Rocket Mortgage said it will make VantageScore 4.0 the default credit score on every loan it can, a switch the Detroit lender said makes it the first home lender to drop FICO as its preferred scoring model. The announcement, made Sept. 28, landed the same day the federal regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said the two mortgage giants would stop pricing loans differently depending on which score a lender used.
Together the two moves take the credit-score fight that has been running through the mortgage industry all year out of the pilot stage and into production at one of the country’s largest mortgage lenders.
In its announcement, Rocket Mortgage, part of Rocket Companies (NYSE: RKT), said that during the fourth quarter of 2026 it will default to VantageScore 4.0 for mortgages delivered to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, for VA home loans and for other eligible mortgages. Investment properties, second homes, home equity loans, FHA loans and jumbo loans will keep using FICO scores.
Four months of side-by-side testing
The decision follows roughly four months in which Rocket pulled both scores on the same borrowers. The company said it obtained 1.4 million credit reports this year using both VantageScore and FICO, and concluded that VantageScore 4.0 opened access to some clients who would not otherwise have been served while allowing others to qualify on better pricing terms. Among borrowers who saved money under the newer model, the company put the average saving at $1,600 at closing.
“The mortgage industry has relied on one credit scoring model for decades,” said Jay Bray, chief executive of Rocket Mortgage. “Competition is healthy, especially when it can lower costs and expand responsible access to homeownership. We did the work, compared the models and chose the one that helped more qualified clients.”
Rocket said it has closed more than $2.1 trillion in mortgage volume since it was founded in 1985.
One pricing grid instead of two
The regulatory change behind the switch is narrower than it sounds but carries real money. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac charge risk-based upfront fees, known as loan-level price adjustments, that are set on a grid keyed largely to a borrower’s down payment and credit score. Those fees flow through to the interest rate a borrower is quoted.
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte said in a post on X on Sept. 28 that the two companies are moving to a single pricing grid, with VantageScore joining the FICO Classic grid rather than sitting on a separate one, a change he described as simplifying mortgage pricing in response to feedback from lenders and consumers. He did not give an effective date or publish a replacement pricing matrix, and the operational details have not been spelled out.
That removes the pricing penalty that had discouraged lenders from using the newer score even after they were permitted to. FHFA’s own credit scores policy page records that on Sept. 9, 2026, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac expanded VantageScore 4.0 to all approved lenders and dropped the requirement for prior written approval β the step that ended a limited rollout that had begun in the spring.
TransUnion locks in 99-cent pricing through 2028
On Sept. 29, TransUnion said it would hold its VantageScore 4.0 mortgage origination price at 99 cents per score through December 2028, a three-year commitment aimed at lenders weighing the cost of changing systems. The credit bureau said VantageScore 4.0 adoption widened to more than 1,100 mortgage lenders between January and September of this year, including nine of its 15 largest mortgage lender customers.
“Broad availability of VantageScore 4.0 gives lenders another accepted credit scoring option, and predictable pricing will help them adopt that option with greater confidence,” said Satyan Merchant, senior vice president and mortgage business leader at TransUnion. “Mortgage lenders should not have to choose between innovation and affordability.”
TransUnion also noted that the Federal Housing Administration plans to accept mortgage collateral backed by VantageScore 4.0 beginning Jan. 1, 2027 β the piece that would extend the change to the loans Rocket is holding back for now.
Fair Isaac takes the hit
Investors read the combination as a threat to the business FICO has built on mortgage scoring. Fair Isaac shares closed Monday at $840.89, opened Tuesday at $668.08 and traded as low as $595.19 during the Sept. 29 session, down as much as 29% from Monday’s close.
How much revenue is actually at risk is not yet knowable. The scores are priced per pull, and a lender that switches its default still orders FICO scores on the products that require them. What has changed is that the choice now carries no pricing disadvantage at the two companies that buy most of the country’s conventional mortgages β and one of the largest originators has made its choice publicly.
Credit scoring has been an unusually consequential piece of plumbing for borrowers at the margin. RealtyWire has previously reported that insufficient credit history narrowly edged debt-to-income ratio as the most common reason conventional purchase applications were denied in 2025. More mortgage coverage is collected on our mortgage page.
