What Is a Good Credit Score? Ranges Explained

The 300-to-850 range is a FICO creation. Fair Isaac Corporation — the company that created the FICO scoring model, now just called FICO — chose that range when they built the model in the late 1980s. It stuck. VantageScore, which was created by the three major bureaus (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion) as a competitor, uses the same 300-850 range.

But here's what most people don't realize: there isn't just one FICO score. There's FICO 8 (the most widely used for general credit decisions), FICO 9, FICO Auto Score, FICO Bankcard Score, and about 60 more industry-specific versions. A mortgage lender might pull your FICO 2 from Experian, your FICO 5 from Equifax, and your FICO 4 from TransUnion — all older models that major GSEs like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac still require.

Your score also differs across bureaus. The same person can have a 712 at Equifax, 698 at TransUnion, and 724 at Experian — simultaneously — because not all creditors report to all three bureaus, and each bureau's file on you may contain different information.

So when someone asks 'what's a good credit score?' the honest answer is: it depends on which score, which model, and which lender. But the general tiers are consistent enough to give you a useful working framework.

The credit industry broadly uses five tiers. The exact cutoffs vary slightly by source, but here's the standard breakdown:

Exceptional: 800 to 850. You're in the top 20% or so of American consumers. Lenders compete for you. You get the best rates on everything, the highest limits, and approval is essentially automatic for any standard credit product. About 21% of Americans are here.

Very Good: 740 to 799. Still excellent. You qualify for the best rates on mortgages (760+ is technically the target for best pricing at most lenders but 740 gets you close). Approvals are easy. Credit card companies throw signup bonuses at you. This is where most financially responsible adults land after a few years of good habits.

Good: 670 to 739. The actual average American credit score hovers in the low 700s, so this range includes a lot of people. You're approved for most products but not always at the absolute best rate. Mortgage approval is straightforward. Credit card options are good but not elite-tier.

Fair: 580 to 669. This is where things start to cost you real money. Approved for mortgages — FHA loans go down to 580 — but at higher rates. Auto loans are available but expensive. Credit card options thin out and the good rewards cards become inaccessible. Worth noting: the difference between 625 and 669 is meaningful because some lenders use 640 or 660 as internal cutoffs.

Poor: 300 to 579. Conventional mortgage approval is very difficult. Auto loans are technically available through subprime lenders but the rates are brutal. Secured credit cards (where you deposit cash as collateral) are often the primary card option. Getting here usually means missed payments, collections, or a recent bankruptcy.

For context: the average FICO score in America as of late 2025 was around 717. Most people are in that Good to Very Good range.

This is where credit scores stop being abstract and start being a conversation about real money.

On a conventional 30-year fixed mortgage — say $350,000 loan, 5% down — the rate you get varies meaningfully based on your score. As of early 2026, average conventional 30-year rates were running around 6.6% to 7%+ depending on the borrower.

Here's what the tier difference looks like in practice:

Score 760+: Best available conventional rate. Currently hovering around 6.5% to 6.75% for well-qualified borrowers at most lenders. Loan-level price adjustments (Fannie/Freddie fees that lenders pass to borrowers) are at their lowest.

Score 740-759: Essentially the same as 760+. Minimal difference at most lenders. Sometimes you see a 0.125% bump in rate but it's negligible.

Score 720-739: Starts to see slight rate premium. Maybe 0.125% to 0.25% higher than the top tier. Not catastrophic but real.

Score 680-719: The rate gap starts widening. Expect 0.375% to 0.75% above what a 760 borrower gets. On a $350,000 30-year loan, 0.5% rate difference costs you roughly $107 more per month — that's $38,520 over 30 years.

Score 660-679: Getting expensive. Loan-level price adjustments from Fannie/Freddie stack up. Lenders may also require PMI at slightly different terms.

Score 620-659: Conventional loans are possible but costly. Alternatively, FHA loans — which have their own mortgage insurance structure — might actually be cheaper total even with the upfront MIP. A 30-year conventional at this tier can run 7.5% to 8%+. That same $350,000 loan now costs maybe $200 to $300 more per month than the 760+ borrower.

Below 620: Conventional approval is rare. FHA is the primary vehicle down to 580. VA loans for veterans have no minimum score requirement by VA guidelines though individual lenders typically want 620.

The headline stat worth remembering: the difference between a 620 and a 760 score on a $350,000 30-year mortgage can mean over $59,000 more in total interest paid. That's a real number that real people discover after they close on a house and don't understand why their payment is higher than their neighbor's.

Auto loans use a different tier system than mortgages, and used car loans carry higher rates than new across the board. Here's the Q4 2025 data from Experian's State of the Automotive Finance Market report:

Super Prime (781-850): New car 4.66%, Used car roughly 7.80%

Prime (661-780): New car around 6.85%, Used car around 9.70%

Near-Prime (601-660): New car around 9.50%, Used car around 12.20%

Subprime (501-600): New car around 12.90%, Used car around 15.50%

Deep Subprime (300-500): New car 15.84%+, Used car can hit 20%+

Think about those numbers on a real car purchase. Take a $35,000 new car financed over 60 months.

At 4.66% (super prime): monthly payment around $656, total interest roughly $4,360 At 9.50% (near-prime): monthly payment around $737, total interest roughly $9,210 At 15.84% (deep subprime): monthly payment around $842, total interest roughly $15,520

Deep subprime pays $11,160 more in interest for the same car. That's the cost of having a bad credit score — an extra eleven grand, invisible in the monthly payment but very much real over the life of the loan.

Also: many car dealers work in the F&I (Finance and Insurance) office where they mark up the rate from what the lender actually quotes. Super prime borrowers are harder to mark up because they can shop rates easily. Subprime borrowers often don't have that leverage. Score improvement is financial self-defense.

Credit cards are different from mortgages and auto loans in an important way: the APR on a credit card matters a lot less if you pay your balance in full every month, and the rewards and approval thresholds matter a lot more.

For people who carry balances: credit card APRs in early 2026 average around 21% to 24% for most cards. The range by score tier looks roughly like this:

750+: Premium rewards cards with 0% intro APR offers, sign-up bonuses worth $500 to $1,000+, purchase APRs in the 19% to 24% range after intro period (the range matters less when you're paying it off).

670-749: Most major rewards cards accessible. Some of the ultra-premium cards (Amex Platinum, Chase Sapphire Reserve) technically require 700+ and sometimes effectively require higher for approval. APRs in the 22% to 26% range.

580-669: Secured cards, some credit-builder cards, Capital One QuicksilverOne type products designed for fair credit. APRs often 26% to 30%. This is where carrying a balance gets genuinely expensive.

Below 580: Secured cards primarily, with small credit limits ($200 to $500). Unsecured options are rare and predatory. Credit unions are often better than banks at this tier.

The specific cards people want — Chase Sapphire Reserve, Amex Gold, Citi Double Cash — all nominally list their minimum score requirements as "good credit" or 700+. In practice the approval standards are more complicated and involve income, credit history length, existing relationship with the issuer, and other factors.

But the tier gating is real. You're not getting a Chase Sapphire Reserve at 640. You're just not.

Personal loans — used for debt consolidation, home improvement, large purchases — also tier aggressively on credit score.

Excellent credit (720+): Personal loan APRs from major lenders (SoFi, LightStream, Marcus) in the 7% to 14% range. Sometimes lower for specific use cases like home improvement through LightStream, which uses the collateral of the project to justify better rates.

Good credit (660-719): APRs rise to 14% to 20% range at most online lenders. Still vastly cheaper than credit cards for debt consolidation purposes.

Fair credit (580-659): Many major online lenders won't approve at all, or will approve at 25%+ APR. Smaller lenders, credit unions, and peer-to-peer platforms are options. LendingClub and Prosper have historically served this tier.

Poor credit (below 580): Payday loans and other predatory products are the primary offerings — some with effective APRs of 300%+. This is the worst outcome and exactly why credit score improvement is worth the effort.

For home equity products (HELOCs, home equity loans), lenders typically want 680+ and often prefer 720+, though the house itself as collateral gives you more flexibility than unsecured products.

Here's a question nobody talks about enough: is there actually a difference between a 740 and an 820?

For most practical purposes, no. Once you're above 760 or so, you qualify for the best rate available on mortgages and most loan products. Going from 760 to 820 doesn't get you a lower mortgage rate — you're already at the top pricing tier.

Where very high scores (800+) do matter: some premium credit cards use internal scoring beyond the public tiers and may approve applications at 820 they'd reject at 760. Some private banks and jumbo mortgage lenders have informal high-score preferences. Business credit applications sometimes benefit from principal scores above 800.

But for most Americans — getting a mortgage, financing a car, applying for a rewards card — 760 is the functional ceiling. Above that, you're collecting points for your own satisfaction, which is valid, but it's not meaningfully moving your financial life.

The real ROI in credit score work is in the 580 to 720 range. That's where each 20-point improvement translates to real money saved on actual products.

Most free credit score apps and sites — Credit Karma, Capital One CreditWise, NerdWallet — show you VantageScore 3.0. It uses the same 300-850 range as FICO and is directionally accurate, but it's not the score most lenders actually use when you apply for credit.

Mortgage lenders are required by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to use older FICO models: FICO 2 (Experian), FICO 5 (Equifax), and FICO 4 (TransUnion). Auto lenders often use FICO Auto Score 8. Credit card issuers use FICO 8 or 9, usually.

This creates the frustrating situation where you check Credit Karma, see 720, go apply for a mortgage, and the lender pulls a 694. Different model, different file snapshot, different score.

The practical advice: use free VantageScore sources to track trends and catch errors. Use your score as a directional indicator, not a precise number. Before any major credit application — mortgage especially — pay to pull your actual FICO scores from myfico.com. It costs about $30 but you'll see the same scores your lender sees.