Why expats in the US should freeze their credit report

Updated for 2026: This post was originally published in 2022. For the latest strategies and a comprehensive guide, see Building Credit in the US as an Expat: The Complete 2026 Guide.

This is one of those topics I did not think about at all until a colleague mentioned it in passing, and then I could not stop thinking about it. When we moved from Singapore to the US, there were a hundred things on my to-do list — setting up bank accounts, getting a driver's license, finding schools for Sophie, understanding health insurance. "Freezing my credit report" was not anywhere on that list. It should have been.

Here is the thing: as an expat, your credit history in the US is thin. Maybe you have had a credit card for a few months, maybe a year. You probably do not have decades of financial history that would make it obvious to a bank if someone fraudulently tried to open an account in your name. That makes us easy targets. And identity theft in the US is not some rare, dramatic thing — it is disturbingly common.

How common is identity theft?

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported more than 1.4 million identity theft cases in 2021 alone, and that only counts the ones that were actually reported. The real number is almost certainly higher.

Source: FTC Identity Theft Reports

As an expat with limited credit history, you are in a particularly vulnerable spot. Someone could open a credit card or take out a loan in your name, and you might not find out until it has already damaged your credit score — the same credit score you have been painstakingly building since you arrived. I have heard horror stories from other expats in my network, and it is enough to make you paranoid.

What is a credit freeze?

A credit freeze locks your credit report so that nobody — including you — can open new credit accounts. If someone tries to apply for a credit card using your identity, the lender checks your credit report, sees it is frozen, and denies the application. Simple and effective.

The best part? It is completely free. You do not need to sign up for any paid monitoring services. The freeze itself costs nothing.

How to freeze your credit report

It is actually much simpler than I expected. I set aside a weekend afternoon to do it and it took less time than making dinner:

1. Go to the website of each of the three credit bureaus: Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax.
2. Enter your personal information — name, address, Social Security number, date of birth.
3. Follow the instructions on each site to place the freeze.
4. Create a free account with each bureau (I recommend this so future interactions are easier).

Some bureaus may ask for additional verification like a copy of your driver's license or passport. But once the freeze is in place, you can relax knowing that your credit is locked down.

I have to admit, the whole process felt a little anticlimactic — I expected it to be more complicated. But I am glad it was not :)

What if you need to apply for credit?

Good question — this is the part that worried me at first. If you need to apply for a new credit card (I wrote about how to do that without hurting your score), personal loan, or anything that requires a credit check, you can temporarily "thaw" your freeze. You log into each credit bureau's website, lift the freeze for a specific period (some let you do a few hours, others a few days), and then it automatically re-freezes.

It is a minor inconvenience, but honestly, how often do you apply for new credit? For me, maybe a few times a year at most. The two minutes it takes to thaw is absolutely worth the peace of mind the rest of the time.

Why I think every expat should do this

Let me list out why this is a no-brainer from my perspective:

1. Protects your identity. The most obvious benefit — nobody can open accounts in your name.
2. Prevents credit fraud. Even if someone gets your personal information (through a data breach, for example), they cannot use it to get credit.
3. Stops junk mail. This was an unexpected bonus. After freezing, I noticed a significant drop in unsolicited credit card offers clogging up my mailbox.
4. Peace of mind. As someone who spent months carefully building a US credit score from zero, the idea of someone destroying it through fraud was genuinely stressful. The freeze eliminated that anxiety.
5. It is free and takes 15 minutes. There is really no reason not to do it.

The bottom line

If you are an expat in the US and you have not frozen your credit reports yet, I would strongly recommend doing it. It is free, it is fast, and it protects the credit history you have been working hard to build. The US has a lot of wonderful things about it, but identity theft protection is one area where you need to take matters into your own hands.

Have you frozen your credit? Or have you (hopefully not) dealt with identity theft in the US? I would love to hear your experience.

Cheers,

Chandler

P.S. I recently created a group on Facebook called Asian Expats in the US so that we can share and discuss more tips directly. Feel free to join.