topic Re: Credit Mix "Exceptional" in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Credit Mix "Exceptional"

956442 — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 22:50:11 GMT

Does anyone have an "exceptional" credit mix rating with fewer than 7 bankcards? Do you have an exceptional credit mix with 7+ bankcards but fewer than 7 are open? Do you have fewer than 7 bankcards but one or more chage cards put you over 7 revolvers? I'm curious to see whether 7 open bankcards is the sole determining factor that gets a person an "exceptional" credit mix rating on the FICO category front end. I understand that people get diversity points in the credit mix category for having an installment loan, but it seems like I've seen several people post about 7 bankcards being the cutoff for the exceptional rating and nothing else seems to matter.

Thanks!

Re: Credit Mix "Exceptional"

FicoMike0 — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 00:33:03 GMT

I don't think I got the exceptional until I also had an installment loan.

Re: Credit Mix "Exceptional"

Thomas_Thumb — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 16:04:37 GMT

All I can say is I did not reach exceptional rating with the following:

1 open loan, 7 open cards and 2 closed cards. One open card was an AU account, one open card was an AMEX charge and two open were store only cards. The remaining 3 open cards were "bank" cards. Best I can tell is I lacked a critical mass of open "bank" cards and perhaps open cards overall.

Re: Credit Mix "Exceptional"

Realist — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 10:34:18 GMT

Which do you refer, suggesting as seven or less being better, or seven or more being better in your question? The more you have to show credit wise, would strongly suggest you should have a much more dense credit profile so long as it's being paid on successfully, and being paid down and off on time.

Diversity of credit type is going to be just that. Revolving, and installment. Credit cards are credit cards, whether one or one hundred. A green type of loan is different than a home loan, which is different than a car loan, which is different than a student loan, or a utility loan, etc, etc. Lenders want to see diversity and fortitude when handling debt. The issue with credit cards, is that if you are leveraged to the hilt across one or many, it kind of defeats most everything, bringing your likeliness of borrowing in the future, down to unlikely - unless you clean it up. One of the disadvantages of revolving lines to lenders, is you could one day wake up, and decide this is the day you max everything out. Maybe unlikely, but that's not a positive for revolving credit lines. You can't do this with installment loans.

I'm heavily in the seven plus camp, and depending on where you are online, the score will range noticeably. Each credit card provider will have their own FICO scoring "affiliate provider" metric. And then you have the three credit bureaus, and they even do their own thing independent from one another. I've since paid off all installment loans, and 95% of every site states exceptional, and the other 5% say fair or better, mixed between all mentioned. P2, has no installment loans, and theirs read exceptional across the board. Same quantity of revolving accounts, no installments.

But, I'm wanting to change that up. Due for a useful installment loan again. Score has been stuck in mid 800's for quite some time, time to give it a little heartbeat.

Re: Credit Mix "Exceptional"

Zoostation1 — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 13:46:57 GMT

I've got a revolver only profile (7 open revolvers, nothing closed on my profile). That 7th one is where I got my "exceptional" rating. It seems almost meaningless to me though.

Re: Credit Mix "Exceptional"

Jessie — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 23:16:02 GMT

It's about variety, not total number of accounts.

Re: Credit Mix "Exceptional"

SweetSpero — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 01:13:01 GMT

@Jessie wrote:
It's about variety, not total number of accounts.

Agreed. I can't remember when I got mine to exceptional, but I have different accounts including credit cards, student loans (4 open, 4 closed), car loan within the last 2 years. Mortgage is new and should be reporting soon, but wasn't factored into the exceptional rating.

You might be able to get exceptional with just 2 categories such as a few credit cards and a few student loans for example.

Re: Credit Mix "Exceptional"

Patient957 — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 02:19:01 GMT

@Jessie wrote:
It's about variety, not total number of accounts.

The number of each matters too, which is why it changes from very good to excellent when some people with a bunch of credit cards add yet another credit card. If the number didn't matter, then going from 6 to 7 credit cards, or 7 to 8, wouldn't change things. But sometimes it does.

Re: Credit Mix "Exceptional"

956442 — Sun, 16 Nov 2025 20:57:23 GMT

My P2 has 850 FICO 8 standard scores, but has received the negative reason code " Too few accounts with recent payment information" on their Fico 8 Bankcard score. Their profile has 5 open bank-issued credit card accounts (all with recent payment info), 1 closed bank-issued credit card account, 1 closed charge card, 1 open mortgage, 1 closed mortgage, 1 closed auto loan, and 3 closed student loans. All categories on their standard FICO 8 report are currently "exceptional" except for Credit Mix. There's no way that the diversity of different account types is insufficient if closed accounts count toward diversity/mix. I'm convinced that the only thing preventing the FICO Credit Mix from being labeled "exceptional" is either the total number of open accounts or total open bank-issued credit cards being 7+. P2 just opened a new credit card. I am curious to see whether 6 open cards plus 1 open mortgage puts them across the line for an exceptional credit mix once that new line reports. If not, I'm likely to have them open one more to see if 7 open bank-issued credit cards is the magic number. I'll report back when I have more information.

Re: Credit Mix "Exceptional"

Thomas_Thumb — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 15:56:06 GMT

I suspect mix will still show very good. A certain critical mass is needed for number of open bank card accounts and, I believe, revolvers as well. AU accounts are ignored when evaluating Fico mix best I can tell.

That negative reason statement: "Too few accounts with recent payment information" is always in play when critical mass of open CCs is insufficient. However, it has a trivial impact and won't make it into the top 4 negatives for most profiles.

Re: Credit Mix "Exceptional"

TrapLine — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 17:42:12 GMT

@Thomas_Thumb

In reading your comments and others over time, I often have received letters with reasons that have no basis in what has happened.

Did I miss something? Truth, I generally have not found the letters sent for declines as very useful. Nonsense statements.

Re: Credit Mix "Exceptional"

Thomas_Thumb — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 19:21:31 GMT

There is no requirement for the letters to state the true reason for a decline. It often has nothing to do with your Fico score.

It is advantageous when giving denials to infer Fico is at fault and avoid potential backlash. In truth - you are rejected by the issuer and they don't want to disclose their reasons!

P.S. Every profile has a list of Fico negative reason codes tied to it. Only the top 4 (or 2) are displayed in order of impact. As scores approach 850 all the impactful reasons have been resolved leaving only trivial sub optimal conditions. That is why some summary reports stop listing negatives when score is within 50 points of max.

It is not unusual for someone with an 840 score to get denied. In such cases an automated denial letter may pull trivial Fico reason codes that have no bearing on the decision.

Re: Credit Mix "Exceptional"

Zoostation1 — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 06:02:23 GMT

@Thomas_Thumb Not that this will ever happen, but I wonder what we'd see if lenders were legally required to give you the actual reason or reasons for denial rather than the bs we get now.

Re: Credit Mix "Exceptional"

Thomas_Thumb — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 15:43:30 GMT

I suspect they fear an increased cost in doing business. Higher legal costs due to lawsuits by rejected applicants claiming discrimination. Higher internal costs due to more onerous records keeping on applicant reviews.

Re: Credit Mix "Exceptional"

956442 — Sun, 23 Nov 2025 00:25:29 GMT

The new credit card account showed up on Equifax and TransUnion. 850 -> 835 on EQ and 850 -> 830 on TU (the inquiry was on TU). Credit Mix is now listed as exceptional on both Equifax and TransUnion. Experian has not yet updated to include the new account and still lists Credit Mix as Very Good. The 15 point new account drop and the 5 point inquiry drop were the exact point losses predicted by Experian's FICO Score Simulator.

Revolving Accounts: 8 (6 open, 2 closed)
Installment Loans, Including Mortgages: 6 (1 open mortgage, 1 closed mortgage, 1 closed auto loan, 3 closed student loans)
Bank-Issued Credit Card Accounts: 7 (6 open, 1 closed)

Current negative reason codes on Equifax Fico Score 8:
New account (obvious)
Accounts with balances (5/6 credit cards reporting a balance, all paid off monthly, but no AZE1 gaming)
Loan balances (mortgage at 88%)
Few accounts paid on time

I suspect the fourth code might disappear once the first payment posts on the new card. The reports currently say "Unknown payment history" for the new account. I'll update about that next month.

Given this change, it seems likely that an Exceptional Credit Mix rating requires 7 total bank-issued credit card accounts (open + closed) and that charge cards do not count toward this total.

Re: Credit Mix "Exceptional"

Thomas_Thumb — Sun, 23 Nov 2025 02:25:30 GMT

Thanks for the update. It sure looks like qty of bankcards is the key element in achieving an exceptional mix rating. Seven may be the magic number. I thought they all had to be open but, it appears not.

That being said, a very good mix is the ticket for a Fico 850. An exceptional rating with more accounts is meh for Fico - but can boost VantageScore significantly. A key element for top Fico score is an open loan in combination with a handful of open revolvers.

If the accounts are sufficiently aged and oldest account is atleast 15 years 850 is obtainable. In such situations Fico scores tend to be very stable if revolving utilization is low. That's true even when many cards report balances.

Back when I had an open mortgage reporting balances on 6 of 6 cards did not drop score F8 or F9 scores from 850. However, the older "mortgage Ficos" took a hit.

Unfortunately, adding a new revolving account, usually drops score (as the OP experienced) and likely impacts stability short term.

P.S. Never liked the term "exceptional" as a credit rating descriptor. It seems over the top. Much prefer "excellent"

Re: Credit Mix "Exceptional"

956442 — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 19:01:13 GMT

Update:

When Experian finally updated with the new card reporting, P2's Experian FICO 8 dropped from 850 to 836, which was right in the range of what I expected. What I did not expect was that P2's Experian FICO 9 score increased from 834 to 850 on the same day. This seems to indicate that FICO 9 doesn't penalize nearly as much for a new account and/or has great rewards for higher numbers of accounts/revolving accounts/bank card accounts/credit mix. P2's FICO 8 had been pinned to 850 for a very long time, but their FICO 9 had never been higher than 836 prior to this new card reporting (6 open bank cards, 1 closed bank card, 1 closed charge card). This is still with less than ideal revolving and isntallment utilization. No AU accounts.

My takeaway is that there seem to be a lot of points available for getting a 7th bank card or 7th open account on FICO 9, which I've never seen reported anywhere. Recently, I've been thinking about how to help my kids start off on their credit building journeys as they turn 18. I would bet that the quickest path to an 850 score on FICO 8 and 9 is to open 7 credit cards and an SSL as fast as possible and then let those accounts age.

Re: Credit Mix "Exceptional"

Thomas_Thumb — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 05:18:46 GMT

I'd be cautious with your Fico 9 conclusion. I've found EX Fico 9 to be the easiest 850 for my profile over the years. It still holds 850 with no open loans and 6 total credit cards (all open - AU card, AMEX charge, BBY store card and 3 bank cards). The AU card is ignored.

As a general rule EX F8 and F9 penalize little, if at all, for multiple cards reporting small balances.

Fico 9 may be less punitive regarding the new revolving account penalty than Fico 8. However, I don't recall seeing a significant F8/F9 penalty difference in South Jamaica's reported data. His newest account was over 12 months prior to opening a new account earlier this year.

Key points for 850 are: Aging - reach 7 years AAoA and 15 years AoOA, have a few open revolvers with decent age and have an open loan. The oldest account can be open or closed and be any type of account. Maintain a couple older "bankcard" revolvers in open status for sustainable aging.

The Exceptional mix rating is superflous for building credit and achieving 850 Fico scores. Focus on 3 good revolvers as a launch point and then add a SSL a couple years down the road.

Not all people want or are comfortable with a handful of credit cards. My daughter only wanted 2 cards and had no interest in playing the SSL game. Her scores surpassed 800 within 6 years of starting her credit journey with those 2 cards only. Too many accounts early on increases risk of late payments or interest fees.

Re: Credit Mix "Exceptional"

BrutalBodyShots — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 07:12:07 GMT

I agree with @Thomas_Thumb that F9 is easier to top out at 850 than F8. I can't remember if I had 6 cards or 7 cards at the time, but I saw 850 on 9 before 8. They've always been within a few (maybe 5) points of one another.