The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) will accept VantageScore 4.0 and FICO Score 10T on FHA-insured mortgages for case numbers assigned on or after January 1, 2027. FHA set that date in FHA INFO 2026-21 on September 10, 2026, alongside a preparedness guide for mortgagees. Classic FICO stays eligible, the TOTAL scorecard update covers Title II forward mortgages only, and FHA still requires a tri-merge credit report.
How the announcement arrived
| Date | Document | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| April 22, 2026 | HUD news release no. 26-026 | Secretary Scott Turner and Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director William J. Pulte announced jointly that FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would move to the two models |
| May 21, 2026 | FHA INFO 2026-11 | FHA confirmed its intention to enable the two models alongside Classic FICO, and said implementation dates would follow later in the year |
| September 10, 2026 | FHA INFO 2026-21 | FHA named January 1, 2027 as the implementation date and published the preparedness guide |
FHA INFO 2026-11 said implementation dates and additional guidance would be announced later that year, and that mortgagees should keep using the existing credit report policy in Handbook 4000.1 until the new guidance is published. FHA INFO 2026-21 repeated the same instruction: the preparedness guide “does not change existing FHA policy.”
What happens on January 1, 2027
FHA’s Technology Open To Approved Lenders (TOTAL) Scorecard, the automated underwriting scorecard an approved lender runs an FHA file through, will be updated for case numbers assigned on or after January 1, 2027, for Title II forward mortgages only. The updated version allows the alternative score models into TOTAL decisions. The case number assignment date is the trigger, so a file with a case number assigned on December 31, 2026 sits under the old scorecard whatever else happens to it afterwards.
FHA published two supporting documents with the September 10 message: the FHA Alternative Credit Scores Preparedness Guide, and TOTAL Developer’s Guide Release 5.0 for automated underwriting system vendors. It also scheduled virtual office hours for mortgagees, daily from 2:30 pm to 3:30 pm Eastern on November 16 to 20, 2026 and again on January 11 to 15, 2027.
The tri-merge report requirement is untouched
FHA INFO 2026-11 states that FHA “will continue to require the use of a tri-merge credit report” across all acceptable scoring models. A different score model on the file does not reduce the number of repositories the file pulls from.
That matches what the handbook already requires. Under the credit report requirements for a TOTAL submission, FHA Handbook 4000.1, Update 18, p. 230, the mortgagee must obtain a tri-merged credit report (TRMCR) from an independent consumer reporting agency, and the report must carry information from at least two credit repositories on credit, residence history and public records, all inquiries in the last 90 days, and credit and legal information not obsolete under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).
What the handbook says today
Pages 176 and 177 of Handbook 4000.1, Update 18, define the minimum decision credit score (MDCS): the score reported when all reported scores agree, the median where three are reported, the lower of two where they differ, and the single score where only one is reported. The mortgagee works out an MDCS for each borrower and then uses the lowest MDCS across all borrowers. Where one borrower has no score, the mortgagee takes the lowest MDCS among the borrowers who do have one. A borrower with an MDCS below 500 is not eligible for FHA-insured financing.
Nothing on those handbook pages has been rewritten for the two new models. Update 18 of the handbook, dated August 12, 2026, still prints the wording above. FHA said the handbook governs until policy updates are formally published. Mortgagee Letter 2026-11, published October 8, 2026, is that update, and it is effective for case numbers assigned on or after January 1, 2027, so the MDCS arithmetic above governs case numbers assigned before January 1, 2027. The frequently asked questions in FHA’s Resource Center knowledge base are due to be updated when TOTAL Version 5.0 releases on January 1, 2027.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac moved on the same day
The April 22, 2026 HUD release says Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are also moving to VantageScore 4.0 and FICO Score 10T, updating their selling guides with the new scores and accepting VantageScore-scored loans from approved lenders immediately. HUD says that step advances full implementation of the Credit Score Competition Act of 2018. The conventional and the FHA sides moved in the same announcement but on different clocks: the enterprises took VantageScore-scored loans from the April 22, 2026 announcement, FHA moves from January 1, 2027.
Three states of the rule, each with a date
Before January 1, 2027, FHA-insured underwriting runs on Classic FICO. From January 1, 2027, for case numbers assigned on or after that date on Title II forward mortgages, VantageScore 4.0 and FICO Score 10T join it. The tri-merge report stands throughout. The MDCS selection rules in Handbook 4000.1 govern case numbers assigned before January 1, 2027; for case numbers assigned on or after that date, Mortgagee Letter 2026-11 replaces them, as the update below sets out.
General Mortgage Knowledge, at 20 percent of the SAFE Mortgage Loan Originator Test, National Component with Uniform State Content, is the content area that names government loan programs with FHA among them (MLO Testing Handbook, 6.1 Content Outline, part 3). The State Regulatory Registry (SRR) has not published whether or when the test reaches this change. What a mortgage loan originator (MLO) can rely on is the date rule itself: the case number assignment date decides which version of the scorecard a file goes through.
Sources
- FHA INFO messages, HUD Single Family Housing industry news, FHA INFO 2026-21 of September 10, 2026 and FHA INFO 2026-11 of May 21, 2026
- HUD news release no. 26-026, Homebuying Advances into New Era of Credit Score Competition, April 22, 2026
- FHA Single Family Housing Policy Handbook 4000.1, Update 18 of August 12, 2026, pp. 176, 177 and 230
- FHA Mortgagee Letter 2026-11, Updated Minimum Decision Credit Score Methodology for the Implementation of Alternative Credit Scores, October 8, 2026
Update 2026-11-02
On October 8, 2026, FHA published Mortgagee Letter 2026-11, “Updated Minimum Decision Credit Score Methodology for the Implementation of Alternative Credit Scores,” and announced it the same day in FHA INFO 2026-24. The letter is effective for case numbers assigned on or after January 1, 2027, applies to all FHA-insured Title II single family mortgage programs, and says its changes will go into a forthcoming update of Handbook 4000.1. It is the policy update the earlier messages said was coming, and it settles how the MDCS is found when a file carries more than one score model.
The letter defines three terms. A Credit Score Model Type is a scoring model, such as Classic FICO, VantageScore 4.0 or FICO 10T, on a credit report that carries scores from the repositories for a borrower. A Borrower-Level Score is the score selected for each borrower after the scores from each model type submitted are evaluated. The MDCS is “the lowest Borrower-Level Score among all Borrowers on the transaction.”
For case numbers assigned on or after January 1, 2027, the mortgagee works it out in three steps:
- For each model type submitted, pick one score: the middle score if three differing scores are reported, the lowest if two differing scores are reported, and the only score if one is reported.
- The Borrower-Level Score is the lowest of the scores picked across the model types submitted. With one model type, the score picked in step 1 is the Borrower-Level Score.
- The MDCS is the lowest Borrower-Level Score among all borrowers. Where one or more borrowers have no credit score, it is the lowest Borrower-Level Score among the borrowers who have one.
As an illustration: a borrower whose report shows Classic FICO scores of 640, 655 and 662 and VantageScore 4.0 scores of 648 and 671 gets 655 from Classic FICO and 648 from VantageScore 4.0, so the Borrower-Level Score is 648. If a co-borrower’s Borrower-Level Score is 690, the MDCS is 648.
The eligibility rules come with it. The mortgagee may submit one or more model types, “provided the same model type(s) are used for all Borrowers”; the letter’s own example is that a mortgagee may not submit FICO 10T for the primary borrower and VantageScore 4.0 for the co-borrower. The credit report kept in the case binder must include every model type submitted in the final TOTAL submission, and may include others that were not submitted. The transaction is not eligible for FHA-insured financing if the MDCS is less than 500. The handbook in force today says the same 500 floor about the borrower; the letter attaches it to the transaction.
The letter keeps the tri-merge credit report and says “the existing minimum credit score thresholds remain unchanged regardless of Credit Score Model Type.” Its restated loan to value table still allows maximum financing at an MDCS of 580 or above and limits an MDCS from 500 to 579 to a maximum LTV of 90 percent. It also deletes the MDCS reference from the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) eligibility requirements, because that program does not use credit scores in underwriting.
Two corrections in the post above. The “Three states of the rule” section said the MDCS selection rules stand until FHA publishes a policy update; Mortgagee Letter 2026-11 is that update, so the sentence now gives each rule its date. The handbook citations now point at Update 18 of Handbook 4000.1 (August 12, 2026), which this site’s registry carries in place of the 2019 edition the post first cited; the MDCS and credit report wording is the same in both, at pp. 176 and 177 and p. 230 of Update 18.
Three more corrections made on November 2, 2026. The “What the handbook says today” section said the handbook governs until a policy update is published, in the present tense; it now names Mortgagee Letter 2026-11 as that update and says the handbook arithmetic governs case numbers assigned before January 1, 2027. The opening said the change covers Title II forward mortgages only; that limit is FHA INFO 2026-21’s for the TOTAL scorecard update, while Mortgagee Letter 2026-11 applies to all FHA-insured Title II single family mortgage programs, so the sentence now names the scorecard update. And the line that said whether the test reaches this change “is not published anywhere” now says SRR has not published it.