Typically, a pre-qualification results in a soft credit inquiry and won't impact your credit score, while a pre-approval results in a hard credit inquiry and may impact your credit score. CarMax's pre-qualification process uses a soft credit inquiry, so you can get pre-qualified with no impact to your credit and shop with your personalized finance terms. Once you're ready to buy, you'll have to submit a credit application to get final offer terms. That application will result in a hard inquiry, which may impact your credit score.

Generally, your credit score indicates your current financial status and your financial history. Financial institutions use it to assess the risk of financed purchases like homes, credit card purchases, and cars. Typically, credit scores have a range between 300 and 850. Depending on your score, you may fall into one of the following tiers:




Credit Score Needed To Buy A Car At Carmax