Do Internet Providers Check Credit? How Often Credit and Deposits Stop an Order

Key findings

The people in this file called a sales line to shop for home internet. They are not every household in the country. A provider’s rule can also change after these calls. The research hub is the index for this site’s other studies.

How internet credit checks work

A provider may look at credit before it starts service, especially when the bill is paid after you use the month. The check is a way to decide whether to require a deposit, a prepayment, or a different product. This study does not record whether a given check was a soft inquiry or a hard inquiry. Those two kinds are different, and you should ask which one the provider runs.

A soft inquiry is a look that, by itself, is not meant to lower a credit score. A hard inquiry is the kind of application that can show on a credit report and can matter if you apply for several loans or services in a short time. The person on the phone should be able to say which one they will run, whether you can decline, and what happens to the order if you decline. Get that answer before you give a Social Security number.

“Qualification” in this file sits with the credit check. The agent recorded that the shopper did not pass the credit or qualification step. The row does not say which bureau was used, what score was required, or whether the provider offered a second product on the same call. One ending was recorded per call, even if the shopper also disliked the price or the speed.

A deposit or a prepayment is a separate ending. The shopper reached a point where money was due up front and could not cover it. The file does not say how large that amount was. Do not treat any number you remember from an ad as the amount you will be asked for. Ask for it on the call, and ask whether it is returned, applied to the bill, or kept as a fee.

How often credit or deposits end the order

Across both call logs, 13.6% of shopping conversations ended at the credit or qualification check. That is 25,451 conversations out of 187,021. Another 7.4% ended on a deposit or prepayment, which is 13,893 conversations. Orders placed on the call were 21.2% of the same conversations, or 39,701 orders.

The “about 99.1 per 100 orders” figure divides those two endings by the orders. Credit endings plus deposit endings, divided by orders, then multiplied by 100, is 99.1. It means the calls that died on credit or a deposit were almost as numerous as the calls that became an order. It does not mean 99 people out of 100 were denied. The base of the 13.6% and 7.4% shares is every shopping conversation, including people who were still deciding.

The two logs are not a before-and-after of the same shoppers. On the older log, the credit ending was a larger share of a much larger file. On the newer log, a larger share of the smaller file ended as an order, and the credit ending was smaller. Read the chart as two logs side by side. The methodology has the months and the sizes. Do not treat the gap as a national trend.

A blank count would mean fewer than 11 conversations. Every row in this table is large enough to show.

When credit was run on a second person

A separate order file notes whether credit was run on more than one person. The question was recorded on 7,664 orders, from May 2017 through May 2025. Credit was run on more than one person on 2.9% of those orders. The rest, where the question was recorded, were one person. This is not the same base as the shopping conversations above. It is only orders where the agent wrote down the answer.

Options if you have bad credit

Ask these questions before anyone runs a check. You can still shop if the answer is no. The point is to hear the rule while you can still stop.

1. Will you run a credit check, and is it a soft inquiry or a hard inquiry?
2. If the check does not pass, is there a prepaid plan or a plan with no deposit at this address?
3. If a deposit is required, what is the amount, and is it returned or applied to the bill?
4. Can a second adult who lives at the address and will be on the account be the applicant?
5. Does a satellite or fixed-wireless offer at this address use a different rule than the wired offer?

Prepaid changes when you pay. It does not, by itself, prove the address can get service. Prepaid internet eligibility shows what to ask about renewal, refunds, and the gateway, using a published product as the example. Lower-cost internet options covers ways to shrink the monthly bill after you know the address qualifies.

A co-applicant is the pattern behind the 2.9% figure, not a trick. The second person should be someone who will use the service and can accept the bill. Putting a friend on an account they will not live with creates a bill they may not see. If the provider will not allow a second adult, ask about prepaid instead of repeating the same check.

Satellite and fixed wireless sometimes use different approval rules than a wired contract at the same house. They also come with their own limits. Who buys satellite internet shows that most Viasat plans in our orders were 25 Mbps or slower. Read that before you take a dish only because the credit step looks easier. The full cost of home internet is the list of fees to put next to any deposit.

If you already have service and the call you meant to make was about a bill or an outage, do not start a new application. Use the provider’s own support path. Why customers call the wrong number for help is the companion study. The phone number on this page is for shopping for new service.

Methodology

our call center agents help people compare and order home internet. This study counts shopping conversations that ended at a credit or qualification check, or because the caller could not cover a deposit or a prepayment. A conversation is a call with at least 60 seconds on the phone. Test calls, machines, robocalls, wrong numbers, and dead air are removed. One call is one row.

The shopping base is 187,021 conversations, from January 2018 through April 2025. The older log and the newer log are separate phone systems with different totals. Their months are in the same window as the support-call study, and they should not be read as one continuous sample. The newer log is much smaller. A lower credit share there is not, by itself, evidence that providers loosened their rules.

Shares are the count in a category divided by the log’s shopping conversations, to one decimal. The 99.1 figure is credit endings plus deposit endings, divided by orders, times 100. The second-person share uses a different file: orders where the agent recorded the question, 7,664 orders, from May 2017 through May 2025.

Personal details were stripped before the totals were made. Names, phone numbers, emails, street addresses, account numbers, and agent identities are not in the published file. No recording was used. A single shopper cannot be reconstructed.

Counts of 1 to 10 are blank. Rates need 30 or more records. A second cell is blanked when showing it would give the hidden cell away. We do not publish these rates for a city. Callers found the line through ads and provider programs, so the mix of states follows the advertising, not the map of the United States.

Agents picked one ending per call. A call could have had a price objection and a credit problem, and only one of them is in the row. Credit rules differ by provider and change over time. Human error in the recorded ending is possible. Non-internet products, such as electricity or gas, are excluded.

InternetService.ai may earn compensation when a reader orders through a link or the phone number here. That payment does not change a share on this page.

The CSV files may be reused with credit to this page under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Read the license.

Download the tables

• Credit and deposit outcomes (CSV)
• Credit run on more than one person (CSV)

Send a correction through the footer. See the editorial methodology for how we date a change.