 TITLE: The Difference Between VantageScore<sup>®<\/sup> Scores and FICO<sup>®<\/sup> Scores CONTENT: VantageScore vs. FICO Credit Scores\n-----------------------------------\nWhile VantageScore and FICO® scores try to predict the same thing, their credit scoring models aren't identical. Here are some of the main differences between the two companies and their scores:\n### Tri-Bureau vs. Bureau-Specific Models\nVantageScore creates a single tri-bureau model that can be used with a credit report from Experian, Equifax or TransUnion.\nFICO® creates bureau-specific scoring models. So, while the latest FICO® Score 9 might have one name, there are actually three slightly different FICO® Score 9 models—one for each of the major credit reporting agencies.\n### Minimum Scoring Requirements\nFor FICO® to create a credit score based on one of your credit reports, you'll need to have a credit account (or \"tradeline\") that's at least 6 months old and activity on a tradeline during the previous six months (they don't need to be the same tradelines).\nYou may be scoreable by VantageScore as long as your credit report has at least one account in it, even if the account is less than 6 months old.\nAdditionally, neither credit score agency will score a credit report if the report indicates the consumer is deceased.\n### The Score Ranges\nWith all these credit scoring models, a higher score indicates you're less likely to miss a payment, which is why creditors are willing to offer people with high scores the best rates and terms.\nThe base FICO® Scores range from 300 to 850, while FICO's industry-specific scores range from 250 to 900.\nThe first two versions of the VantageScore ranged from 501 to 990, but the latest VantageScore 3.0 and 4.0 use the same 300-to-850 range as base FICO® scores.\nWhat qualifies as a good score can vary from one creditor to another. However, on the 300-to-850 scale, a score of at least 670 (for FICO®) and 700 (for VantageScore) will generally qualify as having good credit.\n### The Importance of Different Credit Scoring Factors\nThe impact of a specific action on your credit scores will depend on your overall credit profile and the scoring model. However, FICO® and VantageScore only consider the information that's in one of your credit reports when determining a score, and they generally place similar relative levels of importance on the same types of information.\nThe main factors that impact your score can be separated into several categories:\n*   Payment history. Whether you've made on-time payments, late payments, have accounts in collections, defaulted on debts or declared bankruptcy.\n*   Credit usage. Your credit utilization rate, or the amount of available credit you're currently using with your revolving credit accounts, such as credit cards. To a lesser extent, the amount you owe on installment loans is also important.\n*   Length of credit history. How much experience you have managing credit accounts.\n*   Types of accounts. Whether you have experience using and paying off different types of credit accounts.\n*   Recent activity. Whether you've recently applied for new accounts that led to hard inquiries.\nWithin each category, FICO® and VantageScore may take different approaches to how they use or weight specific pieces of information. Three examples are how the scores treat revolving account balances (or credit utilization), collection accounts and hard inquiries.\n### Credit Utilization\nYour utilization rate can be an important scoring factor, but most scores only consider your most recently reported revolving account balances and limits in this factor, which is essentially your total credit card balances divided by your credit limits on those accounts. This shows how much available credit you're using.\nVantageScore 4.0 looks back and considers your trended utilization, such as whether you usually only make minimum credit card payments or pay your bill in full. FICO® Score and other VantageScore models don't.\n### Collection Accounts\nAlthough unpaid collections accounts can hurt both your FICO® and VantageScore credit scores, collection accounts are treated differently depending on the type of account, whether it's been repaid and the specific scoring model.\nFor example, FICO® Score 9 ignores paid collection accounts and puts less importance on unpaid medical collections than other types of unpaid collections. FICO® Score 8 doesn't differentiate between medical and non-medical collections and doesn't ignore paid collection accounts. Both versions ignore collection accounts when the original account's unpaid balance was under $100.\nVantageScore 3.0 and 4.0 both ignore paid collection accounts and give less weight to medical collections, but there's no exemption for low-balance collections.\n### Credit Inquiries\nA hard inquiry gets added to your credit report when you apply for a new credit account, and it can hurt your credit scores (though usually for less than a year). However, scoring model creators understand that applying for multiple loans so you can compare your options and offers is savvy rather than risky behavior.\nVantageScore addresses this by deduplicating (or \"deduping\") any inquiries that occur within a 14-day window. If you apply for a credit card today, a personal loan tomorrow and five auto loans next week, you may have seven new hard inquiries on your credit report, but VantageScore scores you as if you only had one hard inquiry during that period.\nRecent FICO® Scores have a 45-day dedupe window, while older models (including those that are still used for mortgage lending) have a 14-day dedupe window. However, FICO® Scores only dedupe multiple inquiries from student loan, auto loan and mortgage applications.\nBut FICO® also has a hard-inquiry buffer, which means any mortgage, auto or student loan hard inquiries from the previous 30 days won't impact your FICO® scores.\n### The Same Behavior Can Help All Your Scores\nThere are many differences between VantageScore and FICO® credit scores, and each companies' various credit scoring models. However, all the scoring models try to predict the same thing using the same underlying data. As a result, if you focus on building a good credit history, you can improve all your scores. One way to do that is to monitor your credit regularly. Experian's free credit monitoring service provides access to your Experian FICO® Score, credit report and other information that can help you better understand how credit scores work and actions you can take to improve all your credit scores. END