Getting a mortgage in France when you do not live there

What exactly is a "non-resident mortgage"?

A loan granted by a French bank, in euros, secured on the property bought in France, to a borrower whose tax residence is elsewhere. It is neither a separate product nor a favour: it is the same mortgage, assessed with higher requirements because the bank loses two of its usual bearings, the home address and the account the salary lands in.

Being a non-resident is not settled by a passport but by tax residence, in the sense of article 4 B of the General Tax Code and of the tax treaty between France and your country. A French national living in Singapore is a non-resident; a Brazilian living and working in Lyon is not.

What is the process, step by step, and how long does it take?

A non-resident's financing is put together in two stages that do not overlap: the agreement in principle before looking for the property, the loan offer after finding it. Trying to do both at once is the first cause of a blown timetable.

1. Framing. A conversation to set out the project: country of residence, currency and nature of income, available down payment, type of property, intended use. This decides which broker to bring in.
2. Agreement in principle. The partner broker builds a complete file and obtains from one or more banks an envelope and indicative terms, generally valid for three to four months. You search with a real budget, and a seller takes you seriously.
3. Preliminary contract with a mortgage condition. Once the property is found, the contract makes obtaining the loan a condition precedent, for a period that cannot be shorter than one month and that a non-resident is well advised to negotiate to sixty days.
4. Bank review. The chosen bank analyses the final file, requests a valuation of the property if it sees fit, and processes the insurance and the security in parallel.
5. Loan offer. It is sent to you in writing and opens a mandatory ten-day reflection period: you may accept it only from the eleventh day. It remains valid for at least thirty days.
6. Notarial deed. The notary calls the funds from the bank, which pays them directly to the notary's office. Signing takes place in person or by notarised power of attorney from abroad.

Can a non-resident borrow in France, and on what terms?

Nothing in French law prevents a bank from lending to someone who lives abroad, and nothing obliges it to. A mortgage is a contract the institution accepts or declines according to its own appetite for risk. What is regulated is the way of lending: the same ceilings apply to every borrower, resident or not, since the decision of the High Council for Financial Stability in force from 1 January 2022.

Three practical conditions come on top of these rules, and they are what separates an accepted file from a declined one: stable, legible income, a larger down payment than a resident's, and a bank account in France where the loan will be domiciled. The rest of this page takes them one by one.

What does a non-resident's mortgage really cost?

The nominal rate that people compare from one country to another is just one line out of seven. The figure that matters is the annual percentage rate, which aggregates everything below and which the law caps through the usury rate. A non-resident pays each of these items a little more than a resident, and it is their sum, not the rate, that sometimes makes a file impossible.

The usury rate is a cap, not a formality. When the sum of the items exceeds it, the bank is not allowed to lend, even if it wanted to. On a non-resident's file heavy in insurance and security, the partner broker sometimes works first on bringing one item down, usually the insurance, so that the file becomes signable again.

How long does it really take, from first contact to the offer?

Count two to four months for a non-resident file, against six to ten weeks for a resident. The gap does not come from the bank: it comes from documents that travel, get translated and legalised, and from one extra round trip at every question from the credit desk.

The loan offer cannot be accepted before the eleventh day following its receipt, and it stays valid for thirty days: articles L313-34 and L313-24 of the Consumer Code. That period cannot be compressed, however pressed everyone is. This is why a mortgage condition set at thirty days is almost always too short for a non-resident: forty-five to sixty days is the order of magnitude to negotiate.

Depending on your country of residence, what changes?

Banks do not reason by nationality but by country of tax residence and by currency of income. The table below sums up what we observe file after file; it gives orders of magnitude, not rules, and each institution has its own. The site's country guides then set out the tax on holding property and the applicable treaty.

What should you check on an offer before signing it?

The headline rate is the figure everyone looks at and the least decisive. What costs or frees you, over twenty years and from abroad, is read elsewhere in the offer: the annual percentage rate of charge, which includes everything, the early-repayment terms, and the counterpart the bank demands in exchange for the loan.

Borrower's insurance is not captive: article L313-30 of the Consumer Code lets you replace it at any time with a policy offering equivalent cover, free of charge and without the bank being able to change your rate. On a non-resident file, where the group policy premium is often loaded, it is the most profitable lever in the offer.

What risks does a non-resident borrower actually carry?

Three, and none of them shows on signing day. Exchange rates, which shift your real instalment without the loan moving. The timetable, which can bring down the preliminary contract if the mortgage condition expires before the offer. And distance, which turns an everyday administrative hitch into a file stuck for weeks.

A fourth risk is often ignored because it only materialises on resale: a loan secured by mortgage requires a release, which costs money and takes time. If you expect to resell within five years, compare securities on their total cost, entry and exit included, not only on their entry cost.

How much down payment is needed, and why more than a resident?

No text sets a minimum down payment. The figure comes from the bank, which uses the down payment to cover what it cannot easily seize: a borrower living abroad, income it cannot garnish from a French account, a property it would have to resell on its own in case of default. The further the country of residence and the currency are from the euro area, the higher the down payment asked.

On top of this down payment come the acquisition costs, which banks do not finance for a non-resident: around 7 to 8 % of the price for an existing property, 2 to 3 % for a new build, plus the security and arrangement fees. A 500,000 euro project in an existing property therefore requires, for a UK resident, in the order of 165,000 to 215,000 euros available before rates are even discussed. The site's acquisition costs simulator gives the item-by-item breakdown.

Income in foreign currency, loan in foreign currency: how does the bank read your money?

This is the least understood point, and the one behind most declines. The bank does not take your income as it is: it converts it into euros at the day's rate, then applies a discount to protect itself against a fall in the currency over twenty years. Depending on the institution and the currency, that discount runs from 10 to 30 %. A salary of 100,000 dollars therefore does not enter the calculation at its euro equivalent, but at 70 to 90 % of it.

The 35 % debt-service ratio is then calculated on that discounted amount, including your current loans in your country of residence, your rent if you are a tenant, and the insurance on the new loan. Banks also look at the residual income, meaning what is left each month once every charge is paid, taking the cost of living in your country into account. A comfortable income in Dubai or Singapore can thus produce a disappointing borrowing capacity once passed through the French filter.

• Employee on a permanent contract or local equivalent: the simplest profile, on three payslips and two tax returns.
• Self-employed, company director, professional: three sets of accounts or returns, and the bank keeps an average, often the lowest of the three years.
• Variable income, bonuses, share awards: rarely counted in full, sometimes set aside, and always on a two- to three-year track record.
• Existing rental income: counted at 70 % of its amount, as for a resident.
• Income exempt from tax in the country of residence: accepted, but the bank reconstructs a net figure and asks for detailed employer certificates.

The rule has been strict since 2016: a French bank may grant a mortgage in a currency other than the euro only if, at signing, your income or assets are mainly in that currency. It must then inform you of the exchange risk and guarantee you an option to convert into euros. That is article L313-64 of the Consumer Code, written after the Swiss franc loans that had ruined French borrowers.

In practice, the question really only arises for income in Swiss francs, which a few border institutions agree to lend against as such. For everyone else, the loan is in euros, and the exchange risk lives elsewhere: in the instalments you will pay for twenty years with a salary in another currency. A dollar or a pound that falls by 15 % raises your instalments by as much. That is not covered by the bank, but by how you size the loan: borrowing less than the maximum allowed is how you give yourself that margin.

Which banks lend to non-residents, and which refuse?

The market splits into three families, and knowing which door to knock on saves weeks. The large retail banks lend to non-residents, but only through their specialised desks, never through a local branch: a file filed at the wrong counter is declined by default. Private banks and wealth-oriented institutions readily welcome foreign profiles, in return for an entry ticket and investments. French subsidiaries of foreign groups, finally, know the income of their home country and read it without excessive discount.

Two categories of borrower meet closed doors. US persons, citizens or tax residents of the United States, have been turned away by a share of institutions since the FATCA agreement came into force in 2014, because of the reporting obligations it imposes on banks: some institutions remain open, but they can be counted. And residents of countries under enhanced due diligence for anti-money-laundering purposes see their file go through a long compliance review, sometimes with no way through.

This is where the partner broker earns their fee: they know which institution reads which passport, which currency and which type of income, and they only present your file to those that will accept it. A mortgage broker operates as a registered banking intermediary listed with ORIAS, which can be checked online in a minute.

What security and what insurance does the bank require?

Every mortgage in France is secured, either by a charge on the property or by the guarantee of a specialised institution. For a resident, the guarantee usually wins because it costs less and is partly refunded at the end. For a non-resident, guarantee institutions frequently decline the file, and the bank falls back on a charge over the property.

A mortgage charge survives the last repayment by one year. If you sell before then, the notary must have it removed, and that release has a cost. For a pied-à-terre you expect to keep for five years, it is an item to write into the calculation from the outset.

Loan insurance is not legally compulsory, but no bank lends without it. It covers death, total loss of autonomy and, depending on the contract, incapacity to work. It often makes or breaks a non-resident's file, for a simple reason: insurers exclude or surcharge certain countries of residence, certain occupations carried out abroad and certain travel.

• Delegation of insurance is a right: you may choose an insurer other than the bank's, with equivalent cover, and some insurers specialise in expatriates.
• Since the Lemoine Act of 2022, the contract can be cancelled at any time, free of charge, for an equivalent one: a non-resident poorly insured at the outset can correct course after signing.
• The medical questionnaire is waived when the insured share does not exceed 200,000 euros per borrower and the loan ends before the sixtieth birthday: beyond that, medical formalities are done remotely, with examinations carried out in the country of residence and translated.
• The cost of insurance counts in the debt-service ratio and in the annual percentage rate: a surcharge for country of residence can, on its own, push the file over the usury rate.

Which mistakes make a file fail?

1. Looking for the property before having an agreement in principle. You sign a preliminary contract on an imaginary budget, and the condition precedent fails for want of an offer in time.
2. Filing the application at a local branch. Non-residents fall under specialised desks; elsewhere, the answer is no by default.
3. Counting your income at the day's rate with no discount. Real borrowing capacity is 10 to 30 % lower than what you calculate on your own.
4. Having the down payment arrive from a third party's or a joint account at the last minute. The transfer triggers source-of-funds checks that do not fit the timetable.
5. Neglecting the insurance until the offer. A surcharge or an exclusion tied to the country of residence is then discovered too late, sometimes beyond the usury rate.
6. Accepting a one-month condition precedent. It is the legal minimum, not a realistic period for a non-resident: forty-five to sixty days can be negotiated.

What does French Realty do on your financing, and what does it not do?

A non-resident's financing puts four professions to work that do not know each other: a broker to build and negotiate the loan, a bank to grant it, an insurer to cover the borrower, a notary to register the security and receive the funds. A currency provider is often added. French Realty is the single point that gets them working in the right order, keeps the timetable and translates what is happening. We frame, we direct, we coordinate; the loan itself is the broker's and the bank's business.

Framing before searching

The first conversation serves to establish the facts that will decide everything: where you live, in which currency you are paid, what you can put down, what you want to buy and for what use. From there we know which type of broker to bring in, and above all we tell you frankly whether the project holds or needs resizing before anyone is put to work.

Directing you to the right broker, and staying in the loop

We introduce you to a partner broker registered with ORIAS and used to your country of residence. They build the file, choose the banks, negotiate and advise you on the loan, under their own responsibility: French Realty is not a banking intermediary and compares no offers. What we do is stay beside you during the review, chase when a deadline slips, and explain every document requested in your language.

Coordinating the account, the exchange, the insurance and the notary

The loan will be domiciled in a French account: we help you open it remotely, with documents in the right format. The down payment comes from another currency: we direct you to a currency partner committed to a rate and a date, so the funds are with the notary when they are called. The insurance stalls: we direct you to an insurer used to expatriates. And we keep the notary informed of the banking timetable, so that the signing date is set on an accepted loan offer, not on a hope.

What we do not do, and what nobody should promise you: guarantee a loan approval, announce a rate before the bank has put it in writing, or advise on the loan in the broker's place. The introduction is offered; the broker's fees, if any, are set by their agreement and are due only if the loan is obtained.