Glossary

VantageScore vs. FICO

Written by JaredLast reviewed 2026-08-25

What's the difference between a VantageScore and a FICO Score?

They're two separate, proprietary credit-scoring models, built by two different companies, from two different formulas. FICO Scores come from the Fair Isaac Corporation. VantageScore comes from VantageScore Solutions, a company jointly owned by Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Both take the same raw material — a credit report — and turn it into a three-digit number a lender can rank borrowers by. But the formulas that do the converting are different, proprietary, and not published in full by either company, so the two outputs are not the same score wearing a different label. Experian, which sells both, states this plainly: a FICO Score and a VantageScore credit score differ "because credit scores from the two companies might consider different data points and weight the same data points differently."

Do VantageScore and FICO score on the same scale?

Mostly, but not entirely. Base FICO Scores and current VantageScore versions (4.0, 4plus, and 5.0) both run 300 to 850, per Experian's own comparison of the two. That shared range is exactly what makes the two easy to confuse — a "700" sounds like the same thing regardless of which company produced it, even though it isn't.

There's a third wrinkle most comparisons skip: FICO also sells industry-specific scores built for particular lending decisions, and the auto-lending version — FICO Auto Score — doesn't use the 300–850 range at all. It runs 250 to 900. So "FICO" alone isn't even one scale; an auto lender pulling a FICO Auto Score is reading a different range than a consumer checking a base FICO Score.

Why can the same number mean a different risk level on each model?

Because the two models don't require the same data to produce a score, and they don't weigh the data they do have the same way. FICO needs an account at least 6 months old with activity reported in the past 6 months before it can generate a score at all. VantageScore can score a file with just one account on it, even one under 6 months old — so a thin file that FICO's minimum leaves unscored can still produce a VantageScore.

The collections rows are the ones most often stated too broadly. Per Experian, only FICO Scores 9 and 10 ignore paid collections — a lender still pulling FICO Score 8, which Experian lists as a live auto-lending option, is reading a score that counts them. And the "$500" figure that circulates alongside this is a credit-reporting rule, not a scoring rule: Experian states that paid medical collections, unpaid medical collections under $500, and unpaid medical collections under one year old no longer appear on credit reports at all. That threshold governs what the bureaus furnish, not how FICO weighs what remains.

None of these differences make one model "harder" or "easier" across the board. They make the two models disagree unpredictably at the margins — which is exactly the problem for a borrower trying to guess a number in advance.

Where does a 580 fall on each model's risk tiers?

Below is the concrete version of the problem. myFICO publishes its own tier names for the FICO Score; Experian publishes its own tier names for VantageScore 4.0, applied specifically to the auto-lending data this site's own rate table uses.

That's not a rounding difference. A borrower who knows their FICO Score is 580 and reads "Fair" has a reasonable expectation of being close to "Good." A borrower whose VantageScore is 580 and checks this site's Experian-sourced rate table lands in "Subprime," a full tier below "Near prime." The number is identical. The label — and the APR row it points to — is not. Experian's own comparison of the two models makes the same point with the "good credit" threshold: 670 on the FICO scale, 661 on the VantageScore scale, a 9-point gap in where the identical qualitative label starts.

Which score does an auto lender actually pull?

There's no single answer, and that's the point of labeling every rate table on this site with its model. Experian's own guidance on auto financing says a lender might use FICO Score 8 or 9, one of the FICO Score 10 suite scores, an industry-specific FICO Auto Score, or a VantageScore — and adds that an applicant typically won't know in advance which one a given lender will pull. This site's own auto APR table, covered in full at auto loan APR after bankruptcy, by credit tier, is built on Experian's Q1 2026 data, which prices its tiers on VantageScore 4.0. A reader whose lender instead pulls a FICO Auto Score is being scored on a 250–900 scale that table was never built to describe.

Can you convert a VantageScore into a FICO Score, or the other way around?

No — not with any precision, and neither company publishes a formula for doing it. Experian's own comparison of the two models states the reason directly: they weight the same underlying data differently and consider different data points to begin with, so there's no fixed offset that reliably turns one number into the other. Online "conversion charts" that promise a FICO-to-VantageScore translation aren't sourced to either company. The two numbers can land close together for a given credit file, or they can land in different named risk tiers entirely, as the 580 example above shows — and there's no way to know which, for a specific file, without pulling both scores.

This page describes how two commercial scoring companies build and label their products; it isn't a prediction of what any individual's FICO Score or VantageScore will be, and it isn't legal or credit advice. For how a bankruptcy filing itself tends to move a score in the weeks after filing, see does filing bankruptcy raise or lower your credit score; for how long the filing itself stays on a credit report regardless of score recovery, see how long bankruptcy stays on your credit report. For the fuller financing timeline by chapter, see car loan after Chapter 7 bankruptcy and car loan during Chapter 13.