Your credit score does not set your rate by itself. It sets a fee first. Freddie Mac calls it a loan level price adjustment, or LLPA, and it is built right into the pricing grid every conventional lender starts from.
What the fee looks like, by score
This table comes from Freddie Mac’s Exhibit 19 base grid, Bulletin 2026-09, effective 07/01/2026, for a loan with 20% down, so the loan is 80% of the home’s value. The fee is a percent of your loan amount. On a $320,000 loan, here is what each score band costs.
| Score band | Fee (% of loan) | Fee in dollars |
|---|---|---|
| 780+ | 0.375% | $1,200 |
| 760-779 | 0.625% | $2,000 |
| 740-759 | 0.875% | $2,800 |
| 720-739 | 1.25% | $4,000 |
| 700-719 | 1.375% | $4,400 |
| 680-699 | 1.75% | $5,600 |
| 660-679 | 1.875% | $6,000 |
| 640-659 | 2.25% | $7,200 |
| Under 640 (or no score) | 2.75% | $8,800 |
Read it as steps, not a smooth slope. Moving from 740-759 to 720-739 costs an extra $1,200. But the steepest single step on the whole grid is at the bottom: falling from 640-659 into the under 640 band adds $1,600, more than any other adjacent pair. If you have no credit score at all, both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae charge you the under 640 rate.
This is a fee, not your rate. On this $320,000 loan at 6.5%, with 1 point, the payment example on this page comes out to about $2,023 a month. An illustrative APR for that same 6.5% rate, assuming $3,000 in lender fees and 1 point, works out to roughly 6.69%. Change the fee assumption and the APR moves with it. The LLPA table above does not set that rate. It is a separate charge the loan buyer makes to the lender, and the lender decides whether to fold it into your rate, your closing costs, or both. Held over 5 years this example loan costs about $104,112 in interest, points, and fees combined; held the full 30 years that figure grows to about $411,342, which is the scale a one time LLPA fee sits against.
Down payment changes the fee too, and not in a straight line
The same score band gets a different fee at a different loan to value. Using the 740-759 band as the example:
| Loan to value | Fee (% of loan) |
|---|---|
| 30% or less | 0% |
| 30.01% to 60% | 0% |
| 60.01% to 70% | 0.125% |
| 70.01% to 75% | 0.375% |
| 75.01% to 80% | 0.875% |
| 80.01% to 85% | 1.0% |
| 85.01% to 90% | 0.75% |
| 90.01% to 95% | 0.625% |
| Over 95% | 0.5% |
Notice the fee rises up to the 80.01-85% band, then drops for 85.01-90% and drops again for 90.01-95%, before climbing again above 95%. Putting less money down does not always cost more on this grid. The real turning point is crossing 80% loan to value, because that is where lenders start requiring mortgage insurance, a separate monthly cost this table does not include at all.
What this grid does not cover
A few limits matter before you read your own number into this table:
- FHA, VA, and USDA loans are not on this grid. They use their own mortgage insurance or funding fee rules, not LLPAs. A 620 score shopping an FHA loan should not use this table.
- This is the base grid only. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae stack extra fees on top for things like adjustable rate loans, condos, investment properties, second homes, manufactured homes, and cash out refinances. Those add-ons are not shown here.
- It is not your whole closing cost. The LLPA is one line among origination charges, title fees, and other costs on your Loan Estimate.
- It expires. This grid is effective 07/01/2026 under Bulletin 2026-09. Freddie Mac updates it periodically, so check the source link for the current version before relying on it for a loan closing later.
What this means for you
The fee curve rewards moving up a band, but the reward is not even. Climbing out of a low band saves more than climbing the last few points near the top. Ask your lender to show you the LLPA line on your own Loan Estimate, and ask what score and loan to value they used to price it. That is the only way to know if their number matches the current grid.