In detail
An average credit score is not a score that any individual consumer holds. It is a summary statistic derived by taking the credit scores of many consumers in a group, adding them together, and dividing by the number of consumers in that group. The group might be defined by geography, age range, income bracket, or another characteristic. Because different scoring models such as FICO and VantageScore use different formulas and data, the average calculated from one model will not match the average from another. Averages are often reported by credit reporting companies, researchers, and news organizations to describe broad trends. For example, a study might state that the average credit score in one state is higher than in another, or that the average for a particular age cohort has shifted over time. These figures are descriptive, not prescriptive. They do not indicate what any individual's score is, nor do they serve as a target that a person should aim to reach. Federal law such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act governs how consumer credit information is handled, but it does not define an average credit score. It is important to distinguish an average credit score from a credit score range or a score band. A score range is the full set of possible scores a model can produce, while a score band groups scores into categories such as poor, fair, good, very good, or exceptional. An average falls somewhere within a range and may fall into a particular band. Because averages depend on the specific population measured, they can change when the population changes, even if no individual's score has changed. Consumers who see an average credit score in a news report should understand it as a group statistic, not a personal evaluation.