Your FHA Loan Gets Two New Credit Scores on January 1. Running All Three Can Only Hurt You.

Update, October 10, 2026: FHA wrote the scoring math down. Mortgagee Letter 2026-11, issued October 8, says that if a lender submits more than one model, your score is the lowest one, and on a joint loan the lowest borrower sets it for everyone. We’ve added the math, two FAQs and this week’s rates.

If you’re buying with an FHA loan next year, the number that decides your down payment is about to change.

From January 1, 2027, FHA will accept two more credit scoring models: VantageScore 4.0 and FICO Score 10T. Classic FICO stays on the menu. VantageScore 4.0 counts on-time rent when a reporting service feeds it to the bureaus. Classic FICO ignores rent completely.

If you rent and you pay on time, that is worth real money.

Here’s the catch, and it is a real one. If your lender submits more than one model, every model has to come back Accept.

FHA set the date on September 10 in FHA INFO 2026-21. It covers case numbers assigned on or after January 1, 2027, on Title II forward mortgages, the ordinary purchase and refinance program. FHA is running virtual office hours for lenders across two full weeks, November 16 to 20 and January 11 to 15. That tells you how ready the industry is.

Two things FHA deliberately left alone. It still wants a tri-merged credit report, all three bureaus. And it keeps the same minimum decision credit score thresholds of 500, 580 and 620.

The door moved. The doorframe did not.

Why this one matters more than the last one

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac already opened VantageScore 4.0 to every lender, and we wrote about what that does for renters trying to buy. FHA matters more. It’s where people go when the credit file is thin and the down payment is small.

FHA’s score bands are cliffs, not slopes. At 580 or above you get maximum financing, 96.5% of the value, so 3.5% down. Between 500 and 579 you are capped at 90%, so 10% down. On a $300,000 house that is $10,500 against $30,000.

Nineteen thousand five hundred dollars, decided by which side of one number you land on.

The part your loan officer may not have read yet

FHA’s September guidance says that when a lender submits multiple models to its TOTAL Scorecard, every one must get an Accept for the loan to get an Accept.

Translation: more models, more chances to hear no.

The score itself now works the same way, per Mortgagee Letter 2026-11. The lender picks a score from each model the usual way: the middle of three bureau scores, or the lower of two. Your score is then the lowest of those model scores. On a joint loan, the lowest borrower’s score is the loan’s score. And every borrower has to be run on the same models.

Here’s how that bites, with made-up numbers. Your Classic FICO middle score is 575. Your VantageScore 4.0, which can see two years of reported rent, comes back at 595. Submit VantageScore alone and you’re at 595: 3.5% down. Submit both and FHA uses 575: 10% down. Same file, $19,500 apart on a $300,000 house.

Nobody hands out a prize for pulling all three.

Do this now, if you’re buying in 2027

Get your rent into your credit file. VantageScore 4.0 only sees rent that a rental reporting service has passed to the bureaus, and signing a lease does nothing by itself. Start now, not in January.

Ask your loan officer one question before they pull your credit: which model are you submitting, and are you submitting more than one? If the answer is “all of them,” ask them to pick one.

Buying with a partner? Their file counts too. If their scores are the weak link, ask the lender to run it both ways, remembering that dropping a borrower also drops their income.

And if you’re closing this fall, you don’t need to do anything. Case numbers assigned in 2026 run on Classic FICO. This is a 2027 problem.

The fine print

Freddie Mac put the 30-year fixed average at 7.40% for the week of October 8, 2026, up from 7.28% the week before, and the 15-year at 6.73%. FHA says it will fold Mortgagee Letter 2026-11 into the next update of its Handbook 4000.1. Run your own numbers on the mortgage calculator, and start at our mortgages hub if you want the rest of this year’s rules.

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