A change to how mortgage applications get scored has moved from a limited test to standard practice at every lender that sells loans to the country’s two housing-finance giants. The Federal Housing Finance Agency confirmed this month that any Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac-approved lender can now offer a second scoring model alongside the credit score borrowers have used for decades. For an older homeowner with a thin or unusual recent credit file — paid-off cards, a mortgage carried for thirty years, little new borrowing — which score a lender pulls can affect whether an application clears underwriting at all. The shift has been years in the making, and it lands at a moment when many longtime homeowners are weighing a refinance, a home-equity loan, or a move into a smaller property.
FHFA’s VantageScore 4.0 Approval
According to FHFA’s credit-scores policy page, updated Sept. 9, 2026, “All Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac approved lenders may now use VantageScore 4.0 when originating and selling eligible loans.” The update removes a prior requirement that lenders get individual written approval before using the model, making VantageScore 4.0 available across the board rather than to a limited group. FHFA is the regulator that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-sponsored enterprises that buy the majority of conventional mortgages from lenders and package them for sale to investors.
FHFA traces the change back to a 2018 federal law, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act, which directed the agency to open the door to alternative credit-scoring models. FHFA validated and approved both VantageScore 4.0 and a separate model, FICO 10T, in October 2022, but the agency then spent several more years on public engagement and a phased implementation timeline — pushing an originally planned fourth-quarter-2025 rollout date back before settling on the limited rollout that began in April 2026 and the full lender access confirmed this September.
A second score, but the same debt-collection rules: Wider VantageScore 4.0 use doesn’t change what a debt collector can ask for or what a lender can report to a credit bureau, and the debt-validation steps in The Bank Account & Debt Protection Kit cover what to check on a credit report ahead of either scoring model.
Classic FICO and FICO 10T’s Status
FHFA’s page is explicit that classic FICO is not being phased out on any announced schedule: “Classic FICO is expected to be retired at a future date,” the agency states, but no date has been set, and lenders will get advance notice before any change to which scores are eligible for delivery. A third model, FICO 10T, was validated by the enterprises in 2022 but remains unavailable for actual loan deliveries — FHFA says it “is not currently eligible for delivery, and the Enterprises will provide additional guidance when FICO Score 10T becomes available.” That leaves classic FICO and VantageScore 4.0 as the two models lenders can actually use today, with FICO 10T still waiting on the sidelines four years after its initial approval.
The Rollout Since April
VantageScore 4.0’s use wasn’t new in September — it began as a limited program. Fannie Mae’s April 22, 2026 announcement made the score available to an initial group of approved lenders. Jake Williamson, Fannie Mae’s executive vice president and head of single-family, said at the time that “Credit score model modernization is an important step toward a more competitive, innovative, and resilient housing finance system.” Fannie Mae’s announcement also noted that newer credit score models can incorporate additional data, such as on-time rent payment history and trended credit data, with the stated potential to score more consumers accurately — language the company applied to credit modernization generally rather than to VantageScore 4.0’s performance specifically.
FHFA makes a similar argument on its own policy page, saying newer models “take into account additional sources of data, including rent payment history, to more accurately assess credit risk,” and that “robust competition” among scoring models should benefit “consumers, lenders, and other market participants.” The regulator ties that goal back to the 2018 law’s underlying purpose: giving lenders more than one validated way to assess a borrower’s credit, rather than relying on a single decades-old model as the only option for a loan Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac will buy.
Tri-Merge Reporting Stays the Same
One thing the update does not change, for now, is how a lender pulls a borrower’s credit file in the first place. FHFA states plainly that “the inclusion of VantageScore 4.0 credit scores will not change the Enterprises’ current credit reporting requirements,” meaning lenders still order a tri-merge report — one file apiece from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — regardless of which scoring model is applied to the results. FHFA has floated a separate move to a bi-merge, two-bureau report tied to the eventual classic-FICO transition, but the agency lists that shift as happening on “a date to be determined,” so the three-bureau pull remains the standard for now. The expansion adds a second eligible score to that same underlying credit file rather than replacing the reporting process a mortgage applicant already goes through, so the reports pulled from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion stay the raw material either scoring model works from.
What a Tri-Merge Report Still Has to Get Right
FHFA’s Sept. 9 update widens which score a lender can apply to a mortgage file, but it leaves the underlying tri-merge credit report exactly as it was — meaning an error, a stale collection account or an unvalidated debt on that file can still work against an applicant no matter which of the two approved scores gets pulled. Reviewing that file ahead of underwriting remains a separate, unfinished task from the scoring-model question itself.
The Bank Account & Debt Protection Kit covers the frozen-account response and a protected-funds and dispute log for tracking what’s been contested.
See the frozen-account response steps in The Bank Account & Debt Protection Kit.
This article was produced with AI assistance and checked against the primary sources linked above.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
