What FICO score do lenders use for personal loan applications?

The FICO score landscape: FICO has released many scoring models since 1989. FICO Score 8 (released 2009) remains the most widely used by lenders across all credit products. FICO Score 9 (released 2014) treats medical debt differently (less negatively) and ignores paid-off collection accounts. Some lenders have adopted this version, especially those targeting health-care-related populations. FICO Score 10 / 10T (released 2020) is the newest version. Uses trended data (showing whether balances are increasing or decreasing over time). Adoption is slow - most lenders still use Score 8. VantageScore (created by all three bureaus jointly): an alternative scoring model. VantageScore 3.0 and 4.0 are used by some fintech personal loan platforms. Note: free scores from Credit Karma and many credit monitoring services typically show VantageScore, not FICO Score.

Why scores differ across bureaus: Each bureau collects slightly different data. Accounts may be reported to all three bureaus or only one or two. A lender may pull from Experian only. Your Experian FICO Score 8 may be 715 while your TransUnion FICO Score 8 is 695 - both are valid scores from the same model applied to slightly different data.

How to see which score a lender uses: Ask the lender directly during the prequalification process: 'Which credit bureau and which score model do you use?' This is a legitimate question and lenders should be able to answer it. Some lenders pull all three bureaus and use the middle score.