Experian Connect API Now Supports VantageScore 4.0

Experian has enhanced its Experian Connect API platform to offer VantageScore 4.0 for use in rental screening. This addition will enable consumers, property managers, landlords, and rental screening providers to leverage a more modern credit scoring model when evaluating prospective renters. Zillow is among the platforms now leveraging VantageScore 4.0 through Experian’s Connect API platform to support rental screening.

The enhancement follows the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) recent approval of VantageScore 4.0 for use in mortgage decisions, a move aimed at modernizing mortgage credit evaluation and increasing access to homeownership. Making the same scoring model available in rental screening helps create greater consistency across the housing journey.

The Experian Connect API platform provides secure, scalable access to differentiated credit data and analytics that rental screening providers, landlords and property managers can use to help identify qualified applicants. With VantageScore 4.0, clients can now incorporate a score that uses trended credit data, rental payment history, and alternative data to better reflect consumers’ financial behaviors.

“Modernizing credit decisioning is critical to expanding access across the housing ecosystem,” said Michele Bodda, President of Verification Solutions, Employer Services and Housing at Experian. “By enabling access to VantageScore 4.0 through our Connect API platform, we are helping ensure that the tools used to evaluate renters today more closely align with those used to evaluate future homeowners. Combined with our leadership in rent reporting, this helps more consumers demonstrate creditworthiness and progress along their housing journey.”

Key benefits of VantageScore 4.0 via Experian Connect API

VantageScore 4.0 is the first tri‑bureau scoring model to combine trended credit data with machine learning, offering a more dynamic view of consumer credit behavior across 24 months. The model also scores roughly 33 million consumers who may have been unscoreable under older scoring models. The key benefits of VantageScore 4.0 include:

• Greater accuracy through trended credit data and expanded predictive attributes
• More inclusive scoring, particularly for renters and consumers with thin credit files
• Alignment with mortgage standards as lenders adopt VantageScore 4.0 following FHFA modernization
• Easy integration, with no changes required to existing API workflows

“A renter’s financial story is more than a single snapshot,” said Michael Sherman, senior vice president of Zillow Rentals. “VantageScore 4.0 helps housing providers better understand applicants and gives renters the opportunity to have more of their financial history considered in the application process — helping ensure they are evaluated with the most complete picture currently possible.”

Experian’s analysis shows that more than 83% of consumers see a credit score increase when positive rental payments are added, with an average boost of more than 24 points. Additionally, 15.2% of previously unscoreable consumers become scoreable, and one‑third move into a higher credit score band. As the first credit bureau to incorporate positive rental payment data in credit reports, Experian enables renters to build credit through Experian RentBureau and Experian Boost. These innovations, combined with access to VantageScore 4.0 through Experian Connect API platform, advance a more inclusive and modern credit ecosystem for renters nationwide.