America has four mortgage delinquency rates. They differ by a factor of fourteen

The official mortgage delinquency rate in the United States is 0.99 percent. It is also 1.86 percent, 6.48 percent and 13.70 percent.

Each number is current. Each comes from a federal institution. None describes the same pool of loans at the same stage of missed payment.

That distinction has disappeared in the search result. Asked for the mortgage delinquency rate on 7 September, Google answered 1.86 percent for loans at commercial banks, then put a broader industry rate and an FHA figure in the same box. The arithmetic looked like a market in which reputable sources disagreed by several multiples.

They do not disagree. They count different things.

The same denominator problem appears in the official credit card delinquency rate and auto loan delinquency rate series. Mortgages add a second complication because the loan universe also changes.

What is the mortgage delinquency rate in 2026?

There is no single national mortgage delinquency rate. The latest federal readings run from 0.99 percent of mortgage balances at least 90 days late to 13.70 percent of active FHA loans at least 30 days late. Between them sit a commercial-bank balance rate and an FHA serious-delinquency rate.

Official measure	Latest reading	Unit	Delinquency threshold	Population
Mortgage balances 90 or more days late	0.99%	Dollars	90 days, including severely derogatory	Mortgages on consumer credit reports
Residential real-estate loans delinquent	1.86%	Dollars	30 days or nonaccrual	Loans at insured US commercial banks
FHA serious delinquency	6.48%	Loans	90 days, foreclosure or bankruptcy	Active FHA-insured forward mortgages
FHA all past due	13.70%	Loans	30 days, including foreclosure and bankruptcy	Active FHA-insured forward mortgages

The first number is in the New York Fed's Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit. The second is in the Federal Reserve Board's commercial-bank delinquency table. The other two are in HUD's June 2026 FHA loan-performance report.

The spread is almost fourteenfold from bottom to top. That ratio says nothing about the economy. It is the price of dropping four labels from four statistics: dollars or loans, 30 days or 90, every lender or commercial banks, every mortgage or FHA only.

None of the four is a count of homeowners. Joint borrowers, multiple mortgages, loan size and the type of institution all stand between these rates and the share of people who missed a payment. A claim that 13.70 percent of American homeowners are behind would be false. So would a claim that only 0.99 percent are.

Why do the two Federal Reserve mortgage rates differ?

The 0.99 percent rate counts mortgage dollars at least 90 days late across credit reports. The 1.86 percent rate counts residential real-estate loan dollars at least 30 days late or in nonaccrual status on commercial-bank books. One starts later and reaches more lenders. The other starts earlier and includes home-equity lines.

The difference begins with the universe. The New York Fed's Consumer Credit Panel is drawn from Equifax credit reports. It covers mortgages reported by banks, credit unions, mortgage companies and other creditors, including first mortgages and closed-end home-equity loans. It puts all of those balances in one national panel. HELOCs sit in a separate category.

The Board's 1.86 percent series comes from bank Call Reports. Its denominator is residential real-estate loans booked in the domestic offices of insured US-chartered commercial banks. The footnote says that means loans secured by one-to-four-family properties, including HELOCs. A mortgage held outside that banking population is absent.

The clocks differ too. The New York Fed's 0.99 percent begins at 90 days and includes balances marked 90 days late, 120 days late or severely derogatory. Its own dictionary defines the last category to include a reported foreclosure or charge-off. The bank series begins at 30 days and also includes loans in nonaccrual status.

That wider bank threshold would normally lift the number. Its narrower lender population pushes the other way. The published rates are the net result, not two attempts to estimate one hidden truth.

The denominators are both dollars. Larger loans carry more weight. Ten delinquent $500,000 mortgages move either rate as much as 50 delinquent $100,000 mortgages, before differences in reporting and loan type. Neither rate can tell a reader how many borrowers are behind.

There is one current caution on the New York Fed number. Mortgage balances fell $74bn in the second quarter to $13.117tn, and the report says the decline was mostly caused by a servicer-transfer gap in reporting. The report does not quantify what that gap did to the delinquency ratio. The 0.99 percent reading is the published figure. It is also a figure attached to a quarter with a stated reporting disruption.

Why does FHA publish both 6.48 percent and 13.70 percent?

FHA's 13.70 percent rate includes every active insured loan at least 30 days past due. Its 6.48 percent serious rate begins at 90 days and adds loans in foreclosure or bankruptcy. The same 8.36 million-loan portfolio produces both figures because one is an early-warning count and the other is a deeper-distress count.

HUD reports 8,355,089 active FHA-insured loans for June. Of those, 5.51 percent were 30 days late, 1.71 percent were 60 days late and 5.37 percent were in the 90-day category. Another 0.57 percent were in foreclosure and 0.53 percent were in bankruptcy.

The pieces follow the definitions, with one rounding wrinkle. HUD publishes all past due as 13.70 percent, while the five displayed buckets sum to 13.69 percent. The displayed 90-day, foreclosure and bankruptcy buckets total 6.47 percent, which HUD publishes as 6.48 percent.

Applied to the active-loan count, the rounded rates imply about 1.14 million FHA loans past due and about 541,000 seriously delinquent. Roughly 449,000 sat in the 90-day bucket, 48,000 were in foreclosure and 44,000 were in bankruptcy. Those are approximations because HUD publishes the rates to two decimal places.

This is a loan count, not a balance share. A $90,000 mortgage and a $900,000 mortgage each count once. That alone prevents a clean comparison with either Federal Reserve rate.

FHA is also a selected part of the mortgage market. It insures loans under a federal program with its own borrower, property and underwriting mix. Its rate is valuable precisely because it isolates that book. Treating it as the national rate erases what makes the series useful.

Are mortgage delinquencies rising or falling?

Both answers are defensible. The bank rate slipped from 1.88 percent to 1.86 percent in the latest quarter, while remaining above 1.78 percent a year earlier. The New York Fed's 90-day balance share fell from 1.09 percent to 0.99 percent, but the flow into serious delinquency continued to rise.

The stock is still low by historical standards. The New York Fed's 90-day mortgage balance share peaked at 8.89 percent in the first quarter of 2010. At 0.99 percent now, it is less than one-eighth of that reading. The bank series tells the same broad story: 1.86 percent now against an 11.48 percent peak in the first quarter of 2010.

The direction at the margin is less comfortable. The New York Fed separately publishes the balance moving into delinquency, as a four-quarter moving sum. Mortgage balances entering 30 or more days late rose from 3.61 percent at the end of 2024 to 3.95 percent in June 2026. The flow into 90 or more days late rose from 1.09 percent to 1.52 percent.

That serious flow is up roughly 39 percent in six quarters. It remains far below the 8.35 percent peak reached in the third quarter of 2009, and calling it a crisis would be theatre. Calling the mortgage book unchanged would miss the turn.

The quarter-to-quarter transition table shows the mechanism more closely. In the second quarter, 0.84 percent of balances that began current moved to 30 or 60 days late, while 0.23 percent moved directly to 90 days or worse. Among balances already 30 to 60 days late, 42.04 percent returned to current and 15.42 percent moved into serious delinquency.

FHA carries a sharper deterioration. Its serious rate rose from 4.30 percent in June 2025 to 6.48 percent this June, an increase of 2.18 percentage points and about 51 percent relative to the earlier rate. All past due rose from 12.15 percent to 13.70 percent, about 13 percent, while the active portfolio grew 3.7 percent.

The stock and flow point in opposite directions inside FHA. HUD counted 141,587 loans newly reaching 90 days late in fiscal 2026's third quarter, 10 percent fewer than the 157,634 recorded in the same fiscal quarter a year earlier. Yet the standing serious-delinquency rate rose by half. New entries alone cannot explain the accumulated total. Resolution and the time loans remain in a delinquent state matter.

Which borrowers account for the higher FHA rate?

FHA stress is concentrated by credit score and loan vintage. Serious delinquency runs at 12.01 percent for scored loans in the 580 to 619 band and 1.94 percent for loans at 720 to 850. Loans originated in fiscal 2023 have an 11.08 percent rate, against 4.93 percent for 2025 loans.

The score gradient is large and orderly after the lowest band. HUD reports serious-delinquency rates of 11.47 percent for 500 to 579, 12.01 percent for 580 to 619, 9.65 percent for 620 to 659, 5.42 percent for 660 to 719 and 1.94 percent for 720 to 850. Fewer than one-tenth of one percent of scored loans sit below 500, where the rate is 11.28 percent.

These are cross-sections. They do not prove that score caused the missed payment. Income, loan age, loan purpose and many unobserved differences move with it.

Vintage makes that warning concrete. Fiscal 2019 FHA loans show a 10.26 percent serious rate, 2022 loans 9.94 percent and 2023 loans 11.08 percent. The rate falls to 8.79 percent for the 2024 cohort, 4.93 percent for 2025 and 0.65 percent for 2026. A new loan has had little time to become 90 days late, enter bankruptcy or reach foreclosure. Comparing vintages without seasoning them would turn the calendar into a credit conclusion.

Purpose divides the book again. Purchase loans are 7.29 percent seriously delinquent, against 4.32 percent for refinances. Within purchase loans, the rate is 7.52 percent for first-time buyers and 5.90 percent for repeat buyers. Those figures locate the stress. They do not identify its cause.

The New York Fed offers a broader age view across reported mortgages. Over the four quarters through June, the flow into serious delinquency was 1.89 percent for borrowers aged 18 to 29, 1.65 percent for ages 30 to 39, 1.57 percent for 40 to 49 and 1.75 percent for 50 to 59. It was 0.92 percent for 60 to 69 and 0.83 percent for borrowers 70 and older.

The split is clearer than a claim about one generation. Every group below 60 ran above every group above 60. Within the younger half, the order is uneven.

Does a delinquent mortgage become a foreclosure?

Usually, no. FHA counted about 541,000 seriously delinquent loans in June, based on its rounded rate, while 48,000 were in foreclosure. It recorded 9,590 foreclosure starts and 1,909 foreclosure claims that month. A delinquency rate measures a queue. Foreclosure counts measure particular exits from that queue.

The distance is partly visible in HUD's definition. FHA includes loans under active consideration for loss mitigation in its delinquency counts. It also removes foreclosure and bankruptcy cases from the 90-day bucket and publishes them separately, then adds them back for the serious rate.

Foreclosure activity is rising. June starts were 9,590, against 6,352 a year earlier. Loans in foreclosure rose to 48,000 from 32,065. Claims rose to 1,909 from 1,158, and HUD says those claims are nearly all completed foreclosure actions. The increases are roughly one-half for starts and the standing foreclosure count, and about two-thirds for claims.

The levels still sit far below the delinquency pool. That is why a delinquency chart cannot support a claim about an imminent foreclosure wave. It can show more loans entering distress, fewer loans leaving it, or both. The foreclosure table is where the final stage appears.

The New York Fed counts something else again: people with a new foreclosure notation on a credit report. It reports about 55,000 in the second quarter. That quarterly count of people cannot be set beside HUD's monthly count of FHA loans without changing both the period and the unit.

Which mortgage delinquency rate should a reader use?

Use the series whose denominator answers the question. For household payment performance across reported mortgages, use the New York Fed's balance shares and flows. For insured commercial-bank loan books, use the Board's Call Report series. For stress inside federal mortgage insurance, use FHA. For the share of all homeowners behind, none qualifies.

The choice is mechanical.

If the question is whether banks face the same residential credit deterioration they faced in 2010, the 1.86 percent Call Report rate is the relevant long series. It is less than one-sixth of its 2010 peak.

If the question is whether household mortgage payments are worsening now, the New York Fed's 0.99 percent standing share is incomplete on its own. Pair it with the 3.95 percent flow into early delinquency and the 1.52 percent flow into serious delinquency. Stocks remember old trouble. Flows show new trouble.

If the question concerns FHA borrowers or the federal insurance fund, use 13.70 percent for all missed-payment stages and 6.48 percent for serious delinquency. State the threshold every time.

One more discipline matters. The New York Fed warns that creditors do not always keep updating accounts after they have been derogatory for a long time, and its panel excludes accounts not reported within three months. FHA warns that different reporting methods can prevent its delinquency and foreclosure figures from reconciling with other FHA reporting areas. These are not footnotes to remove. They are part of the rate.

Frequently asked questions

What is the current US mortgage delinquency rate?

It depends on the measure. In the second quarter of 2026, 0.99 percent of mortgage balances in the New York Fed credit-report panel were 90 or more days late. Commercial banks reported 1.86 percent of residential real-estate loan balances at least 30 days late or in nonaccrual. FHA reported 13.70 percent of active insured loans at least 30 days past due.

Why is the FHA mortgage delinquency rate higher?

FHA measures a selected federal insurance portfolio by loan count, and its all-past-due rate begins at 30 days. The New York Fed's lower number covers mortgage dollars across credit reports and begins at 90 days. The difference cannot be assigned to borrower risk alone because the unit, threshold and population all change.

Are mortgage delinquencies near 2008 levels?

No, by the two long national federal series. The New York Fed's 0.99 percent 90-day balance share compares with 8.89 percent in early 2010. The commercial-bank rate is 1.86 percent against 11.48 percent then. FHA has deteriorated more recently, but its series describes FHA-insured loans rather than the whole market.

Is the mortgage delinquency rate rising in Florida?

The New York Fed reports that 1.62 percent of Florida mortgage balances were 90 or more days late in the second quarter, above the national 0.99 percent. This article does not treat one quarterly state reading as a trend. The state figure covers balances on credit reports, not the share of Florida homeowners.

Does 90 days delinquent mean foreclosure has started?

No. FHA reports the 90-day, foreclosure and bankruptcy categories separately. A loan can remain 90 days late while it is being considered for loss mitigation. In June, FHA had about 449,000 loans in its 90-day bucket and 48,000 in foreclosure, based on the published rounded rates.

Where do the federal mortgage delinquency data come from?

The New York Fed uses an anonymized Equifax credit-report panel. The Federal Reserve Board uses FFIEC Call Reports filed by insured US commercial banks. HUD uses servicing data for active FHA-insured forward mortgages. Each is primary data for its own population. None is a census of every American homeowner.