Yes — either credit score can be used.

On July 8, 2025, FHFA Director Bill Pulte announced via a post on X (formerly Twitter):

Effective today, to increase competition in the Credit Score Ecosystem and consistent with President Trump’s landslide mandate to lower costs, Fannie and Freddie will ALLOW lenders to use Vantage 4.0 Score with no current requirement to build new infrastructure (stays Tri Merge).

This means lenders may use VantageScore 4.0 or FICO Classic, but each score must be submitted as part of a tri-merge report.

NOTE: FICO 10T, which was validated and approved for use by the Enterprises alongside VantageScore 4.0 in 2022, remains an approved credit score model and is planned for future use by the Enterprises. Until then, lenders may choose between Classic FICO or VantageScore 4.0 for loans sold to the Enterprises.

Tri-merge is required.

Regardless of the score selected, FHFA mandates that credit scores must be submitted on a tri-merge basis — not bi-merge. As Director Pulte’s post emphasized, his order “stays the Tri Merge.”

Several tri-merge data providers can deliver VantageScore 4.0 today, including:

• Xactus
• Factual Data

Fannie and Freddie are not ready right now but will be ready soon.

FHFA’s order ensures both GSEs are prepared to accept VantageScore 4.0 soon. The requirement for new infrastructure has been eliminated.

Additional mortgage entities that now accept VantageScore 4.0 for mortgage include:

• The Veterans Administration
• The Federal Home Loans Bank of San Francisco 
• The Federal Home Loans Bank of New York
• The Federal Home Loans Bank of Chicago
• The Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas

Yes — and significantly more predictive.

While both credit scores use the same 300-to-850-point range, VantageScore 4.0 has been empirically found to be superior to FICO classic. JP Morgan, Bank of America, Kroll (KBRA),

A ten-year historical data set of previously issued mortgages where both FICO classic and VantageScore 4.0 are appended also available from Fannie and Freddie.

VantageScore 4.0 makes significantly more data available about credit-score to odds ratios. You can find this data for over 10 years of loans via VantageScore RiskRatio tool, which transparently offers quarterly updates on score-to-odds ratio across products including mortgage originations.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and many others have conducted independent analysis on the published data on VantageScore 4.0 and the legacy models. They all found that VantageScore 4.0 was more predictive and particularly better at identifying those who would default on their mortgages at the lower score ranges (which is where most defaults occur).  The more accurate the model, the less risk of defaults.

Tri-merge reports with VantageScore 4.0 are available now through Xactus and Factual Data.

Director Pulte’s order instructs the industry to accept VantageScore 4.0–underwritten mortgages effective immediately.

While some systems may still be adapting, competition in these sectors ensures that vendors will move quickly or risk losing business. The directive has created clear market momentum, accelerating readiness across the ecosystem.

Pricing for VantageScore 4.0 is set competitively and independently by each of the three nationwide credit reporting companies , Experian, Equifax and Transunion. Contact them directly:

• Equifax
• Experian
• TransUnion

Yes, VantageScore 4.0 is one of the most widely used credit scores. Global management consulting firm Charles River Associates analyzed data from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion and found that:

• 9 of the top 10 banks and over 3,700 banks and fin-techs use VantageScore in one more credit product lines;
• Over 42 billion VantageScores were used in 2024 and over 500 million VantageScores were used for mortgages.

The most recent VantageScore usage data is available here in the market adoption report.

Additional information about VantageScore 4.0, including user guides, model performance assessments, and guidance for how to implement the model are available here.

A playbook for implementing VantageScore for mortgage originators is also available here.

Additionally, you can work with your credit reporting company customer representative to perform backtests and analyses on your own portfolios and credit policies.

Yes — extensively.

VantageScore 4.0 credit scores are widely used in the ABS market. In 2025, there have been over $11 billion in asset backed securities issued using VantageScore 4.0 to assess credit risk.

Issuers including Synchrony, Toyota Motor Credit, Exter and others are among the lenders that leverage VantageScore for their securitizations.

Lenders should begin — or continue — using VantageScore 4.0 immediately.

Mortgages scored with VantageScore 4.0 can be:

• Sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
• Held on balance sheets
• Processed through the Veterans Administration
• Financed via the Federal Home Loan Banks

FHFA’s directive ensures market-wide acceptance and unlocks access to a more modern, predictive, and inclusive credit scoring model.

VantageScore 4.0 uses machine learning techniques to develop algorithms for consumers with limited credit histories. These consumers are not scored with other conventional models, which require a consumer to have a minimum of six months of credit history on the credit file or an update to their credit file at least once in the most recent six months.

Strong Risk Management

VantageScore is at the cutting edge of predictive power thanks in part to its highly sophisticated model architecture and its innovative use of data. The VantageScore 4.0 model features the use of trended credit data and machine learning to drive predictive performance. VantageScore provides more precise decisioning enabling more mortgage application approvals while limiting defaults.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and many others have conducted independent analysis on the published data on VantageScore 4.0 and the legacy models. They all found that VantageScore 4.0 was more predictive and particularly better at identifying those who would default on their mortgages at the lower score ranges (which is where most defaults occur). The more accurate the model, the less risk of defaults.

More Potential Customers

VantageScore allows lenders to accurately assess approximately 33 million more consumers than with other commercially available models. More than 10 million of these newly scored consumers have scores of 620 and above, and thus are potentially eligible for mortgages.

Closing the Homeownership Gap

Home equity is the lifeblood for building wealth in the U.S. economy. With VantageScore, lenders can reach approximately 4.1 million more minority borrowers with credit scores above 620. By providing mortgage finance opportunities to these historically underserved but creditworthy borrowers, we can begin to address the widening homeownership gap in America.

More Consumer-Friendly

VantageScore has been proud to pioneer the use of rent, telecom, and utility data and the exclusion of paid collection accounts. These consumer-friendly features also help lenders by giving them a more complete and fair picture of their customers’ creditworthiness.

For more information, see VantageScore 4.0, and Key Benefits.

When reported to the three NCRAs, all VantageScore models including VantageScore 4.0 use rent and utility payment information in the calculation of a person’s credit score. By using this data, VantageScore is able to increase the amount of information used to assess a person’s creditworthiness and help more consumers access mainstream credit.

For more information, see our White Paper on advantage of adding rent and utility data.

VantageScore commissioned a study from global management consultant Charles River & Associates to confirm that VantageScore credit scores continue to be used across the entire lifecycle of consumer lending and across every relevant category.

The report indicated that in the 12-month period between January and December 2024, over 3,700 companies used 42 billion VantageScore credit scores. This is approximately an 55% increase in the number of scores as compared to a similar 2023 study.

More information from the latest VantageScore Market adoption study is available here.

For more information on capital markets, see the latest research study conducted by FTI here.

VantageScore has a number of tools that market participants will find helpful to understand the power and potential of VantageScore 4.0.

The first is Inclusion360, the groundbreaking, open access, and interactive analytics platform that uses comprehensive data sets to uncover previously underserved consumers by geographic market. Inclusion360 data helps consumer credit-industry stakeholders gain insight needed to reach creditworthy consumers in U.S. geographies that conventional credit scores would likely restrict.

RiskRatio is a tool that provides lenders and those in the capital markets the ability to view and refresh the relationship between credit scores and default rates (measured by delinquency of 90 days or more over 24 months period) at different points in time for originations, as well as for existing accounts.  By using the tool, stakeholders can see that consumers in the near prime 621-640 credit score band had a 55% decrease in default risk when comparing the sample population from March 2009 (stress period) to March 2020 over the 24 months performance window in each time period. This information provides stakeholders important insights to help manage their portfolio risk.

CreditGauge provides critical insights including the US Consumer average VantageScore® credit score, as well as key consumer credit metrics that underpin the VantageScore® credit scoring model such as delinquencies, balance-to-loan ratios, and new account openings. Consumer credit trends are provided at a national level as well as by generation, income levels and loan types (e.g., credit card, personal loans, auto loans and mortgages).

MarketGain is a leading-edge analysis that provides data and insights to Lenders and Fin-Techs regarding how their specific addressable market could increase with the implementation of VantageScore 4.0.

VantageScore 4.0 is routinely used as the primary credit score to help establish the risk of offerings to the capital markets. In 2024, $13.4 B in ABS offerings have used VantageScore 4.0. This is the largest amount of ABS offerings ever to go to market using VantageScore 4.0 to assess risk, and represents a 17% growth over offerings in 2023 ($11.5B).

For more information on capital markets, see the latest research study conducted by FTI here.

VantageScore 4.0 has been in production since 2017.

VantageScore 4.0 was developed using consumer behavior data from 15 million anonymized consumer credit files obtained from each credit bureau (45 million in total) and assessed to identify whether they ultimately defaulted within 24 months. Predictive data attributes were developed from the credit file, some by using machine learning, and were assessed for their power to assess the likelihood that a consumer may default. Only the most powerful, compliant attributes were used to segment the consumer base and combined to calculate a credit score that accurately ranks consumers by probability of default.

For more information, see VantageScore 4.0 Fact Sheet and User Guide.

As of January 2023, VantageScore will no longer use medical debt or medical collection information in the calculation of VantageScore 4.0 credit scores. As of July 2022, medical collections that are paid or are younger than one year were removed from the credit files. Furthermore, as of 2023 first quarter it is also expected that medical collections with an original amount of less than $500 will also be removed from the credit files. As a result of these reporting changes, 75% of medical collections on file at the NCRAs will be removed. Therefore, VantageScore performed thorough analysis around the impact on model predictive performance and consumer. Given minimal effects on predictive performance and benefits to borrowers, VantageScore decided to remove all medical collections from the VantageScore 4.0 calculations. This decision has been widely supported and the White House has signaled that it intends to remove medical debt from use in all federally granted loan products.

For more information, see our White Paper on medical debt and the changes to VantageScore.