What Is a Good Credit Score?

How Credit Score Ranges Are Organized

Credit scores are numeric summaries produced by scoring models that read the contents of a credit report. The scale most consumers encounter runs from roughly 300 to 850, though some models built for a specific lending market begin lower or extend higher, and a few use a range that reaches 900.

Within that scale, scores are sorted into bands carrying labels such as exceptional, very good, good, fair, and poor. These labels are a reporting convention, not a legal category. FICO and VantageScore each publish their own band charts, and the companies have revised those boundaries as new model versions were released.

Because the bands come from the scoring companies rather than from a government agency, there is no single official dividing line between a good score and an average one. A band label describes where a number sits in a distribution of scores, not a rating issued by any authority.

• Exceptional or very good: the highest band on a published chart
• Good: the middle-upper band, generally the top of the 600s and into the low 700s on a 300-to-850 scale
• Fair: the middle band
• Poor: the lowest band

Where the Good Threshold Commonly Falls

On the widely used 300-to-850 scale, published band charts commonly place the start of the good range somewhere in the upper 600s, with the very good and exceptional bands above that. Consumers often see a figure near the top of the 600s described as the point where a score shifts from fair to good.

That figure is not a universal standard. It is one scoring company's published boundary, and it can differ from the boundary another company publishes for a different model. A credit score range chart from one source will not always match a chart from another, even when both are describing the same underlying number.

The threshold that actually matters for a decision belongs to the lender. A mortgage investor may publish a minimum, an auto lender may set a different one, and a landlord, insurer, or utility may not use a consumer credit score at all.

Why Lenders Set Their Own Cutoffs

Lenders treat a score as one input among several. Underwriting typically also considers income, total debts relative to income, the size of a down payment or deposit, the type of collateral, and the applicant's history with that particular lender or with similar accounts.

Some lenders publish minimum score requirements for specific products in their underwriting guidelines, and government-backed programs set their own baseline requirements that can differ from a private investor's. Other lenders keep their internal cutoffs undisclosed and adjust them as their own lending criteria change.

The practical result is that two lenders can look at the same score and reach different conclusions. A decline is a decision about one application under one set of criteria at one point in time, not an assessment of a person's overall financial standing.

What Goes Into a Credit Score

Scoring models weigh the information recorded in a credit report. The general categories include payment history, the amounts owed and how much of the available revolving credit is being used, the length of credit history, the mix of revolving and installment accounts, and recently opened accounts or new inquiries.

FICO and VantageScore publish general descriptions of these categories and of their relative significance, but the exact formulas are proprietary. The weighting also varies between models and between individual consumers, because the factors are evaluated in combination rather than one at a time.

Credit reports do not contain income, and most consumer scoring models do not use it, so earnings alone do not produce a particular number. Certain items, such as a late payment, a collection account, or a bankruptcy filing, can remain on a report for a period defined by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, generally seven years for most items and longer for some bankruptcy filings.

Why the Same Person Can Have Different Scores

The three national credit reporting companies maintain separate files, and creditors do not necessarily furnish information to all of them. A score generated from one file can therefore differ from a score generated from another, even on the same day.

Different scoring models also produce different numbers from the same file. FICO Score versions, VantageScore versions, and models tailored to auto lending or to credit cards each apply their own formulas. A score shown in a banking app, on a card issuer's website, or through a free credit score service may be any one of these.

That is why a single number is best read as one estimate among several. The score displayed by a monitoring service is not automatically the score a lender will pull for a particular application, and the two can fall into different bands.

Where Scores and Reports Come From

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, consumers are entitled to request a free credit report from each of the three national credit reporting companies every twelve months. Those requests are made through annualcreditreport.com, the centralized site authorized for that purpose.

Scores are separate from reports. A credit score check may be offered at no cost by a card issuer, a bank, or a nonprofit counseling service, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission both publish guidance describing what consumers are entitled to receive and how to ask for it.

Reviewing a report for accuracy is a distinct step from reading a score. If a report lists an account that does not belong to the consumer or shows a late payment that was actually made on time, the consumer can file a dispute, and the credit reporting company is required to investigate the disputed item.

What a Score Does and Does Not Determine

A credit score is one factor in a decision. It does not by itself set an interest rate, decide a rental application, or describe a person's income, savings, or capacity to repay a specific loan. Lenders combine the number with information the score does not contain.

Band labels are descriptive. They attach a word to a position within a distribution, and that distribution shifts as models are updated and as lending conditions change over time. A number that falls in one band under one model may fall in a neighboring band under another.

For most consumers the more useful question is which score is being shown: which model, which version, from which credit file, and what the particular lender requires. Lenders that publish criteria make part of that answer available, and the reporting company that supplied the data can be identified from the report itself.