Minimum requirements for 850 on FICO 8

[BrutalBodyShots]

I'd like your take on this one based on your experience, @Thomas_Thumb. 

I've always understood there to be 2 requirements in order to obtain a perfect 850 FICO 8 score...

1 - 3+ open bank cards

2 - An open installment loan

In short, an 850 could be arrived at with as few as 4 accounts.

Naturally there are other factors that can aid in hitting 850 like no scoreable inquiries, no revolvers opened in the last 12 months, AZEO, aging metrics being capped out, utilization optimized, etc. My perception however is that those shortcomings could be overcome (buffer) where the other two I listed could not be. 

Does your understanding align with mine, or do you view it differently. What other "deal breakers" (if any) do you know that would prevent someone from an 850? 

I'm assuming a clean file, of course

[pizzadude]

---

@BrutalBodyShots wrote:

I'd like your take on this one based on your experience, @Thomas_Thumb. 

I've always understood there to be 2 requirements in order to obtain a perfect 850 FICO 8 score...

1 - 3+ open bank cards

2 - An open installment loan

In short, an 850 could be arrived at with as few as 4 accounts.

Naturally there are other factors that can aid in hitting 850 like no scoreable inquiries, no revolvers opened in the last 12 months, AZEO, aging metrics being capped out, utilization optimized, etc. My perception however is that those shortcomings could be overcome (buffer) where the other two I listed could not be. 

Does your understanding align with mine, or do you view it differently. What other "deal breakers" (if any) do you know that would prevent someone from an 850? 

I'm assuming a clean file, of course

---

I'd guess that there's some minimum AAoA requirements to go along with this also - accounts have to be opened for some period of time before they'd be able to be eligible for a maxed out FICO score.  

[BrutalBodyShots]

---

@pizzadude wrote:

---

---

I'd guess that there's some minimum AAoA requirements to go along with this also - accounts have to be opened for some period of time before they'd be able to be eligible for a maxed out FICO score.  

---

I don't think that's the case, at least no where near the cap of 90 months that exists for AAoA. That's what I meant when I said certain factors can be overcome by "buffer" with FICO 8, which can be up to ~25 points or so. With most AAoA thresholds being "worth" around 3-5 points, one could theoretically have an AAoA that's 5-8 threhsold points below ideal and still boast an 850; that could be an AAoA of 4.5-5.5 years, for example. So while we could therefore state that an AAoA of (say) 4.5-5.5 years is required, I don't think that in most cases that metric is actually what's going to be holding someone back from hitting 850.

[Thomas_Thumb]

Three revolvers and an installment loan on file is sufficient for a Fico 8, 850. The loan does not need to be open. 850 with a closed loan has been documented on EX a few times and EQ by Disdreamin back in 10/2015. See his thread "850 with newly opened accounts". [Side note: Disdreamin had multiple recently opened CCs. However, the only score to reach 850 was EQ - the new account HPs were all on TU and EX.]

Aging is a requirement directly and indirectly. There have been no reported Fico 8 850s with AoOA under 14.5 years or AAoA under 6.5 years that I have come across. Not sure there is a hard threshold on these 2 factors. I'd put minimums at 14 years AoOA and 6 years AAoA. 

File thickness is important. Those with thick files can clearly achieve and retain 850s with more suboptimal conditions in play - such as a HP or even a new revolving account. In the case of adding a new revolver and holding 850, a thick, well aged, file with an open loan is manditory.

Once AoOA reaches 20 years, I don't believe greater aging (credit history) helps except as an anchor to minimize AAoA drops when new accounts are opened. Of course, thick files help with maintaining AAoA as well.

As we move into the era of VS4, file thickness takes center stage for achieving 850. That is also true with VS3. I've only seen one poster report VS3 850s. Iirc they had more than 15 accounts. I never came close on VS3 - plateau at 835 (8 cards with 7 open and, 2 mortgages with 1 open) and 828 (with 6 cards all open, 1 mortgage open). Mortgage now closed.

[JamesS84]

You need low credit utilization too. Time is a factor as well. It takes years.

[BrutalBodyShots]

@Thomas_Thumb, that's interesting that you've seen an 850 with a closed loan (not open) on a 4 account profile. I wouldn't think that to be possible without the Amount of Debt bonus in place from the loan being open. The closed loan in question, do you recall the type? Do you recall the other profile factors like aging metrics on that 4 account profile?

Funny that you bring up VS3 850s. I've had them off and on for 3-4 years now. I fluctuate between 838 and 850 (almost always +12 and -12) from what appears to me to be a revolving dollars threshold point.

F8/9/10 have historically been much easier to cap at 850; I did it years earlier with those versions relative to VS3.

[Thomas_Thumb]

@BrutalBodyShots 

Congrats on the VS3 850s! That much more rare than Fico 8/9/10 850s.

As I recall, back in 2019 you used to report a VS3 plateau at 836. You must have bulked up since then.

How many open/closed cards and open/closed loans do you now have on file? Do you get a VS4 score? Also, what industry option 900s have you realized on F 8/9/10?

Side note: The "thin file" 850 poster without an open loan was Ubuntu or something like that. His posts were from 11/20/2015 in the "FICO high achievers who have a Fico score of atleast 760" thread iirc. He was a short timer poster during 2015-2016. He claimed to have 4 total open accounts -all cards at the time of his 850 and that his closed loan was no longer on file. He also mentioned having 2 AU cards that did not affect his utilization or Fico 8 score.

[BrutalBodyShots]

---

@Thomas_Thumb wrote:

He even claimed his closed loan was no longer on file.

---

@Thomas_Thumb 

I'd seriously question anything he had to say then, as 850 being achieved without diversity of credit mix being satisfied? Highly doubtful, IMO.

Yes, in 2019 I don't recall my VS3s ever going above 836 or 838.  A couple of years later, 841  was a common score I saw. I've never seen a score in the 842-849 range.

Overall, not much has changed with my profile since 2019. At the time I had 7 revolvers, where I have 9 now. My oldest dropped off since then; in 2019 my AoORA was 18 years, where now it's only 11. I had 2 closed cards on file then, where now I have 2. I had both an open and closed mortgage on file in 2019, where now I just have the open one (the closed one fell off). I had 2 closed auto loans on my file in 2019, now I only have one. I opened a HELOC in 2021, so that wasn't on my reports in 2019. It has sat idle, unused / never drawn upon since being opened to this day. My AAoA back then was ~7 years, where it's now > 8 years. I can't think of anything else noteworthy, but if you can think of anything I may be overlooking let me know.

I used to get my VS4 through a Synchrony card I have, but my reports have been frozen for years and you can't get your score through them with your reports frozen. I want to say in 2020 or 2021 (the last time I saw my VS4) it was 845. I do remember it being higher than my VS3s at the time. 

Industry option 900s I've seen have been EX BCE8, TU BCE8 and TU Auto 8. Those were all back in 2019-2021 though with AZEO in place. I haven't tried AZEO at any point in the last 4+ years / haven't done a 40 score pull when optimized, so I'd imagine my shot at more 900s is greater today. I have seen 850s across all 8/9/10 scores when not at AZEO though; they are all much easier to max IMO.

EDIT: This is what VS3 has looked like for me over the last year:

[Thomas_Thumb]

@BrutalBodyShots 

Here is a link to Disdreamin's interesting thread discussing EQ 850 with multiple new/recent accounts on file. He has open loans at high B/L ratio along with a thick file. All HPs were on TU and EX and those scores could not regain 850. He provides good data.

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/General-Credit-Topics/850-with-newly-opened-accounts/m-p/4293248#

Here is a link to Ubutu's posts on 850 with only 4 open CC accounts supposedly no closed loans remaining on file. He lists all 3 CRA F8 scores but, fails to tie them to the specific CRA. He mentions scores dropping to 820s when a couple new cards were opened. His discussion on score drops relating to no cards reporting and multiple cards reporting is spot on. So, he has some experience monitoing and analyzing scores.

He also shares an interesting observation about one of his AMEX charge accounts going inactive then losing points when it 1st reports again then later regaining them after the card has reported a 2nd or 3rd time. Over the years, others have reported score drops when an "inactive" accounts begins reporting activity. There are threads discussing this observed behavior.

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Our-Forums-FICO-High-Achievers-Who-has-a...

[BrutalBodyShots]

@Thomas_Thumb in the first linked thread, it seems that the accounts opened were not credit cards, so scorecard reassignment to New Revolver was not incurred. Is that correct?

In the second if I'm reading it correctly, the profile contained no open or closed loan on file like you said and consisted of 3 credit cards and one charge card. The other part though that I think needs to be considered is that they stated that two AU accounts were present. We do know that AU accounts can artificially inflate scores, so I'd imagine they played a role in that data point provided.