Fannie Mae Removes Minimum Credit Score Requirements From Du

Fannie Mae‘s November 2025 Selling Guide, released on Wednesday, detailed several updates, including expanding Fannie’s Day 1 Certainty offerings to include representation and warranty relief for undisclosed non-mortgage liabilities, expanding the eligibility for the age of credit document exception for single-closing construction loans and removing minimum credit score requirements from Desktop Underwriter (DU).

As a result of the latter update, Fannie Mae will remove minimum credit score requirements for loans submitted through its DU system starting on Nov. 16, 2025. As a result, the current 620 minimum representative or average median credit score will be removed for new loan casefiles created on or after Nov. 16, 2025.

Other related updates will apply to files submitted or resubmitted beginning the weekend of Nov. 15, 2025, an announcement from Fannie Mae said. Instead of applying a minimum score, DU will use its own analysis of borrower risk factors to determine loan eligibility.

Fannie Mae also updated requirements for documenting nontraditional credit and homebuyer education. The DU system will notify lenders when they need to establish a nontraditional credit history or require homebuyer education in cases where a borrower has no traditional credit or installment account on record.

Opportunities for borrowers with thin credit files

Several industry experts took to LinkedIn to explore what the removal of minimum credit score requirements from DU means for the industry. Jon Overfelt, director of sales and owner of American Security Mortgage Corp., penned a post about the update and shared with HousingWire that the update caught his eye because of how it opens opportunities for “borrowers with thin and no credit files.”

“I also think that [Fannie Mae] is signaling to the credit providers that they have enough borrower data now that other options are coming besides a credit report. Think about it, when you access a borrower’s bank statement, how much data can you validate from that? A lot, you see it all in real time.”

Overfelt’s post garnered mixed comments. Leora Ruzin, a certified mortgage banker, commented that she had “so many questions” about the update, including how lenders will underwrite these loans.

“I have always said there is more to a borrower than their credit score and have been a fan of incorporating alternative criteria to qualify their ability to repay. HOWEVER, this move will bring in lots of ‘unknowns’ for lenders, and I have deep concerns over how we can ensure every lender is applying the same guidelines and criteria for utilizing alternative trade lines,” Ruzin told HousingWire.

She continued, “Also, the lack of transparency on this new ‘model’ or how to price the loans can welcome bad actors into the mix. When it comes to securitization or credit risk transfers, how will these loans affect the overall quality? Does this mean that spec pools for credit score are effectively gone?”

Ruzin also said that she hopes Fannie Mae provides additional guidance before the change is implemented.

A spokesperson for Fannie Mae’s regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, told HousingWire in a statement that “nothing in Fannie and Freddie’s underwriting standards have changed. As we move toward competition and beyond accepting only one type of credit score model, language in the guide needs to be tweaked.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated with a statement from the FHFA.