Equifax and TransUnion in Canada do not hold the same file

People arrive at an application with a number they trust and are told a different one. Both numbers are usually correct, and the reason is structural rather than suspicious: Canada has two national credit bureaus, they hold separate files, and a lender pulls one of them.

Which one, and what is on it, is the difference between an application that behaves as expected and one that does not. If the number you have been watching is lower than you hoped, bad credit car loans covers what that actually changes.

Equifax and TransUnion: two companies, not one register

Equifax Canada and TransUnion Canada are competing private businesses. Neither is a government body, neither holds a master copy, and neither is obliged to know what the other has.

They are fed by creditors, and a creditor decides which bureaus it reports to. Some report to both. Some report to one. Some report to one on a different schedule than the other. Nothing forces alignment, so two files describing the same person diverge quietly and permanently.

What actually differs

Four things, in rough order of how often they cause a surprise.

Which accounts appear at all. A card reported only to TransUnion is invisible on the Equifax file. On a thin file this is enormous: the same person can have three accounts on one report and one on the other, which is close to the difference between a scoreable file and an unscoreable one.

When a balance was last updated. Creditors report on their own cycles. A balance you cleared last week may show as cleared on one file and outstanding on the other for another month.

How long something negative stays. The general rule at both is six years from the date of last activity, but the exceptions differ. A consumer proposal is a good example: Equifax Canada generally removes it three years after completion or six years after filing, whichever comes first, while TransUnion Canada generally runs three years from completion with some provincial variation.

The score itself. Different models, different inputs, different numbers. A gap of several dozen points between two files on the same day is ordinary and does not indicate that either is wrong.

Which one gets pulled

It depends on the lender, and the applicant has no say in it.

Some lenders pull Equifax by default, some TransUnion, some both on a marginal file. None of that is published, it changes, and it varies between the lenders any single dealer works with. So the honest answer to "which bureau matters" is: the one belonging to whichever program your file ends up in front of, which is decided after the application rather than before it.

Hence the practical argument for reading both. You cannot control which file gets pulled, so the only sensible posture is for both to be accurate. How to read either of them is in how to read your own credit report.

Two files means two disputes

Worth stating plainly, because it catches almost everyone.

Correcting an error at one bureau does nothing at the other. They do not forward disputes to each other, they do not share investigation outcomes, and a creditor that agrees to fix a record may only fix it where it reported. If a wrong account appears on both files, it is two separate pieces of work.

What this changes about applying

Very little you can act on, and one thing you can.

The thing you can act on: get both files, well before the application, and make both correct. A file that reads accurately is assessed accurately, and where the two disagree on something material, the disagreement itself is worth explaining in the application rather than leaving for an underwriter to discover.

Submitting an inquiry with Yes Auto does not trigger a hard credit pull on our end. However, once we match you with a dealer partner, that dealer or their lending institutions may perform a hard inquiry as part of the formal approval process.

The thing you cannot act on is which bureau gets read, and it matters less than it sounds. An underwriter is weighing income, stability, existing obligations and recency alongside whatever the report says. The list of what else is being read is on how it works.