Minimum Credit Score for a Mortgage in 2026

Here is the finding that should reframe the whole question. Of the four main routes into a US mortgage, three publish no minimum credit score at all. Not a high one, not a lenient one — none. The Department of Veterans Affairs sets none. USDA Guaranteed Rural Housing sets none. Fannie Mae removed its 620 for Desktop Underwriter casefiles created on or after 16 November 2025. Only FHA has genuine published tiers, and they are lower than almost anyone expects.

So when a loan officer tells you that you need a 620, or a 640, or a 580, they are usually describing their employer's internal credit policy. That is a real obstacle and you cannot argue past it, but it is not a rule of the programme and it is not the same obstacle at the lender down the road. The industry calls it an overlay. The whole practical value of this subject lies in telling overlays apart from rules, because a rule means stop and an overlay means shop.

This guide goes route by route and states what each programme actually publishes and where the familiar number really comes from. It then covers what decides your file when the score does not: debt-to-income under each programme's own rules, residual income on VA loans, compensating factors on manual FHA files. Finally, how to find out a lender's overlay before you waste an application on it, and what to do if you have already been declined.

Who this guide is for

• Anyone told a specific credit score is a federal or agency requirement
• Veterans and service members quoted a 620 or 640 "VA minimum"
• Rural buyers who have read everywhere that USDA needs a 640
• Borrowers in the 500 to 579 band told they are ineligible for everything
• Anyone declined on score grounds, unsure whether to shop or to wait and rebuild
• Buyers weighing an FHA quote against a conventional one
• Anyone with thin or non-traditional credit who has no score to quote at all

Quick answer

There is no single minimum credit score for a US mortgage, because most programmes do not publish one. The VA publishes none and 38 CFR §36.4340 never mentions a score. USDA publishes none and Handbook HB-1-3555 Chapter 10 never mentions 640 — the Guaranteed Underwriting System determines the acceptable score for the underwriting recommendation, and lenders may add overlays at their discretion. Fannie Mae's Selling Guide B3-5.1-01 now states that a minimum credit score is not required for DU casefiles, the 620 having been removed for casefiles created on or after 16 November 2025 under Announcement SEL-2025-09; 620 still applies to manually underwritten fixed-rate loans, 640 to manual adjustable-rate loans, and 620 to government loans delivered to Fannie Mae. Freddie Mac publishes no single minimum, only Minimum Indicator Score requirements for certain mortgage types listed in Guide Exhibit 25. FHA alone has real published tiers, effective 4 October 2010: 580 and above gets 96.5% loan-to-value, 500 to 579 is capped at 90%, and below 500 is not eligible. Everything tighter is a lender overlay.

The three labels you need

A programme rule comes from an agency, a government-sponsored enterprise or a statute. It is identical at every lender and nobody can waive it. FHA's 580 threshold for 3.5% down is one.

A lender overlay is one lender's own credit policy on top, because the lender carries the risk of early default and repurchase demands. Overlays are legitimate, invisible from outside, and vary enormously. Nearly every score "minimum" you are quoted is one.

An industry average comes from a private survey or platform dataset. It describes what is typical, not what is permitted, and it is useless as an eligibility test.

VA: no minimum, and the regulation never mentions a score

The VA sets no minimum credit score. This is not an interpretation; the underwriting regulation simply has no score in it. 38 CFR §36.4340 requires "a careful analysis of the available credit data" and says the absence of a credit history "will not generally be viewed as an adverse factor." That second clause is almost never quoted, and it means a borrower with no score is not automatically disqualified.

Every VA score floor you have seen advertised is therefore a lender overlay. Some stop at 640, some at 620, some at 580, and a minority will manually underwrite below that on documented alternative credit such as rent and utilities paid on time. Because the floors are commercial rather than regulatory, they differ between two lenders on the same street.

So a VA decline on score grounds is the weakest signal in mortgage lending. Ask the question in overlay terms — not "do I qualify?" but "what is your minimum score on VA, and do you manually underwrite below it?"

USDA: no minimum, and the 640 is a pathway threshold

USDA Guaranteed Rural Housing is the same story with a more persistent myth attached. Handbook HB-1-3555 Chapter 10 sets no minimum credit score and never mentions 640. What it says is that the Guaranteed Underwriting System "will determine the acceptable credit score to be used for the underwriting recommendation," and that "lenders may impose additional criteria/overlays at their discretion."

So where does 640 come from? Two places, neither a programme rule. It functions as a threshold in how files move through GUS, which pushes lenders towards treating it as a line. And it has become settled lender practice, repeated until it reads like regulation. The figure is real in that it governs most applications; it is not real in that USDA never wrote it down.

That matters if your score is in the low 600s or high 500s and you are buying in an eligible area. The programme does not exclude you. Most lenders will, but ask specifically whether they will take a USDA file that does not run clean through the automated pathway. The answer is sometimes yes, particularly from lenders with large rural books.

Fannie Mae: the 620 is gone for DU casefiles

This is the change that makes most published advice out of date. Fannie Mae's Selling Guide B3-5.1-01 now states that "a minimum credit score is not required for DU loan casefiles." The 620 was removed for new Desktop Underwriter casefiles created on or after 16 November 2025, under Announcement SEL-2025-09. It has not vanished entirely — it survives in three narrower places, all programme rules:

Two caveats keep this honest. Lenders must still deliver the representative credit score, because it drives loan-level price adjustments, so your score still affects your rate even where it no longer gates eligibility. And removing a published floor obliges nobody to lend below it: most conventional overlays were written around 620 and will take time to move, if they move at all. Even so, the blanket claim that "conventional loans require a 620 credit score" is now wrong. Anyone saying it is either describing their own overlay or working from guidance that predates November 2025.

FHA: the one programme with real published tiers

FHA is the exception. HUD published explicit score bands, effective 4 October 2010, and they are programme rules:

Two things follow. The commonly quoted FHA minimum of 620 or 640 is a lender overlay, not FHA policy. Most lenders will not go below 580 and very few touch the 500 to 579 band at all, which is why that band exists on paper far more than in practice. At 560, wanting 10%-down FHA financing, the programme permits you and your problem is finding a lender.

And if you are near the 580 line, crossing it is worth real money: it is the difference between 3.5% and 10% down on the same house. On a US$300,000 purchase, US$10,500 against US$30,000. Few other actions in an application return that much on a few points of score.

One cost point belongs here, because it shapes the FHA-versus-conventional decision for weaker-score borrowers. FHA upfront mortgage insurance premium is 1.75% of the base loan amount, and annual MIP under Mortgagee Letter 2023-05 is 0.55% on a loan at or below US$726,200 above 95% loan-to-value — for the full mortgage term, not cancellable by request. The only exits are refinancing out of FHA or paying off. Conventional private mortgage insurance does cancel. That trade-off is often more consequential than the score question itself.

Freddie Mac: no single minimum is published

Freddie Mac does not publish one headline minimum credit score. Minimum Indicator Score requirements apply only to certain mortgage types, and they sit in Guide Exhibit 25 — a conditional table, not a single number.

We have not been able to verify the current contents of Exhibit 25, so this page gives no Freddie Mac figure. That is deliberate. Exhibit 25 is the only legitimate origin for a Freddie minimum, and a number from anywhere else is somebody's recollection of an older version. If you need the current position, Exhibit 25 is the document to ask your lender to show you. Anyone quoting a single Freddie Mac minimum is compressing something far more conditional than their sentence suggests.

What actually decides your file

If three of the four routes publish no score minimum, something else is doing the work. Three things, mostly.

Debt-to-income, under each programme's own rules

This is where the real programme-level limits live, and they differ sharply by route.

Note what that table does not contain: the widely repeated claim that FHA allows a 56.9% debt-to-income ratio. That is a TOTAL Scorecard outcome on particular files, not a published cap. Any number tighter than the rows above is, again, a lender overlay.

Residual income on VA loans

VA underwriting has a second income test no other programme uses, and unlike the score floors it is unambiguously a programme rule, published at 38 CFR §36.4340(e). Residual income is what is left each month after the mortgage, taxes, insurance, utilities, maintenance and every other debt. These are the minimum monthly figures for loans of US$80,000 and above:

Above five, add US$80 per member to a family of seven. For loans of US$79,999 and below the figures are lower — one person US$390, US$382, US$382 and US$425; a family of four US$888, US$868, US$868 and US$967, with US$75 per additional member. All household members count, including a non-borrowing spouse, unless that spouse's stable employment is verified. The regulation calls the figures "a guide and not a final determinant."

The part worth memorising: if residual income exceeds the guideline by at least 20%, the supervisory review otherwise required above 41% debt-to-income is not required at all. That exception is in the regulation, and it is why a strong residual income position can carry a file that a weak score would otherwise sink.

Compensating factors on manual FHA files

If your FHA file is manually underwritten — where lower-score borrowers usually end up — HUD's matrix in Mortgagee Letter 2014-02 sets what you can borrow against what you can document. A score of 500 to 579, or non-traditional credit, caps you at 31/43 and permits no compensating factors at all. At 580 and above you get 31/43 with none required, 37/47 with one, 40/40 where you have no discretionary debt and six or more months of established credit, and 40/50 with two.

The accepted compensating factors are specific: cash reserves, a minimal payment increase over your current housing cost, and residual income. Build the file around those three, because that is the published route to a higher ratio rather than a plea for discretion.

How to find out a lender's overlay before you apply

1. Ask the question in overlay language. Not "do I qualify with a 590?" but "what is your minimum score on FHA, VA and conventional, and is that your policy or the agency's?" A loan officer who cannot tell the difference is a reason to move on.
2. Ask whether they manually underwrite. Automated approval and manual underwriting are different doors with different rules. A lender that only runs automated files has imported that system's behaviour as its floor.
3. Ask about the 500 to 579 band, if that is you. Most will say no. The ones that say yes are the only ones worth an application.
4. Ask what the score does to pricing, not just eligibility. Representative scores drive loan-level price adjustments, so an easy approval can still be an expensive one.
5. Get the answers before a hard credit pull. Overlay questions are answerable from policy, not from your file.
6. Shop at least three, including a credit union and a broker. Brokers see several investors' overlays at once, which is the variable you are mapping.

Mistakes that cost money

Treating a quoted minimum as federal law. The VA, USDA and Fannie Mae's DU route publish none. If the number stopping you is one of those, it is a policy, and policies differ.

Believing conventional loans still require a 620. Fannie Mae removed that for DU casefiles created on or after 16 November 2025. It survives only for manual underwriting at 620 fixed-rate and 640 adjustable-rate, and for government loans delivered to Fannie Mae at 620.

Repeating the USDA 640. Handbook HB-1-3555 Chapter 10 sets no minimum and never mentions it. The figure is a GUS pathway threshold and lender practice.

Assuming 580 is the floor for FHA. The floor is 500, with 10% down rather than 3.5%. Below 580 the problem is lender appetite, not eligibility.

Giving up at 41% debt-to-income on a VA loan. 41% is the standard, not the ceiling, and residual income exceeding the guideline by 20% removes the supervisory review entirely.

Quoting the 56.9% FHA debt-to-income figure as a rule. It is a TOTAL Scorecard outcome, not a cap. Build a manual file against HUD's actual matrix instead.

Ignoring what a low score does to the price. Removing a minimum is not the same as removing the cost. Representative scores still drive loan-level price adjustments, so the easiest approval and the cheapest one are rarely the same lender.

Choosing FHA on score grounds without pricing the mortgage insurance. Annual MIP above 95% loan-to-value runs for the full mortgage term and is not cancellable by request. Conventional private mortgage insurance cancels.

What to do when you are declined

Diagnosis first, and it has exactly two outcomes.

You failed a programme rule. There are not many ways to do that on score alone. Below 500 you are ineligible for FHA. Below 580, FHA caps you at 90% loan-to-value, so a 3.5%-down application at 560 fails on a rule. So does a manually underwritten conventional fixed-rate file below 620, an adjustable-rate file below 640, or a government loan delivered to Fannie Mae below 620. In each case shopping is pointless, because the next lender is bound by the same thing. What changes the answer is a different programme, a bigger deposit, or time.

You failed a lender policy. Everything else — declined at 600 on VA, at 615 on USDA, or on a DU conventional casefile at any score. Those are overlays, and the variation between lenders is wide enough to be worth five phone calls.

So ask the declining lender one question: is this your policy or the agency's? You are entitled to the reason for an adverse action, and that answer tells you whether to keep shopping or stop and work on the file.

Disclaimer

This guide summarises published credit score, debt-to-income and underwriting requirements from Fannie Mae's Selling Guide, USDA Handbook HB-1-3555, HUD Mortgagee Letters 2010-29, 2014-02 and 2023-05, and 38 CFR §36.4340, checked on 12 October 2026. It is information, not mortgage or legal advice, and it cannot tell you what any individual lender will approve, because overlays are commercial policy and change without notice. Freddie Mac's Minimum Indicator Score requirements sit in Guide Exhibit 25 and are not reproduced here.

The short version

The question has no single answer because most of the programmes refuse to give one. The VA sets no minimum and its regulation never mentions a score. USDA sets none and never mentions the 640 everybody repeats. Fannie Mae removed its 620 for Desktop Underwriter casefiles from 16 November 2025, keeping it only for manual underwriting and for government loans it buys. FHA alone publishes real tiers, and they start at 500, not 620.

What that leaves is a market full of lender overlays described as rules. The overlays are real and they will stop your application, but they are one institution's view, and the spread between institutions is wide. That is why the same borrower gets a no from one lender and a yes from the next with no change to the file.

So treat the number you are quoted as a question, not a verdict. If it came from the programme, change the programme, the deposit or the timetable. If it came from the lender, change the lender.