Mortgages for non-residents

How much you can borrow as a non-resident

Spanish banks lend to foreign buyers who live abroad, but no Spanish law sets a separate maximum loan for non-residents. The Banco de España lists limits on lending among its macroprudential tools, but its page of measures in force, checked in October 2026, shows no such limit, so each bank sets its own policy. The Banco de España explains that the loan is tied directly to the valuation and is normally limited to a maximum of 80% of it. There is no official figure for non-residents. A Spanish business news site, Merca2, reported in June 2026, without naming a source, that banks normally lend non-residents up to 60–70% of the value. That is a press estimate; no official statistic or rule backs it.

Two features of a non-resident application help explain lower limits. The Banco de España’s Central Credit Register (CIRBE), which the bank must check, holds loans reported by lenders operating in Spain, so loans from a bank in your home country may not appear there. And income in another currency carries exchange-rate risk, which the law treats separately (see the currency section below). Loan-to-value (LTV) is the loan as a percentage of the valuation, and loan-to-price is the loan as a percentage of the purchase price. Because the loan is tied to the valuation, a valuation below the price cuts what you can borrow. A useful question for each bank is whether its percentage applies to the valuation, the price or the lower of the two.

How banks check you can afford it

Law 5/2019 on real estate credit contracts (Ley 5/2019, reguladora de los contratos de crédito inmobiliario) requires the bank to assess your solvency in depth before it lends. It looks at your job, current income, expected income over the life of the loan, assets, savings, fixed expenses and existing commitments. If a large part of the loan will still be repaid after you retire, it must also consider your expected retirement income. The decision must not rest mainly on the property being worth more than the loan, or on prices rising. The law covers loans from a professional lender secured on residential property where the borrower or a guarantor is an individual, and its scope does not depend on where the borrower lives.

Each bank must have its own internal procedures for this assessment, so how much of your income it accepts going on repayments varies between banks. It must take account of the commitments you already have, including loans in your home country. It must check your credit history with the CIRBE and with a private credit-reference company. Debts you have abroad may not show up there, so a bank may ask for evidence from your own country. The cost of the assessment procedures cannot be passed on to you. If the bank refuses the loan, it must tell you in writing, without delay, and give the reasons.

The law also requires the bank to say clearly at the start what information and independently verifiable evidence it needs, and by when. Because the assessment must cover your job, income, assets, savings, expenses and existing debts, requests can include, for example:

• Passport and NIE, the foreigner’s identification number; see How to get a NIE number
• Proof of income: recent payslips and your employment contract, or accounts and tax returns if you are self-employed
• Your latest tax returns from your country of residence
• Recent bank statements showing your income, savings and where your deposit comes from
• Details of existing loans and mortgages, and a credit report from your home country
• The reservation or deposit contract for the property

Fixed, variable or mixed: rates and the Euribor

The 12-month Euribor is the main index for Spanish variable mortgages. The Banco de España reported 3.247% for September 2026, up from 2.954% in August and 1.075 points higher than a year earlier (press note of 1 October 2026). Each monthly figure becomes the official reference once it is published in the BOE, Spain’s official gazette. The index is updated every month, so the figure quoted in an offer can soon be out of date.

Two rules protect variable-rate borrowers. A bank cannot set a minimum rate (a floor clause), and the interest rate can never be negative. The TAE expresses the total cost of the loan, including the fees and costs you pay, as a yearly percentage, which makes offers comparable. For a variable or mixed rate it assumes the rate stays at its starting level, so it does not show what happens if the Euribor rises.

A bank may offer better terms if you also take other products from it. Selling the loan only as a package with other products is banned unless the authorities have approved it as clearly benefiting borrowers, with limited exceptions such as required insurance. Combined offers are allowed if the bank also offers the loan on its own, so the two can be compared. The bank can require home insurance and insurance covering the loan, but it must accept an equivalent policy from another insurer, cannot charge you for checking it and cannot worsen the loan terms because you chose another insurer.

Euribor

The euro interbank rate. The 12-month figure is the usual index for variable mortgages in Spain.

Diferencial

The margin, in percentage points, that the bank adds to the index.

TAE

The annual percentage rate: the total cost of the loan, including fees and costs you pay, as a yearly percentage.

Bonificación

A discount on the interest rate in return for taking other products from the bank.

Currency risk if you earn in pounds, kronor or dollars

Spanish mortgages are usually in euros and repaid in euros. If your income is in another currency, a fall in that currency raises the cost of every payment and of the remaining debt in your own money. Law 5/2019 defines a foreign-currency loan as one in a currency other than that of the EU country where you live, or other than the currency in which you receive the income or hold the assets you will repay it with. On that wording, a euro loan repaid from pounds, kronor or dollars can fall within the definition, which brings extra protection.

• The FiAE warning sheet must state that it is a foreign-currency loan, and the FEIN and the contract must explain the rules below.
• You can ask to convert the loan into the currency in which you receive most of your income or hold most of your assets, or the currency of the EU country where you live. The exchange rate is the one on the day you ask (the European Central Bank rate, unless the contract says otherwise).
• The bank must inform you regularly of the amount owed and of your right to convert.
• Where the loan currency differs from your national currency, the FEIN must show how a 20% fall in your currency would change your payments, with a warning that they could rise by more (unless the contract caps the rise below 20%). It must also state that you will receive warnings at least when the exchange rate moves by more than 20%.

The valuation (tasación)

Before lending, the bank needs a valuation of the property by a valuer that is independent of the lender, approved and supervised by the Banco de España and entered in its official register. The valuer visits the property, measures the rooms, takes photographs, includes examples of real sales in the area and checks for planning irregularities. You pay for the valuation. It values the property for the lender and is not a survey of the building’s condition: see surveys and checks.

You can choose any approved valuer, and a bank must accept a valuation you bring as long as it has not expired. A valuation is valid for six months from the date it is issued. If a bank turns down your application, it returns the original report so it can be used with another lender while it is still valid.

The binding offer and the free notary session

Law 5/2019, in force since 16 June 2019, sets a fixed sequence before you can sign. You can first ask any bank for a FIPRE, a free sheet of general information that helps you compare lenders. Once a bank has approved you, these steps follow.

1. 1

   Choose your notary

   You have the right to choose the notary. Tell the bank which one, and it sends the loan documents to that notary electronically.

2. 2

   Receive the offer documents

   At least 10 calendar days before signing, the bank must give you the FEIN (a binding offer for the agreed period up to signing, which must be at least 10 days), the FiAE warnings, the draft contract with a full breakdown of costs, the conditions of any insurance it requires and, for a variable-rate loan, a separate document showing your payments under different interest-rate scenarios.

3. 3

   Attend the notary session

   During those 10 days, and at the latest the day before signing, you go to your chosen notary. The notary checks that the bank delivered every document on time, explains the clauses of the FEIN and FiAE one by one, answers your questions and asks you to answer a test in their presence. Guarantors who are individuals go through the same steps.

4. 4

   The notary records it

   The notary records the advice in a notarial record (acta de transparencia), for which there is no notary fee. Without it, the mortgage deed cannot be signed.

5. 5

   Sign the mortgage deed

   A mortgage on a home in Spain must be signed as a public deed before a notary, who cannot authorise it without the acta. The mortgage is then registered at the Land Registry, which cannot register a deed that does not refer to the acta.

FIPRE

Ficha de Información Precontractual: a free, non-binding sheet of general information about a bank’s mortgages.

FEIN

Ficha Europea de Información Normalizada: the European standardised information sheet with your personal loan terms, binding on the bank for the agreed period.

FiAE

Ficha de Advertencias Estandarizadas: a sheet of standard warnings about key clauses, such as the index, default and the split of costs.

Acta de transparencia

The notary’s record that you received the documents on time, were advised clause by clause and answered the test.

Who pays which costs

Law 5/2019 splits the costs of setting up a mortgage between you and the bank. Since 10 November 2018, the bank also pays the stamp duty on the mortgage deed. These rules cover the mortgage only; the purchase has its own costs.

How long it takes

The law sets minimum waiting periods but no overall timetable. How long it takes depends on how quickly you supply documents, the valuation and the bank’s approval. The 10-day period cannot be shortened by agreement: the law’s rules are mandatory, and waiving the borrower’s rights in advance is void. Everything has to fit before the completion date in your deposit contract.

1. 1

   Before you commit

   A FIPRE, the free general information sheet, can be requested from any bank, including before you sign a deposit contract with a fixed completion date.

2. 2

   Application

   You send your documents. The bank assesses your solvency and checks your credit history.

3. 3

   Valuation

   An approved valuer values the property. The report stays valid for six months.

4. 4

   Approval and offer

   The bank approves the loan and sends the FEIN, FiAE and draft contract. The 10-day minimum starts.

5. 5

   Notary session

   You, or someone representing you for this purpose, attend your notary at the latest the day before signing.

6. 6

   Completion

   You sign the purchase and the mortgage before the notary, and the loan money goes towards paying the seller.

Early repayment, arrears and your liability

You can repay all or part of the loan at any time. The contract can require up to one month’s notice. Once you say you want to repay, the bank must give you the information you need to assess it within three working days. Repaying early cuts the interest and costs for the remaining term. A fee is only payable if the contract includes one, it cannot exceed the bank’s financial loss as calculated under the law, and it has legal caps. When the loan is paid off early, insurance that the bank offered with it and that names the bank as beneficiary ends, with a refund of the unused premium, unless you tell the insurer you want to keep it with a new beneficiary.

A Spanish mortgage does not limit what you owe to the property. Under the Mortgage Law (Ley Hipotecaria, article 105) and the Civil Code, you stay personally liable with all your present and future assets if a sale of the property does not cover the debt. The only exception is a deed that expressly limits liability to the mortgaged property (article 140), which needs the bank’s agreement.

If you fall behind, the bank can only demand the whole loan once unpaid instalments reach 3% of the amount lent or 12 monthly payments in the first half of the term, or 7% or 15 monthly payments in the second half, and after giving you at least a month to pay. Late-payment interest is capped at your normal rate plus three percentage points, charged only on the overdue capital. A contract cannot override these rules.

Questions buyers ask