A 19-year-old sits down to apply for her first student loan and discovers $14,000 in collections she never opened. A father, acting on a hunch, requests a credit check on his 8-year-old and finds a wireless account registered in another state. These are composites drawn from the types of complaints the Federal Trade Commission has tracked for more than a decade, and they share a common thread: someone obtained a child’s Social Security number and exploited it years before the child had any reason to check.
Since September 2018, parents have had a free, federally guaranteed way to prevent this. A credit freeze placed at each of the three nationwide bureaus blocks most creditors from pulling a child’s record, which stops the majority of fraudulent new-account applications before they start. The freeze costs nothing to place, nothing to lift, and works even if the child has never had a credit file. As of June 2026, the process remains entirely free under federal law.
Why children are targets
A minor’s Social Security number is valuable precisely because it is unused. An adult’s SSN is already tied to credit cards, mortgages, and employment records, so misuse tends to trigger alerts quickly. A child’s number has no history attached to it. A thief can pair it with any name and date of birth to build what fraud investigators call a “synthetic identity,” one that may pass automated credit checks for years without raising a flag.
The FTC’s 2011 “Stolen Futures” forum gathered expert testimony showing that children’s stolen SSNs were being used to open utility accounts, secure employment, and even obtain mortgages. Research cataloged by the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs has documented cases in which victims as young as infants suffered long-term credit damage.
Those findings predate the current free-freeze law, and no federal agency has published updated incidence data showing whether child identity theft rates have changed since 2018. But the underlying vulnerability has not changed: if no one is monitoring a child’s credit, misuse can go undetected for a decade or more. The massive 2017 Equifax breach, which exposed the personal data of roughly 147 million people, underscored the risk. Millions of those records included Social Security numbers belonging to minors who had no way of knowing they were affected.
What the law actually provides
The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, signed on May 24, 2018, made security freezes free for every consumer at Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. The free-freeze provisions took effect on September 21, 2018. The law also replaced the old 90-day fraud alerts with yearlong alerts at no cost.
For children under 16, the law created a specific mechanism. As the FTC explains in its guidance for parents, a parent or legal guardian can request the creation of a “protected consumer record” at each bureau. This record exists solely to be frozen. No credit file needs to exist beforehand. Once the record is created and frozen, most creditors cannot access it, which means most fraudulent applications will be denied.
Teens aged 16 and 17 can place their own freezes using the standard adult process, either online or by phone, at each bureau. In practice, some bureaus may still ask for parental verification, so it helps to have a parent available during the process.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau confirms these protections in its own guidance on security freezes, noting that placing and lifting a freeze is free under federal law and that the freeze blocks most new creditor inquiries.
How to freeze your child’s credit, step by step
The process requires contacting each of the three bureaus separately. There is no single form or portal that covers all three at once. Here is what to expect as of June 2026:
1. Gather your documents. Each bureau will ask for some combination of the following: the child’s birth certificate, the child’s Social Security card or number, the parent’s or guardian’s government-issued ID, proof of the parent’s address (a utility bill or bank statement typically works), and proof of guardianship if applicable (court order, foster care documentation, or power of attorney). Requirements vary slightly by bureau, so check each one’s instructions before submitting.
2. Contact each bureau individually.
- Equifax: Requests for minors under 16 are handled by mail. Equifax asks parents to send copies of the required documents to a dedicated address listed on its minor freeze page. Processing can take several weeks.
- Experian: Experian also requires a mailed request for children under 16. Parents can find the current mailing address and document checklist on Experian’s freeze center.
- TransUnion: TransUnion offers an online portal for some minor freeze requests but may require mailed documents depending on the situation. Its freeze page provides a specific form for protected consumer freezes.
3. Store your confirmation securely. Each bureau will issue a PIN or confirmation number when the freeze is placed. Keep these somewhere safe, such as a password manager or a locked file. You will need them to lift the freeze later, for example when your child turns 18 and applies for a first credit card, student loan, or apartment lease.
4. Check whether a file already exists. Before requesting a freeze, ask each bureau whether your child already has a credit file on record. If one exists and you did not create it, that is a red flag. The FTC recommends reporting the situation at IdentityTheft.gov and disputing any fraudulent accounts before placing the freeze.
The gaps parents should know about
A freeze at Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion covers the vast majority of traditional credit checks, but it does not cover everything.
The CFPB has flagged a detail most parents overlook: dozens of specialty consumer reporting companies also collect and sell personal data. These include firms that handle check-writing histories (such as ChexSystems), telecommunications accounts (such as the National Consumer Telecom & Utilities Exchange), rental screening, and medical debt. Some offer their own freeze or opt-out procedures, but compliance and response times vary. Parents who want the broadest protection can consult the CFPB’s list of consumer reporting companies and contact those most relevant to their child’s situation. For most families, though, freezing the big three is the critical first step.
One common question: does a freeze prevent you from adding your child as an authorized user on your own credit card? It does not. Authorized-user status is tied to the primary cardholder’s account and credit file, not the child’s, so a freeze on the child’s record will not interfere.
There is also no public data on how many parents have actually used this tool since 2018. Neither the FTC nor the CFPB tracks minor-freeze uptake in any publicly available dataset, and the bureaus do not voluntarily disclose those numbers. The legal right is clear. How widely it is being exercised remains unknown.
After the freeze: what still requires attention
Placing the freeze takes effort, especially since each bureau requires a separate mailed request for children under 16. But the real work comes later. Parents need to remember where they stored the PINs, and they need to lift the freeze in time when their child legitimately needs credit access. A forgotten PIN can delay a college student’s first credit card application or hold up a young adult’s apartment lease approval by days or weeks.
It is also worth understanding what a freeze does not do. If a child’s Social Security number was exposed in a data breach, the freeze prevents new credit accounts from being opened, but it does not stop misuse of the number for tax fraud, medical identity theft, or employment fraud. Those threats require separate vigilance: checking IRS records for unexpected filings, reviewing medical explanation-of-benefits statements for unfamiliar charges, and watching for mail from unfamiliar employers or government agencies.
None of that diminishes the value of the freeze itself. It remains one of the few concrete, no-cost steps a parent can take right now to reduce the risk of new-account fraud against a child. The legal authority is settled. The process is documented by two federal agencies. The cost is zero. The only real barrier is knowing the option exists and setting aside an afternoon to do it.
