Broker reports tri-merge costs exceeding $200 in 2026
Rumors of significant increases in credit reporting costs began circulating in the final months of 2025. As 2026 gets underway, mortgage brokers are reporting those exact costs.
Credit reporting costs for tri-merge credit pulls are exceeding $200, leading brokers and industry leaders to search for answers. One California broker said changes must be made.
Matt Gouge (pictured top), mortgage broker and mortgage consultant at Answer Home Loans, said more brokers are passing these credit costs on to customers because it’s too much for small brokerages to absorb.
“It's affecting how mortgage brokers do business,” Gouge told Mortgage Professional America. “I've seen more than I ever have in the past that are passing that cost on to the buyer. Maybe they refund them if they do a loan with them. If you start getting into $200 plus to do a tri-merge credit pull, you don't even have to be that busy of a mortgage broker ... I pulled 20 credit pulls this week, and that's $4,000. I mean, that's wild.”
An ‘insane’ price jump
Gouge notes that the cost a few years ago is a fraction of what brokers are paying now for the same data.
“The average credit report cost has gone crazy,” Gouge said. “As recently as five years ago, it was like $30 or $40. And then, it jumps up a little bit. And then in 2024, it's like, ‘Oh my gosh. How are they 100 bucks already?’ In 2025, it goes from $100 to $150.”
While credit vendors charge this cost, Gouge said they don’t have a choice but to raise their prices because of what the credit bureaus are charging them.
“Most credit vendors, because of what the bureaus are charging them, have to charge the broker, the end consumer, $200, $212, $220 for a tri-merge report,” he said. “It's insane. When you're dealing with something like that, it's not like their costs went up. It's not like they're making sandwiches, and the bread and salami cost more. It’s data, and they just have a monopoly on it.
“They're like, ‘You know what, we want to make a little bit bigger margins this year.’ I can't imagine their cost to deliver has changed dramatically, if at all. But you know, mortgage brokers are paying 5x what they paid five years ago. That's crazy.”
A breaking point
The credit bureaus and FICO have been going back and forth, pointing fingers at each other for some of the price increases. FICO called VantageScore and the credit bureaus “a de facto monopoly.”
Industry leaders have offered possible solutions. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) called on the FHFA to reduce the number of credit scores required for a mortgage to just one for borrowers with a credit score of 700 or higher.
Kimber White, president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB), suggested that all credit should be reported to all three agencies. And Brendan McKay, chief advocacy officer and co-founder of the Broker Action Coalition (BAC), suggested a way for consumers to have a portable credit report, allowing them to use the same report to shop with multiple lenders.
Gouge thought all of those plans were potentially good solutions to the problem.
“Yeah, I like all those ideas,” he said. “It's not rocket science, and it doesn't feel like it's something impossible to figure out. The one-score model, I know the pushback to it is that it's going to increase risk, because there's not as much data. I've looked at thousands of credit reports. If somebody's got a good credit profile, whether it's a 711 or a 722 or a 718 with those three different bureaus, like, the good is good.
“Then if you've got delinquencies, missed payments and credit events that negatively impact you, it's going to impact you across all of them as well. There seem to be endless different solutions for this, and it shouldn't be this expensive, and it shouldn't just be the way it's always been, because it's the way it's always been.”
At a time when affordability is under the microscope, not just in the mortgage industry but across all financial sectors, Gouge believes something has to change with these soaring credit reporting costs.
“We're reaching a breaking point, so something's got to change,” he said. “And I think it does. I don’t know what will happen, but something’s got to change.”
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