Today's National FHA Mortgage Rates

National FHA Mortgage Rates vs Conventional Mortgage Rates

Compare Interest Rate, APR, Program Fees, Monthly Payment, and Total Loan Cost

Borrowers compare FHA against conventional pricing and usually stop at the note rate, where FHA tends to win. That comparison is incomplete, and the number that completes it is already printed next to the rate.

Compare the two on APR and on total loan cost, which is the principal, the total interest you pay across the life of the loan, and every premium along the way. Compare the monthly payment the same way: an FHA payment is principal and interest plus the annual premium, while a conventional payment at 20 percent down is principal and interest alone, so the program with the lower note rate can still carry the higher monthly payment. To price FHA against every other program side by side, start from today's national mortgage rates. The table below shows what each APR is actually made of.

Program Fees

FHA charges two mortgage insurance premiums, and together they are the whole reason an FHA APR runs above its note rate. The upfront premium is 1.75 percent of the base loan amount, and it is normally financed into the loan rather than paid at closing, which means you borrow it and then pay interest on it. The annual premium is charged monthly. Its rate depends on your loan-to-value ratio and your term, and HUD publishes the schedule.

Read the right-hand column again, because it is the most consequential number on this page and almost nobody prints it. At 90 percent LTV the premium stops after 11 years. At 90.01 percent it never stops. The rate is identical in those two rows. What changes is the duration.

The arithmetic is worth doing before you choose a down payment. On a hypothetical $300,000 base loan the upfront premium is $5,250, and if you finance it, as most borrowers do, you amortize $305,250 rather than $300,000 and pay interest on the premium for the life of the loan. The annual premium is then charged against your outstanding balance, so at 0.55 percent it runs on the order of $140 a month in the first year and eases slowly as the balance falls. At 96.5 percent LTV you pay it for the full term rather than for 11 years. Canceling it early means refinancing out of FHA, which means qualifying again at whatever rates exist then. These are real costs, they are knowable in advance, and they belong in the comparison against a conventional loan.

Occupancy Requirements

FHA insures loans on a principal residence only. There is no FHA second-home loan and no FHA investment-property loan, which is a genuine difference from conventional financing rather than a paperwork detail. It also means occupancy is not one of the levers that moves an FHA rate the way it moves a conventional one, because there is only one occupancy type on offer. Two-to-four-unit properties are eligible if you live in one of the units, and FHA publishes separate, higher loan limits for them.

Rate Lock Period

A rate is only real for as long as it is locked. Lock periods typically run from 15 to 60 days, and a longer lock generally prices slightly higher, because the lender carries the risk of the market moving before you close. Choose the lock against your real closing timeline rather than the shortest one on the sheet. The lock holds your note rate; it does not hold the mortgage insurance schedule, which is set by HUD rather than by your lender, so read the two as separate numbers on your Loan Estimate.

Calculate What FHA Mortgage Insurance Will Cost You

Upfront MIP, Annual MIP, How Long You Pay It, and the Lifetime Total

Everything above is the rule. This is your number. Enter your price, your down payment and your term, and the calculator returns the upfront premium, the monthly premium, how many years you will pay it, and what it adds up to over that time. That last figure is the one the rest of the web leaves out, and it is usually the one that decides FHA against conventional. Watch what happens when you move the down payment from 3.5 percent to 10 percent: the premium rate barely shifts, and the total collapses, because you have crossed the 90 percent line and bought your way out of paying it for the full term. The premiums come from HUD's published schedule for the standard tier; if your base loan is large enough to reach HUD's higher-balance tier, the calculator will tell you. Taxes, homeowners insurance and any HOA dues are not included, so your actual payment obligation will be greater.

What Affects Today's National FHA Mortgage Rates

Credit Score, LTV, Loan Amount, Occupancy, Property Type, Program Costs, and Rate Lock

Borrower and program factors change your pricing, so your quote is built from your scenario rather than from one national figure. On FHA the biggest surprise is credit score: it does not change your mortgage insurance at all.

Credit score. On a conventional loan your score is priced directly by the agency. Fannie Mae publishes a loan-level price adjustment matrix, and at 90.01 to 95 percent loan-to-value the adjustment climbs steeply as the score falls. FHA has no equivalent. HUD's premium tables key off base loan amount, loan-to-value and term, and credit score is not an input to them at all. Fannie Mae's matrix says so in its own words: FHA, VA, Rural Development Section 502 and HUD Section 184 mortgages "are excluded" from these adjustments.

That brings up the asymmetry that decides more FHA-versus-conventional questions than the rate does. A conventional borrower's borrower-paid mortgage insurance ends. Under the Homeowners Protection Act the servicer must terminate it automatically once the balance reaches 78 percent of the original value, provided you are current on payments, and you can request cancellation at 80 percent subject to conditions. Lender-paid mortgage insurance, where the cost is built into the rate instead, does not cancel at all. FHA mortgage insurance above 90 percent LTV does not cancel at all, and the CFPB is explicit (opens in a new tab) that FHA loans sit outside that framework. The conventional borrower's insurance is a temporary cost that falls away as they pay down the loan. The FHA borrower's, in most cases, is permanent until they refinance out. That is FHA's single biggest structural disadvantage and it belongs in the comparison alongside everything above.

So the honest summary is a trade, not a win. At 90.01 to 95 percent LTV, a 660 score adds a 1.625 percent price adjustment to a conventional loan, which the lender passes through in the rate, plus private mortgage insurance that is itself priced by credit score. It costs an FHA borrower nothing extra on either count. That is a real advantage and for a weaker-credit borrower it can be decisive. Move the same borrower up to 780 and conventional charges 0.250 percent, while FHA still charges the same mortgage insurance it charges everyone, and that insurance never stops. The stronger your credit, the weaker FHA's case. That is not a criticism of the program; it is how it is designed. Run it on APR and total loan cost over the years you actually expect to hold the loan. That is a calculation a lender should be doing with you, not for you.

The remaining factors move an FHA quote much as they move any other:

• Loan-to-value and down payment: more equity lowers risk, and on FHA it also decides whether your mortgage insurance ever ends.
• Loan amount: a higher annual premium tier applies above a base-loan-amount threshold that HUD sets, so confirm the current threshold against your loan size rather than assuming.
• Debt-to-income: a lower DTI supports both approval and pricing, and it is your recurring debt obligations, not just your income, that set it. HUD's average FHA purchase borrower runs a 44.91 percent DTI (FHA FY2025 Annual Report to Congress), higher than conventional underwriting typically likes, and that tolerance is much of FHA's appeal.
• Loan purpose: purchase, rate-and-term refinance, and cash-out refinance each price differently. If you already hold an FHA loan, the streamline refinance drops most of the documentation, but it keeps you inside FHA and inside its mortgage insurance; leaving the program altogether means a conventional refinance and requalifying at whatever rates exist then.
• Discount points: paying points buys the note rate down, and their cost is folded into the APR, so a quote with points and a quote without them are only comparable on APR.
• Occupancy type: principal residence only, so this lever does not exist on FHA.
• Property type: single-family, condominium, townhome, manufactured and two-to-four-unit homes each carry their own requirements, and a condominium has to clear FHA project eligibility before the loan can close.
• Rate type and term: fixed and adjustable price on different curves, and a 15-year fixed carries both a lower rate and a materially lower annual premium than a 30-year. For the 30-year on its own, see our FHA 30-year fixed purchase rates.
• Rate lock: the quote holds for the lock period you choose, and longer locks price higher.

FHA Eligibility and Cost Factors

Program Eligibility, Property Type, Occupancy, Documentation, Loan Purpose, and Closing Costs

FHA program rules determine both eligibility and cost: the same HUD handbook that decides whether you qualify also fixes what your mortgage insurance costs and how long you pay it. FHA writes the rule as a maximum loan-to-value, not as a minimum down payment, which is a distinction worth keeping straight because it is how the rule is actually written. Per HUD Handbook 4000.1, a borrower with a minimum decision credit score of 580 or above is eligible for maximum financing, which on a purchase is 96.5 percent of the adjusted value, the 3.5 percent down payment everyone quotes. A score of 500 to 579 is capped at 90 percent LTV, which is the 10 percent down payment. Below 500 there is no FHA loan.

Notice what that second tier quietly does: a borrower who puts 10 percent down because their score requires it lands on the good side of the mortgage insurance duration line, and pays the annual premium for 11 years rather than for the full term. A borrower with a 620 score putting 3.5 percent down pays it forever. The weaker credit profile can end up with the shorter insurance obligation.

Loan limits. FHA sets a national floor and ceiling for each calendar year, calculated as 65 percent and 150 percent of the national conforming loan limit, with counties in between set against local median prices. Because the figures reset annually, use HUD's official FHA mortgage limits lookup (opens in a new tab) for the county you are buying in. If you are buying in Florida, the county-by-county FHA, VA and conventional limits are laid out on our Florida mortgage rates page.

Who actually uses FHA. The program's reputation lags its borrowers. In FY2025 the average FHA borrower's credit score was 679, a ten-year high, and 83.03 percent of FHA purchase loans went to first-time buyers, whose average age was 37.45 (it was 29.84 in 2000). FHA financed about 21 percent of purchase originations by dollar volume. These are HUD's own figures, from the FY2025 Annual Report to Congress on the MMI Fund (opens in a new tab). FHA is not a last-resort product. It is the first-time buyer's product, and increasingly the older first-time buyer's product.

That same report puts the MMI Fund's capital ratio at 11.47 percent, against a statutory minimum of 2 percent. If you have wondered whether the mortgage insurance you pay is propping up a fragile program, the answer is no.

The documentation is what you would expect and then some: income and employment history, asset statements sourcing your down payment and reserves, and an appraisal from an FHA roster appraiser, which is a different appraisal from a conventional one and can require repairs before closing. Closing costs, prepaid costs, the escrow estimate and your cash to close are itemized on your Loan Estimate (opens in a new tab), the standardized form the CFPB requires every lender to issue within three business days of your application. It exists so that two offers can be read side by side. On FHA, read the APR line and the mortgage insurance line together, and compare those against a conventional Loan Estimate rather than comparing note rate to note rate.

If you want the mechanics of the program itself rather than its pricing, our guide to how FHA loans work and who qualifies covers eligibility in more depth.