Buyer guide · France
Spanish Mortgages for French Buyers
We are independent credit intermediaries arranging mortgages in Andalucía for buyers from France. You are close enough to use the place properly, you are paid in the same currency you will repay in, and your EU citizenship settles the immigration side. What tends to catch French buyers out is that Spanish affordability works nothing like the rule you are used to. You pay us nothing.
- Independent, not tied to one bank
- No fee to you
- Everything in English
A French passport removes the obstacles, not the lending band
Nothing in Spanish law limits a French citizen's right to buy, to stay or to own here, and no bank will treat your nationality as a risk factor. The question the lender is answering is a narrower one: how comfortable is it lending against a Spanish property to somebody whose employer, bank and tax file are in another country.
Its answer is expressed as a loan-to-value. Non-resident applicants with employed income should work on 60–70% of the bank's valuation, or 50–60% where the income is self-employed or complex, against around 80% for a Spanish tax resident. The trigger is tax residence, so a French buyer who spends four months a year in Andalucía but files in France is firmly in the non-resident band. Budget on that and treat anything better as a bonus.
Spanish affordability is not the French debt-service rule
In France the maximum share of your income that may go on servicing debt is set as a formal, supervised rule applied across the market, which is why a French broker can tell you almost exactly what you will be allowed to borrow before anyone reads your file. Spain has no equivalent published limit for non-resident lending.
Each Spanish bank sets its own affordability policy instead. They differ on the ratio they apply, on how they treat existing borrowing, on the rate at which they stress a variable loan, and on how much of a bonus or a commission-based income they will recognise. Two lenders reading the identical file can reach materially different maximum loans, and neither of them is wrong.
Two things follow. A decline from one bank is that bank's answer, not the market's, and it is not a reason to abandon the purchase. And you cannot calculate your own ceiling in advance from a public rule the way you can at home, which makes having the file properly assessed worth more here than it is in France.
Do not price yourself from a French calculator. An affordability figure worked out on the French ratio, or on French term lengths, will not predict what a Spanish bank offers a non-resident. Get the file in front of several lenders before you sign a reservation contract, because that is the point at which money starts being at risk.
The French paperwork Spanish banks want
Spanish underwriters see French files regularly and generally recognise them, so the delay is rarely the language. It is that the pack arrives in instalments. The standard set is:
- Bulletins de salaire — your payslips, usually the last three to six months.
- Avis d'imposition — the tax assessment notice issued after your income tax return, normally for the last two years and three if you are indépendant.
- Relevés bancaires — bank statements over the same period as the payslips, as bank-issued documents rather than screenshots.
- Company or professional accounts for the same years if you work for yourself.
- Passport, proof of address, a list of your existing credit commitments, and your NIE, which must exist before completion.
There is no French credit file a Spanish bank can consult, and nothing in your French repayment history travels with you. Your statements and your own declaration are the entire record the underwriter has, which is why an unexplained large transfer or an irregular payment out is worth a sentence of explanation at the time you hand the file over rather than three weeks later under query.
Owning for part of the year when Spain is a short flight away
Proximity changes how French buyers use a Spanish property: a great many are bought for genuine part-year use rather than for two summer weeks, with long spells out of season and frequent short visits. That has a practical consequence the mortgage conversation should cover early, which is that heavy use tends to grow.
The more of the year you spend here, the more seriously the question of where you are tax resident arises — and it is a question with consequences on both sides of the border, for your French return as much as your Spanish one. We are mortgage intermediaries, not tax advisers, and we will not tell you where you should be resident. That belongs to an adviser in France, ideally one who talks to a Spanish counterpart.
What we can tell you is what each answer does to the borrowing. Stay French tax resident and you stay in the non-resident band. Move your residence genuinely, with income declared here, and the resident band opens up; refinancing an existing Spanish mortgage onto better terms is an ordinary transaction, so the decision you make now is not permanent.
Costs, timing and how we are paid
The purchase costs in Andalucía are fixed by the region and by the type of property: 7% transfer tax on a resale, or 10% VAT plus 1.2% stamp duty on a new build, with notary, registry, legal fees and the valuation added. Allow roughly 9–11% for a resale and 12–14% for a new build, in cash, on top of your deposit, and add the gap if the valuation comes in under the agreed price. The full cost breakdown is on our main page.
Terms of 20–25 years are normal for non-residents, with repayment usually required by the age of 70 to 75, and four to eight weeks is realistic from a complete document pack to a binding offer. Under Ley 5/2019 a Spanish lender may not tie the mortgage to the purchase of its other products, though it may offer a bundle so long as it also quotes the loan standalone for comparison. We are an independent intermediary, no vinculado, paid by lender commission on completion, with no fee to you.
Questions French buyers ask us
Is there a maximum debt-service ratio in Spain, as there is in France?
Not as a published, market-wide rule for non-resident lending. Spanish banks each set their own affordability policy, so the proportion of your income they will let you commit, the way they treat existing loans and the rate at which they stress a variable mortgage all differ from lender to lender.
In practice this means the sensible approach is the opposite of the French one. Rather than calculating your ceiling from a rule and then choosing a bank, you put the same file to several banks and find out what each of them says.
Will my French mortgage count against my Spanish application?
Yes. Existing loan payments are deducted from the income available to service the Spanish mortgage, exactly as a French lender would treat them. A Spanish bank cannot look your borrowing up, so it asks you to declare it and then checks the declaration against the relevés bancaires you supply.
Consumer credit and car finance often do more damage than their balances suggest, because the monthly payments are high relative to the amount outstanding. Clearing one before you apply can be worth more capacity than an extra few thousand euro of deposit.
Could I borrow in France instead, secured on the Spanish property?
Generally not. French lenders take security over French property; a mortgage on a house in Andalucía is registered in the Spanish property register and is the business of a Spanish lender. What some buyers do instead is raise money in France against a property they already own there, then buy here for cash.
That is a legitimate route and occasionally the cheaper one, but it is a different risk rather than simply a different rate, and it is a conversation for your French bank. We can price the Spanish side at no cost to you so that the comparison is a real one.
What happens if I end up spending most of the year in Spain?
Two separate things, and it helps to keep them apart. Where you are tax resident may change, which affects your French position and your Spanish one and is a matter for a tax adviser in France, not for us. We give no tax advice and no thresholds here on purpose.
On the mortgage side, a genuine change of tax residence eventually moves you into the resident band, where around 80% of valuation becomes possible rather than 60–70%. Banks want evidence of the change rather than a stated intention, so it is something to revisit once your position has actually settled.
Free assessment
Find out what you can borrow as a French buyer
One short form and we will tell you which banks are likely to lend to you, at what loan-to-value, and what it will cost — before you commit to a property or pay a reservation deposit. You pay us nothing; the lender pays our commission on completion.
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