Yes, you can get an expat mortgage in the Netherlands without being a Dutch citizen or holding a permanent residence permit. The rules for how much you can borrow are the same as for Dutch nationals; the main differences lie in income verification and the documents lenders ask for.
No, you don’t. Lenders in the Netherlands don’t require Dutch citizenship or a permanent residence permit before they’ll consider your application. What they do care about is whether you have a stable income and a valid residence status, which is a different question than nationality.
Minimum residence requirements vary by lender. Some banks accept applications after just one month in the country, while others want to see six months or longer before they’ll move forward. If you’re on a temporary employment contract, a letter of intent from your employer stating that they plan to extend or make the position permanent can help bridge that gap.
One practical detail that trips people up: your salary generally needs to be paid in euros. Most lenders won’t accept income in a foreign currency, so if you’re still being paid from abroad, that’s worth sorting out early in the process. Your partner also needs to be a resident in the Netherlands if their income is part of the application.
The bottom line is that an expat mortgage Netherlands lenders offer isn’t a separate, lesser product. You can finance up to 100 percent of the purchase price, or up to 106 percent when you’re also financing energy-saving measures, on exactly the same terms as a Dutch national.
The 30% ruling lets qualifying highly skilled migrants receive 30 percent of their salary tax-free, and many expats assume this directly boosts how much they can borrow. In practice, it mostly improves your net income rather than what a lender will lend you.
That’s because most lenders calculate your maximum mortgage based on your gross taxable income, as if your full salary were taxable. Some lenders do factor the ruling into their affordability picture, but they’ll stress-test what happens once it ends, since the benefit runs for a maximum of five years.
For 2026 the ruling percentage stays at 30 percent. From January 2027, that drops to 27 percent for anyone whose ruling first started in 2024 or later; if you were already using the ruling on or before 31 December 2023, you keep the full 30 percent for the rest of your term. Eligibility also depends on meeting a minimum salary threshold, which sits around 48,000 euros in 2026 for most expats, with a lower bar for younger graduates.
One thing worth knowing if you’re self-employed: the 30% ruling is tied to an employment relationship, so if you operate as a sole proprietor you can’t use it. A DGA employed by their own BV can still qualify, provided the usual conditions around recruitment from abroad and scarce expertise are met.
Expect to hand over more paperwork than a Dutch national would, mainly because lenders need to verify things that are automatic for local applicants. A typical dossier includes your employment contract, an employer statement, recent payslips, proof of your residence permit, and sometimes evidence of your credit history from abroad.
If you benefit from the 30% ruling, the decision letter confirming it usually needs to be included too, since it affects how your net income is read. The table below gives a quick overview of what’s usually needed and why it matters.
| Document | Why it’s needed |
|---|---|
| Employment contract and employer statement | Confirms income stability and contract type |
| Recent payslips | Verifies actual salary in euros |
| Residence permit | Confirms legal residence status |
| 30% ruling decision (if applicable) | Affects net income calculation |
An advisor who works with expat clients daily will know which lenders move faster with foreign documentation and which ones tend to ask for extra clarification. That’s often where a lot of time gets saved or lost in the process. You can read more about the team’s background on the advisor team page.
Your maximum mortgage depends on your income, existing debts, and the property’s appraised value, calculated using the same national lending norms that apply to everyone else. There’s no separate, lower ceiling just because you’re an expat.
Where it gets interesting is your allowances. Many expat employment packages include housing, relocation, or international assignment allowances on top of base salary. A lot of Dutch lenders will count these toward your qualifying income, as long as they’re structural and clearly documented in your contract or employer statement. That can meaningfully increase what you’re able to borrow.
The catch is that lenders differ quite a bit in which allowances they accept and how heavily they weigh them. Two lenders looking at the exact same income package can arrive at noticeably different maximum mortgage amounts. This is precisely why comparing lenders matters more for expats than for a standard salaried Dutch applicant with one clean income line.
Also worth knowing: roughly 70 percent of expat home purchases may now qualify for NHG (Nationale Hypotheek Garantie), a government-backed safety net that typically comes with a lower interest rate. NHG has no real equivalent in most other countries, so it’s a concept worth understanding even if your particular purchase ends up above the applicable limit.
Beyond the purchase price, plan for kosten koper, the Dutch term for buying costs, which typically run 3 to 6 percent of the purchase price and need to come from your own funds. This covers things like valuation, notary fees, and advisory costs.
Of these one-off costs, valuation, notary fees for the mortgage deed, and advisory fees are tax-deductible in the year of purchase. Transfer tax and any purchasing agent fees are not deductible, so don’t count on getting that portion back through your tax return.
You’ll also typically need to pay a 10 percent deposit after signing the preliminary purchase agreement, either from savings or via a bank guarantee. From application to final approval, the whole mortgage process usually takes four to six weeks, so it’s worth building that timeline into your house-hunting plans from the start.
If any of this feels like a lot to navigate on top of settling into a new country, that’s exactly the kind of situation worth talking through with an advisor rather than figuring out alone. You can reach out via the contact page to get things moving.
