Getting a French mortgage while living abroad: conditions, deposit, lead times, banks

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Home Select organises around your financing

A non-resident mortgage sets four professions to work that do not know one another: a broker to build and negotiate the loan, a bank to grant it, an insurer to cover the borrower, a notaire to register the security and receive the funds, often a currency specialist too. Home Select gets them working in the right order, because the calendar of the search and that of the loan are one and the same: no offer to buy leaves without an agreement in principle.

From the briefing of your search, we introduce a 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: Home Select is not a banking intermediary and compares no offers. We stay beside you during the processing, we chase when a deadline slips, and we set the signing date at the notaire on an accepted loan offer, not on a hope.