You've got a stable job, a solid income, and years of savings. You ask your German bank for a mortgage. They say no. No explanation, just no.
This happens to expats every week. Not because they can't afford the property — because they walked into the wrong bank with the wrong visa.
The 120-of-700 reality
Germany has roughly 700 banks. About 120 will lend to non-EU residents on temporary work permits. The rest won't touch the application, no matter how strong the finances look on paper.
For EU Blue Card holders specifically, the number is even harsher: around four banks currently offer products designed for this group. Four.
This isn't published anywhere in one place. There's no official registry. Expats discover it the hard way, after weeks of rejections from banks that sounded perfectly normal until they saw the visa stamp.
Your German employer's house bank? Probably not one of the 120. Your current account bank? Almost certainly not. The well-known retail names? Most of them, no.
Going directly to a retail bank as a non-EU expat is mostly a waste of time. The lenders who actually work with this profile are accessible almost exclusively through specialist mortgage brokers — Hypofriend, Your German Mortgage, Finance for Expats, Baufi24, Urbyo — who have relationships with the banks that won't appear in a standard search.
Your visa type outranks your salary
German banks don't just look at income. They look at residence risk: the probability that you might leave before the mortgage is paid.
This creates a tiered system that few expats see coming. Permanent residency (Niederlassungserlaubnis) gets you the best terms, close to what a German national would receive — LTV up to 80–90% with strong finances. An EU Blue Card locks you into those ~4 specialist banks, with LTV typically capped at 60–70%. A standard temporary work permit puts you in a high-risk category for most lenders, often at 50–60% LTV with a rate premium on top. Buying as a non-resident from abroad is stricter still — 50% LTV is common, 60% is generous.
The maddening part: a software engineer on a Blue Card with €150,000 in savings can be told no, while a German national with a lower salary and minimal savings gets approved. Income matters, but visa status filters you out before the bank even looks at the numbers.
How much cash you actually need
Most expats budget based on the property price. That's the first mistake.
In Germany, closing costs are not mortgage-eligible. The bank will not finance them. They must come from personal savings, and they are due within weeks of signing the purchase contract — not months.
For a €400,000 property in Berlin:
| Cost | Rate | Amount | |---|---|---| | Grunderwerbsteuer (transfer tax) | 6.0% | €24,000 | | Notary + land registry | ~2.0% | €8,000 | | Estate agent commission | ~3.57% | €14,280 | | Total closing costs | ~11.6% | €46,280 |
The transfer tax varies by federal state. Bavaria is at 3.5%. Brandenburg, Saarland, and NRW are at 6.5% — a €12,000 difference on a €400,000 purchase.
Now add the down payment. As a non-EU resident or Blue Card holder, expect 30–40% down. Sometimes 50%.
| | Resident | Non-EU expat | |---|---|---| | Down payment | €80,000 (20%) | €160,000 (40%) | | Closing costs | €46,280 | €46,280 | | Total cash needed | ~€126,000 | ~€206,000 |
More than half the purchase price, in cash, before you own anything.
The Grunderwerbsteuer bill arrives roughly four weeks after signing the notary contract. Missing that deadline can unwind the deal.
SCHUFA starts at zero
Germany's credit scoring system doesn't import your history from home. Your US credit score, UK credit file, Polish BIK record — irrelevant here. You start from nothing.
That's not automatically disqualifying. Banks can work with a thin SCHUFA file if other factors are strong. What they can't work with is a damaged one.
Here's where expats hurt themselves without realising it: every time you approach a lender for a rate enquiry, a hard credit pull can lower your SCHUFA score. Shop around at five banks, get five hard pulls, and your application weakens with each attempt.
The expat-friendly mortgage brokers run a single soft check against multiple lenders at once. That alone is one of the structural reasons going direct to banks as a new arrival usually backfires.
A few things that help build SCHUFA before you need a mortgage:
- Open a German current account (Girokonto) and use it regularly
- Get a German phone contract in your name — a proper contract, not prepaid
- Pay all bills from a German account, on time, every month
- Avoid unnecessary credit enquiries in your first two years
You don't need a perfect SCHUFA. You need a clean one.
Not all brokers are the same
Most expat mortgage content tells you to use a broker. That's correct, but it leaves out something important: broker access varies a lot.
The two biggest German mortgage brokers, Dr. Klein and Interhyp, each operate on a single pricing platform (Europace and eHyp respectively). Neither shows the full market. Both are designed primarily for resident borrowers.
Brokers who specialise in expat and non-resident lending have built relationships with the specific banks in that 120-lender pool. Hypofriend, Your German Mortgage, Finance for Expats, and Urbyo are the names worth knowing. They operate in English, understand visa complexity, and won't put you through a bank-by-bank rejection tour.
The consultation is free. The broker earns from the bank on completion. There's no financial reason to go direct first.
What to have ready
The documentation list for a German mortgage application is longer than most countries expect. Having these ready before you approach anyone saves weeks:
- Last 3 months' payslips
- Last 2 years' tax returns (German if you've been here long enough; home country returns otherwise)
- Employment contract — banks want to see the term, salary, and whether it's permanent or fixed-term
- Last 3 months' bank statements from your German account
- Residence permit (Aufenthaltstitel) — exact type and expiry date matter
- Current SCHUFA self-disclosure report (free once per year from the SCHUFA website)
- Proof of savings — the funds for down payment and closing costs need to be visible and verifiable
If you're self-employed, add at least 3 years of certified tax returns and profit/loss statements. It's a more complex file regardless of income level.
The timeline
From starting to look to getting keys, plan for six to nine months. Sometimes longer. The main stages:
- Pre-approval (2–4 weeks): broker assesses your situation, approaches suitable lenders, gets a conditional offer
- Property search: overlaps with pre-approval; knowing your actual budget keeps you competitive
- Purchase contract (4–8 weeks after offer accepted): notary appointment, contract review, signing
- Transfer tax payment (4 weeks after signing): non-negotiable deadline
- Mortgage finalisation (6–10 weeks from application): bank valuation, final offer, signing mortgage documents
- Land registry (4–8 weeks): title transfers to your name once the bank has paid the seller
The transfer tax deadline is the one that bites people. Everything else has more slack.
Three numbers to remember
Getting a mortgage in Germany as a non-EU resident is possible. The conditions are just materially different from what the bank websites suggest, and different from what you'd experience in the US, UK, or most of Western Europe.
The three numbers that matter before anything else:
- 120: how many German banks will actually consider your application
- 50–65%: the share of the property price you may need in cash, down payment and closing costs combined
- 4 weeks: the transfer tax deadline after signing
None of this means you can't buy. It means you need to know the rules before you start playing.
RateNomad is building a mortgage calculator that shows real indicative rates for expats across EU markets — no broker call required to see the numbers. Join the waitlist to get early access.