What Credit Score Do You Need to Buy a House in 2026?

What credit score do you actually need for each loan type?

The honest answer starts with the program floors, the lowest scores each loan program allows before any lender adds its own rules. These floors come from the agencies themselves, so they are the firmest numbers in this whole conversation. Everything a lender does on top of them raises the bar, never lowers it. Here is where each major loan type draws its line in 2026.

• FHA: a 580 score with 3.5 percent down, or 500 to 579 with 10 percent down, per the HUD handbook. Below 500 is ineligible.
• Conventional, backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: generally a 620 minimum, sometimes 640 for certain manual or adjustable-rate cases.
• VA loans: no minimum score set by the VA, though lenders typically look for something in the reported 580 to 620 range.
• USDA loans: no set minimum, but 640 is the cutoff for automated approval through the USDA system, and below that needs manual review.

Is it true you need a 620 for an FHA loan?

No, and this is one of the most common myths I have to correct. FHA's own floor is a 580 score with 3.5 percent down, and 500 to 579 with a larger 10 percent down payment. The 620 number people attach to FHA usually comes from lender overlays, or from conventional loans, which do generally start near 620. Confusing the two can talk someone out of buying a home they actually qualify for, so it is worth getting right.

What is a lender overlay and why does it raise the bar?

A lender overlay is an extra requirement a bank or mortgage company adds on top of the program floor to lower its own risk. FHA may allow a 580, but a given lender is reported to commonly want 620 or higher before it will approve you, and those overlay numbers vary from one company to the next. This is why two people with the same score can hear yes from one lender and no from another. If a low score gets you turned down, ask whether you missed a program floor or just one lender's overlay, because another lender may draw the line lower.

What are the new mortgage credit scores in 2026?

For the first time in decades, the mortgage world is changing which scores it uses, though slower than the headlines suggest. In April 2026 the Federal Housing Finance Agency confirmed that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA are moving toward VantageScore 4.0 and FICO Score 10T. VantageScore 4.0 is live, but only through a limited and expanding set of approved lenders, so you cannot assume any given lender offers it. FICO 10T has been approved but is not yet in live production, with no firm start date announced, so despite the headlines it is not scoring mortgage applicants today.

Which score will a lender pull on you today?

For most applicants in the middle of 2026, it is still Classic FICO, the same trio of older FICO models the mortgage industry has leaned on for years. Lenders pull one from each bureau, FICO 2 from Experian, FICO 4 from TransUnion, and FICO 5 from Equifax, and they qualify you on the middle of the three scores. The requirement to pull all three bureaus, called a tri-merge, is staying in place after a planned move to a two-bureau report was shelved in 2025. So the practical reality is that most people buying a home right now are still judged by Classic FICO across all three reports.

How does trended data change what helps your score?

The new models read your history differently, and that rewards a habit the old scores could not see. Both VantageScore 4.0 and FICO 10T use about 24 months of trended data, meaning they look at whether your balances are climbing, flat, or shrinking over time instead of a single snapshot. Paying a balance down month after month scores better under these models than carrying the same balance flat, even at the identical utilization. That is a real reason to start knocking balances down well before you apply, because when these models reach your lender, the direction your balances have been heading will matter.

Here is what I tell people before they house-hunt. Pull all three of your reports free at AnnualCreditReport.com, because the middle score across those bureaus is what a lender is most likely to use, and one report dragging behind can cost you a whole score band. Dispute anything inaccurate, outdated, or unverifiable before you apply, since a single wrongly reported late payment or collection can be the gap between a 580 and a 620. Cleaning up that paperwork across three bureaus is the work a done-for-you service like mine handles, and no honest person can promise you a specific score by a specific date. Every one of those disputes is also free to send yourself.