You don’t need a Dutch passport or a permanent residence permit to get a mortgage in the Netherlands. An expat mortgage Netherlands application follows largely the same rules as for Dutch nationals, though the paperwork looks a bit different and not every lender treats your income the same way.
Yes, expats can get a mortgage in the Netherlands, and the borrowing rules themselves are identical to those for Dutch citizens. You can finance up to 100 percent of the purchase price, or up to 106 percent if part of the loan goes toward energy-saving measures such as insulation or a heat pump.
What trips people up isn’t the loan-to-value limit, it’s the practical side: how long you need to have lived here, whether your salary is paid in euros, and whether your employment contract looks stable enough on paper. Minimum residence requirements vary quite a bit between lenders, ranging from just one month to six months or more.
Your salary generally needs to be paid in euros. Most Dutch lenders won’t accept income in a foreign currency, which can be a surprise if you’re still being paid from a head office abroad. If your partner is buying with you, they also need to reside in the Netherlands.
A temporary contract doesn’t automatically disqualify you either. If your employer provides a letter of intent (intentieverklaring) stating they plan to extend or make the position permanent, many lenders will factor that in.
Your maximum mortgage depends on your gross income, existing debts, and the interest rate period you choose, exactly as it would for anyone else. There’s no nationality-based penalty on loan-to-value limits, borrowing percentages, or interest rates.
One detail that catches expats off guard: for fixed-rate periods under 10 years, lenders are required to test affordability against a higher assessment rate (the toetsrente) rather than your actual contracted rate. In 2026 that test rate sits around 5 percent, even if the market rate you’re actually offered is closer to 3.5 to 4 percent. Choosing a longer fixed period, 10 years or more, lets lenders use the real rate instead, which often increases how much you can borrow.
Many expats also receive allowances on top of base salary: housing allowances, relocation packages, or international assignment premiums. A lot of Dutch lenders count these toward your qualifying income, provided they’re structural and clearly stated in your contract or employer statement. This can meaningfully raise your borrowing capacity, but the treatment varies a lot by lender, so the choice of bank matters more for expats than for the average domestic buyer.
If your mortgage stays within the NHG limit (Nationale Hypotheek Garantie, a government-backed safety net for cases like job loss or divorce), you’ll often qualify for a somewhat lower interest rate. A large share of expat home purchases now fall within the raised NHG threshold, which is a detail worth checking with an advisor before you start house-hunting rather than after.
Many expats assume the 30% ruling, which lets qualifying highly skilled migrants receive 30 percent of their salary tax-free for up to five years, automatically increases what they can borrow. In practice it mostly doesn’t. Lenders generally calculate your borrowing capacity based on your full gross salary as if it were fully taxable, so the ruling boosts your net income rather than the mortgage amount itself.
Some lenders do look at the ruling when assessing affordability, but they’ll stress-test what happens once it ends, since it only runs for a fixed number of years. That’s worth planning around, especially if you’re choosing between an interest-only structure and one that builds up more equity while your net income is higher.
One important nuance: the 30% ruling is tied to an employment relationship, so if you’re self-employed as a sole proprietor (eenmanszaak), you can’t use it, nor the alternative tax-free reimbursement scheme for extraterritorial costs. Both are employer-based mechanisms. If you’re a director-shareholder employed by your own BV, you may still qualify if you meet the standard conditions around recruitment from abroad, scarce expertise, and the salary threshold.
Expect to submit an employment contract, a recent employer statement, your latest payslips, proof of your residence permit, and sometimes evidence of your credit history abroad. If you have the 30% ruling, include the decision letter, since it affects how a lender views your net income.
| Document | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Employment contract and employer statement | Confirms income structure and stability |
| Residence permit | Proves your right to reside during the loan term |
| 30% ruling decision (if applicable) | Clarifies your taxable versus net income |
| Recent payslips | Verifies current income level |
Once your dossier is complete, the mortgage process typically takes 4 to 6 weeks from application to final approval. That’s a good stretch of time to budget for if you’re also coordinating a bid on a property.
Purchasing and financing costs, often called kosten koper, generally run 3 to 6 percent of the purchase price and need to come from your own funds rather than the mortgage itself. After signing the preliminary purchase agreement, you’ll usually need to put down a 10 percent deposit (waarborgsom), either from savings or via a bank guarantee.
Not every cost is treated the same for tax purposes, and this is where a lot of expats lose money unnecessarily. Mortgage advisory fees, valuation costs, notary fees for the mortgage deed, and NHG costs are all tax-deductible in the year of purchase. Transfer tax (overdrachtsbelasting) and the fee for a purchasing agent are not deductible, no matter how the deal is structured.
If you’re a Dutch tax resident, with or without the 30% ruling, you can claim mortgage interest deduction on your primary residence, since it stays in Box 1 regardless of the ruling. One tax status worth knowing about: the partial non-resident taxpayer status, which used to let 30% ruling holders be treated as non-residents for Box 2 and Box 3, was scrapped for new applicants from 1 January 2025. If you already held the ruling in 2023, a transitional arrangement runs through 31 December 2026.
Getting the right team behind you helps here, since income assessment methods and allowance treatment differ so much between lenders. You can read more about the advisors who work on these cases on the team page.
Say you’re a highly skilled migrant on the 30% ruling, earning a solid salary plus a housing allowance, and you want to know what you can realistically borrow before you start viewing homes. An advisor will map your full income picture, base salary, allowances, and the ruling’s finite duration, against how different lenders treat each component, since that variation can shift your maximum mortgage significantly.
From there, the advisor builds a plan around your specific timeline: how long you expect to stay in the Netherlands, whether a shorter or longer fixed-rate period suits your situation, and how to structure repayments so nothing changes drastically once the 30% ruling ends. Documents get checked and translated into a dossier a lender can actually approve quickly, which matters if you’re bidding in a competitive market.
If you want a clear picture of your options, reach out via @dekredieter, visit www.kredieter.nl, or call 020-5753320, and get advice in English from someone who works with expat mortgages every day. You can also find contact details directly on the contact page.
