What credit score do I need to buy a house?

Short answer: it depends on the loan. Conventional mortgages generally require a 620 minimum. FHA loans go down to 580 with 3.5 percent down (or 500 with 10 percent down). VA and USDA loans have no official government minimum, though most lenders set their own floors around 580 to 640. Jumbo loans typically want 700 to 720-plus.

But the minimum is just the door — not the price of admission. A 620 score gets you a conventional loan with a noticeably higher rate and steeper PMI than a 740 score on the same loan. The score you need to qualify and the score you need for a good deal are two different numbers.

Here's how each loan type treats your score, and what to do wherever yours sits.

Conventional loans: 620 to get in, 740-plus for the best pricing

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac set the floor for conventional loans at 620, and that's a firm guideline rather than a federal law. In practice, 620 is the basement: you'll qualify, but you'll pay for it through loan-level price adjustments — essentially rate and fee penalties that get steeper as the score drops.

The pricing tiers matter more than the minimum. Borrowers in the mid-600s can pay meaningfully more in rate and PMI than borrowers at 740 or above. On a large loan over 30 years, the difference between "barely qualifies" pricing and "good credit" pricing can exceed the cost of a car.

To make this concrete: mortgage pricing adjusts in bands, and crossing from one band to the next — say from 679 to 680, or 719 to 720 — can shave an eighth to a quarter point off your rate. On a $400,000 loan, a quarter point is roughly $60 a month, or over $20,000 across 30 years. If you're sitting just below a band boundary, the highest-return financial move available to you might be paying down one credit card and waiting 45 days for the new balance to report.

If you're sitting at 600 to 640 and buying soon, it's worth pausing to ask which loan type actually costs less. A conventional loan at 620 with heavy adjustments sometimes loses to an FHA loan with steadier pricing — the next section explains why.

FHA loans: the accessible path at 580 (or 500)

FHA loans are the most forgiving mainstream option. With a score of 580 or higher, you can put 3.5 percent down. With a score between 500 and 579, you can still qualify — but you'll need 10 percent down. Below 500, FHA isn't available.

FHA's real advantage isn't just the low floor — it's that pricing doesn't punish lower scores as aggressively as conventional loans do. An FHA borrower at 640 often gets pricing close to an FHA borrower at 720, while the conventional gap between those scores is wide. FHA also allows higher debt-to-income ratios, up to around 50 percent or more with compensating factors, versus roughly 43 to 45 percent for conventional.

The tradeoff is mortgage insurance: FHA's MIP includes 1.75 percent upfront (usually rolled into the loan) plus an annual premium around 0.55 percent for most borrowers — and if you put less than 10 percent down, it lasts for the life of the loan. Many buyers use FHA to get in, then refinance to conventional once their score and equity improve.

VA and USDA: no official minimum, but lenders have opinions

VA loans — for eligible service members, veterans, and surviving spouses — have no government-set minimum credit score and require no down payment and no monthly mortgage insurance. In practice, most lenders impose their own minimums, commonly 580 to 620. The VA benefit is genuinely one of the best mortgage deals available; if you're eligible, it should be your first comparison.

USDA loans — for eligible rural and suburban properties — also have no official minimum, with zero down payment required. But automated underwriting systems typically want to see around 640; below that, manual underwriting is possible with compensating factors like strong reserves or low debt. Geography matters here: the property has to be in an eligible area, which covers far more of the country than most buyers assume.

Jumbo loans, for amounts above the conforming loan limit, are the strictest: expect 700 to 720-plus minimums, larger down payments, and deeper scrutiny of reserves. These loans aren't backed by Fannie, Freddie, or the government, so lenders set the rules.

Lender overlays: why two lenders give different answers

The minimums above are program minimums — the floor set by FHA, the VA, or Fannie Mae. Individual lenders are allowed to require more, and many do. This is called a lender overlay: a bank might advertise FHA loans but internally require 600 instead of 580, or price conventional loans at 620 so punitively that they're effectively unavailable.

This is why "I was told I don't qualify" from one lender means almost nothing. Another lender with different overlays may say yes to the same application. If your score is near a program minimum, shopping two or three lenders isn't optional — it's the whole game. Mortgage brokers, who work with many lenders' overlays at once, can be especially useful here.

It also means published minimums can mislead in both directions. A lender's website might say "620 minimum for conventional" while their actual pricing makes 680 the realistic entry point. Always ask for a real quote with your real numbers.

What actually moves your score before buying

If buying is months away, a few boring moves help more than any trick. Pay every bill on time — payment history is the largest scoring factor, and a single 30-day late payment can cost 60 to 100 points. Pay down credit card balances relative to their limits; high utilization is the fastest thing to fix, and score changes often show within a billing cycle or two.

Don't close old cards (you'd lose available credit and shorten your history), and don't open new credit you don't need — hard inquiries and new accounts ding the score temporarily. If you have collections or errors, address them: dispute genuine errors with the bureaus, and for legitimate collections, some lenders want them paid before closing while others don't care — ask your loan officer before paying anything, since paying an old collection can paradoxically restart its reporting clock in some scoring models.

Beware of credit repair companies promising fast score jumps. Most of what they do is dispute things you can dispute yourself for free, and some of their tactics can backfire during mortgage underwriting.

One more practical note: know which score the lender sees. The free score from your credit card app or a monitoring service is usually a VantageScore or an educational FICO variant — but mortgage lenders pull specific FICO models (older versions, in fact) that can differ from what you see by 20 points or more in either direction. Don't panic if the lender's number isn't your app's number; it's normal. And when you do start rate shopping, multiple mortgage inquiries within a focused window — typically 14 to 45 days depending on the scoring model — count as a single inquiry for scoring purposes. So shop decisively in a short window rather than spreading inquiries across months.

Score isn't the whole application

Lenders weigh four things: credit, income stability, debt-to-income ratio, and assets for down payment and reserves. A 780 score with unstable income and 55 percent DTI is a harder approval than a 660 score with steady employment, low debt, and six months of reserves.

Down payment size also interacts with score. A larger down payment can partially compensate for a weaker score on some loan types, because the lender's risk drops. And the property itself matters: condos, multi-unit homes, and manufactured homes each carry their own overlays and requirements.

If your score is the weak link, get pre-approved early — not the week you find a house. A loan officer reviewing your file months ahead can tell you exactly which lever to pull: pay down this card, don't close that account, wait for this inquiry to age. That advice is free, and it's specific to your file in a way no article can be. It also gives you a realistic price range before you fall in love with a house, which is worth more than any rate tweak — buying within a payment you can comfortably afford matters more than squeezing into the maximum the math allows.

The calm takeaway: find your loan type's real minimum, then look past it to the pricing. A 620 gets you in the door on a conventional loan; a 740 gets you the good rate. Whatever your number is today, it's a starting point you can work from — not a verdict. Scores move, programs have options, and preparation beats panic every time.