Foreign national mortgage loans California · Investment property
Foreign national loan requirements start without a US credit score. The buyer withholds 15% when you sell.
Every page selling to overseas buyers leads with what you will not be asked for. None of them mentions this one, and it is a larger number than the rate.
Reviewed 13 September 2026 · Wexmoor Circle LLC, Los Angeles
1 · The mechanism
Foreign national loan requirements read the property and your passport, not your credit file.
No social security number, no US credit score, no US tax return. Namely, the rent is measured against the payment, and that ratio decides it. A foreign national DSCR loan is the same arithmetic a domestic investor gets, run on a borrower the credit bureaus have never heard of.
Specifically it exists for one person: someone with real money and no American paper trail. Yet thirty years of bills paid on time in Seoul or São Paulo does not exist to a US underwriter, because the file it lives in is not one they can pull.
Instead, the foreign national loan requirements that replace it are narrow. Namely, two or three bank references showing about two years of history, a passport, and proof the money is yours.
And this is the part that surprises people. So the foreign national loan requirements to get in are the easy half. Meanwhile the expensive half happens on the way out, and almost nobody selling this mentions it.
The rent
2 · The numbers that disagree
The published foreign national loan requirements do not agree with each other.
We read what eight foreign national mortgage lenders and aggregators published in September 2026. Still, on the two numbers that decide whether you can afford the deal, they contradict each other.
| What you need to know | One page says | Another says |
|---|---|---|
| Down payment | 20% — stated as 80% LTV | 25% to 30% |
| Reserves | 6 months | 9 to 12 months |
| Credit | No FICO required | No FICO, or 680 for the best pricing |
| Ratio floor | 1.0, rent equals the payment | 1.25 for the better pricing |
On a $900,000 purchase the down payment gap alone is $90,000, and the reserve gap is six more months of payments. Both are settled before anyone looks at the property.
Treat those as marketing, because that is what they are. They come from pages selling foreign national loan programs, not from guideline documents. Ultimately the foreign national loan requirements that matter belong to the lender who takes your file.
After all, rate and terms depend on the file, and a page that prints a number is printing it for somebody else’s file.
3 · What moves the file
Foreign national mortgage guidelines turn on three things: residency, reserves, and where the money sits.
Not your income, and not your score. Rather, the foreign national loan requirements that price and approve a file are these three, and the third one is the one that kills timelines.
First, which kind of borrower you are
Notably a non-resident, a visa holder living here, and an ITIN holder who works here are three different borrowers under three different rule sets. Marketing lumps them together; underwriting does not. If you work in the US and file here, a bank statement loan or stated income may fit better than this product.
How many months you hold after closing
Counted after the down payment leaves, not before. Consequently a deal that works on paper fails here more often than on the ratio.
Where the money is on closing day
Funds generally have to be in a US account before closing, sitting rather than landing the week of. A calendar problem, not a credit one, and the most common reason a good file misses its date.
4 · The file
What the foreign national loan requirements actually ask you for.
Six things, and the last two decide most of it.
Passport, and a visa if you hold one
Current and unexpired. If your country needs no visa for entry, that gets documented instead.
Two or three international credit references
From recognised banks, showing about two years of history. This stands in for a score that does not exist.
Proof the money is yours
Source of funds, and a clean path showing how it moved. Expect every hop to be read.
The entity, if you are using one
Most close in an LLC. Formation documents, the operating agreement, and the ownership chain behind it.
Reserves, in a US account, before closing
Held after the down payment is spent. This is what moves closing dates.
The property and its rent
Non-owner-occupied, business purpose. A lease or the appraiser’s market rent — underwriting uses the lower.
5 · The trade
Foreign national mortgage rates sit above a domestic DSCR loan, and the spread is not your biggest cost.
There is a premium. It is real, and it is the number everyone asks about first. It is also not where most of the money goes.
The premium exists because the lender cannot verify you the cheap way: more manual underwriting, more documents in more languages, no bureau file to fall back on. That work gets priced.
We do not print a number, for the same reason we print none anywhere on this site. A rate on a page belongs to a file that is not yours.
But compare the two costs honestly. A rate premium is paid monthly, out of rent the property produces. The cost in the next section is paid in one lump, out of the sale price, whether the deal made money or not. Investors price the first carefully and meet the second at closing.
6 · The number nobody publishes
When you sell, the buyer withholds 15% of the price under IRC section 1445.
Not 15% of your profit. 15% of the amount realised — the sale price. This is FIRPTA, and it applies because the seller is a foreign person, not because of anything about the loan.
The buyer is the withholding agent. It is not something you file later and settle up on. It comes out of the wire at closing, because the law makes the buyer liable if they do not take it.
There is an exception at or under $300,000, and it cannot reach you. It requires the buyer to occupy the property as a residence for at least half the days in each of the two following years. Someone buying your rental as a rental cannot meet it.
So a break-even sale still has 15% of the price withheld. You may recover the excess over your actual tax by filing, but you finance the gap meanwhile, and it can run months.
This is arithmetic you can do before you buy. It changes which purchase price works and how long you need to hold — and it is on none of the pages selling you the loan.
$680,000
Bring a cross-border CPA in before you buy, not after you sign. Primary sources worth reading yourself: IRS, FIRPTA Withholding · 26 U.S.C. 1445 · California DFPI
7 · The questions
What we are asked most, answered short.
Each answer stands on its own. Take the one you came for.
What is a foreign national loan?
A mortgage for someone who is not a US citizen or resident, underwritten without a US credit score or tax return. On investment property the rent against the payment decides it.
Do you do foreign national loans for non-residents?
Yes, inside our boundary: one to ten units, non-owner-occupied, business purpose, California. Not primary residences.
Do I need a US credit score?
No. Two or three international bank references are the usual substitute. A US score, if you have one, is a price input, not a gate.
Can I buy in an LLC?
Usually yes, and most of these close that way. Expect the ownership chain behind the entity to be documented.
How long does the money have to sit in a US account?
Varies by lender, and worth asking first. Funds landing the week of closing is the most common reason these miss their date.
Is a foreign national real estate loan the same as a commercial loan?
No. This is residential investment property, one to ten units. Commercial is a different product and a different lender set.
Do you do a foreign cre loan?
No. We stop at ten units. Anything above that sits outside what we work on, and we will say so rather than pass you around.
Can you tell me if it works before I spend anything?
Yes, that is the point. Send the rent, the price and the structure and you get the arithmetic back — including the 15% at the exit, and including when the answer is no.
8 · Next
Check the foreign national loan requirements before you wire anything.
A foreign national investment property loan dies on the same ratio a domestic one does. Your money is further away and moves slower, so finding out early is worth more to you than to anyone else.
Wexmoor Circle LLC · 930 Colorado Blvd, Suite 1, Los Angeles, CA 90041 · Reviewed 13 September 2026
