Equifax Statement on the Costs of Credit Scores and Credit Reports
Home ownership is an important goal for many U.S consumers and can help build wealth that can last for generations. Equifax shares the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s goal of making home ownership more affordable and believes that comprehensive data solutions are a key component of supporting affordability. This is why we are focused on continuous innovation — both in the development of solutions that can help lenders reduce the cost of evaluating mortgage applications, and in providing deeper insights within our credit reporting products.
In today’s economic environment, there is considerable discussion on the cost of the home buying process and we would like to address the costs of credit scores and credit reports.
With regard to mortgage credit scores, FICO has increased its price from $0.60 to $10.00 over the last five years, up 16x and a CAGR of 100%. Looking specifically at 2026 pricing, FICO has increased the cost of the credit score 2x from $4.95 to $10 - the same score offered in 2025 with a more than 100% increase in cost. This price increase has the potential to raise mortgage score costs across the industry by approximately $500 million.
In response to FICO’s 2026 pricing, we announced in October that we would offer VantageScore 4.0 mortgage credit scores at an over 50% reduction from FICO 2026 prices, committed to holding the $4.50 VantageScore score pricing for two years, and are offering free Vantage Scores with each FICO score to help with conversion. We took this step to give lenders the confidence they need to convert to the higher-performing VantageScore. Equifax mortgage customers who move to VantageScore will see flat to decreased 2026 pricing depending on which credit products are used.
While credit scores play a role in the mortgage lending process, those scores cannot be developed or calculated without credit file data. Score providers do not have access to the consumer data, consumer credit files, or any other files containing information about consumers maintained by the Nationwide Consumer Reporting Agencies (NCRAs). In 2024 alone, Equifax maintained information on more than 3.5 billion tradelines with information for more than 245 million U.S. consumers. Credit data is what is used for the underwriting of Mortgages, not the credit score.
It is also important to understand that the FICO Classic scores sold by the NCRAs are not as simple as feeding information into a FICO “black box,” obtaining a score, and then selling that score. While FICO provides access and license to their score algorithm, how the FICO Classic score data is pulled, assembled, and run through the score engine is unique to each NCRA and managed by each NCRA. The technical management of that process can incur a processing fee.
Equifax has increased the cost of the credit file for hard pulls in 2026 by less than 10% while adding significant new value to the credit file with The Work Number Report Indicator and telecommunications and utility attributes at no additional charge. These insights provide a more complete financial picture of a borrower that can make mortgage underwriting faster and easier and are only used to help consumers obtain a mortgage loan.
The cost of the credit report and any processing fees charged by Equifax cover data handling, validation and quality assurance across thousands of data furnishers on a daily basis, as well as regulatory obligations and consumer care.
The estimated cost of a tri-merge credit report is less than 1.5% of overall mortgage closing costs. To put that in context, the total average mortgage origination cost is currently $12,500. And, of total overall mortgage closing costs, it is important to recognize that unlike the costs of tri-merge credit reports, some costs scale with the size of the loan. For example, for a $400,000 loan, the fees charged by lenders to cover loan origination and processing could be as much as $4,000. The combination of origination fees and real estate agent commissions, as well as recording fees, appraisal fees, home inspection fees, document preparation fees, and title services costs, each result in dramatically higher costs for the borrower than credit reporting services. And, these additional fees do not offer the same value as credit reporting services in providing access to home ownership, potentially reducing the cost of the loan, and ensuring the safety and soundness of the underwriting.