Foreign National Loan Requirements: The Complete Checklist

Almost every international buyer I talk to opens the same way: “My bank in the U.S. said no.” That is not a judgment on your finances. A conventional lender only knows how to read three documents — a Social Security number, a U.S. credit report, and U.S. tax returns — and you were never going to have them. A foreign national loan is simply a program built to read the documents you do have. Here is the whole list, and what each one is actually doing in the file.

This is the shortest part of the file and the part borrowers worry about most. You need a valid, unexpired passport. If you hold a U.S. visa, a copy goes in the file. If you do not, that is fine — foreign national programs are written for buyers with no U.S. residency at all. There is no green card requirement, no minimum time in the country, and no requirement that you ever have lived here. What the lender is confirming is that you are who you say you are and that the funds are traceable to a real, identifiable person.

You will document income the way your home country documents it. For an employee, that usually means an employment letter on company letterhead plus recent pay records. For a business owner, it is company financial statements, an accountant’s letter, or business bank statements — often two years’ worth. If your wealth is in assets rather than salary, statements from your foreign bank or brokerage can carry the file instead. Everything gets translated into English and converted to U.S. dollars with a documented exchange rate. None of it needs to be “seasoned” in a U.S. account for years first.

This is the requirement that surprises people, and it is the one that stalls files. In place of a FICO score, most lenders want two to three reference letters from financial institutions where you hold a relationship — banks, brokerages, sometimes an insurer or a lender who has financed you before. Each letter confirms the relationship’s length, the account type, and that it has been handled satisfactorily. Some foreign banks issue these in a week; others treat it as an unusual request and take a month. Start asking the day you begin shopping, not the day you go under contract.

• Plan on 25–35% down. Thirty percent is the number I quote most often for a straightforward purchase.
• More down means a lower rate. Because the lender is underwriting the property more than the person, equity is the primary risk cushion — and pricing follows it closely.
• Funds must be traceable. A wire from your own documented account is simple; a wire from a third party or an unexplained deposit will hold up the file.
• Some lenders want the funds moved into a U.S. account before closing. Ask early, because international wires can take days.

Expect to show six to twelve months of the new mortgage payment sitting in reserve after your down payment and closing costs are paid. Investment properties sit at the higher end of that range. These funds can usually stay in your foreign accounts — they need to be documented and accessible, not relocated.

This is the shortcut worth knowing. When you are buying a rental, the file can be structured as a DSCR loan, where the property’s projected rent — not your personal income — carries qualification. That removes the hardest documents from the list entirely. Your income paperwork gets much lighter, and the appraiser’s rent schedule does the heavy lifting. For international investors buying U.S. rentals, this is very often the cleanest path.

Many international buyers close in an LLC for liability and estate-planning reasons, and foreign national programs generally allow it. You will provide the operating agreement, the articles of organization, and identification for every member with meaningful ownership. See buying rental property with an LLC for how the entity structure interacts with the loan. Talk to a cross-border tax advisor before you form anything — the structure that is best for your taxes is not always the one that is easiest to finance, and it is far cheaper to decide that up front.

You do not need to be in the United States. Documents can be signed at a U.S. embassy or consulate, in front of an approved international notary, or by someone holding your power of attorney — arranged in advance, not the week of closing. Many of my international clients have gone from wire to keys without booking a flight.

Send me the country you are buying from, the property type, and roughly what you plan to put down. I will tell you which of these items will be easy in your case and which one to start chasing this week.