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Convert Vantage to Fico

Convert Vantagescore to Fico“How to convert Vantagescore to Fico?” is a question I get in the mail too often. Even though Fico and Vantagescore are quite similar, they use different formulas and weigh things differently. Thus, you can try to convert Vantagescore to Fico and vise versa using the following methods only for kicks. Do not use the following conversions for accuracy or any other practical purpose.

Which VantageScore is this?

First thing you need to know is which Vantage score you wish to convert to fico, because not all Vantage versions use the same scale. While VantageScore 1.0 and 2.0 rages from 0 to 1000, the newer versions VantageScore 3.0 and VantageScore 4.0 (introduced in 2013) uses the same scale FICO uses, 300-850, so that conversion between them is straight forward and very easy. More information on VantageScore 4.0 can be found here.





That having said, the two most common ways for converting between Fico and old Vantagescore 2.0 are range conversion & direct linear conversion.

Range Conversion

This method requires you to first determine which range your Vantagescore 2.0 falls into, and then translate that range to the appropriate Fico range.

For example, as illustrated below, a Vantage score of 750 falls within the ‘Prime’ range, which corresponds to the Average/Low Fico range, i.e. 580-680.

This method has 2 main drawbacks:

  • While Vantagescore 2.0 categories are distributed evenly across the scale, Fico scores categories are not.
  • While Vantagescore 2.0 has 5 risk categories, Fico has 6.
Convert Vantagescore to Fico

Direct Linear Conversion

This method uses the following formulas to convert Vantage to Fico and vise versa:

  • Vantagescore = (FICO – 300) * 0.89 + 501
  • FICO = (Vantagescore – 501) * 1.12 + 300

For example, a 861 Fico score converts to 840 Vantagescore using: (681 – 300) * 0.89 + 501 = 840. A 814 Vantagescore converts to a 650 FICO using: (814 – 501) x 1.12 + 300 = 650.
Although linear conversion is very simple, it doesn’t account for the differences in how each score weighed various factors. Thus, the resulting FICO score is likely to be different from your ACTUAL FICO score, and more often than not these formulas seem to yield drastically unexpected results.

Bottom Line

Converting Vantagescore 2.0 to FICO is not like converting Fahrenheit to Celsius. These scores use different models, apply different weights and even distribute scores across the score range differently. Try the conversion for kicks, but not accuracy.