FICO Credit Score Range

If you ask anyone who knows much about credit scores, there’s one thing that most people know – the FICO credit score range goes from 300 to 850.  The lowest possible FICO score you can get is a 300 and a perfect, albeit unrealistic and unnecessary, score is 850.  However, knowing the range alone doesn’t really tell you much.  You need to understand the “texture” of that range.

Is the range linear or logarithmic? Is the distribution of scores even across each value or is it a normalized distribution?  The texture of the range can give you a better understanding about credit scores, much more than simply knowing the numbers in the range.

Credit Score Range

It is known that the FICO credit score range is 300 to 850, meaning every score will be a number between 300 and 850 (inclusive).  Now we know where the range begins (300) and where range ends (850), what does the curve of the range look like in terms of distribution?  Where do the scores cluster?

Distribution of Credit Scores

Here’s what the distribution of scores looks like according to myFICO, which is owned and operated by Fair Isaac Corporation, the creator of the FICO score equation:

• As we can see, the distribution is heavily skewed to the higher end of the spectrum.  A full 58% of all FICO scores in the United States are 700 or above, which is in line with the idea that the average is somewhere between 680 amd 700.  (Remember that your credit scores among the three bureaus (TransUnion, Equifax, Experian) can vary up to fifty points, so any discussion of “average” has to take that into consideration).
• A full 13% of all FICO scores are above 800 while 15% are between 300 and 599.
• Unfortunately, if you have a score between 300 and 500, you’re in the bottom 2% of the FICO credit scores.