let mistakes it already removed reappear on people’s reports, and had run faulty code that gave some people the wrong credit score. Equifax settled and confirmed it in its annual report.