Getting a mortgage after settlement

What Is Published and What Is Not

There is no immigration rule about mortgages, and no government publication sets deposit levels, interest rates or the treatment of different immigration statuses. Those are commercial decisions made by each lender, so figures quoted for them — whether about settled status or a time-limited visa — do not come from an official source and vary between lenders.

What is published is the tax on the purchase, the government home-buying schemes and their conditions, and how immigration status is proved. This guide covers those. Indefinite leave to remain, also called settlement, is permission to stay with no time limit; GOV.UK says it allows the holder to work, run a business, study, use public services and apply for public funds and pensions. See our guide to what settlement allows.

Proving Status to a Lender or Conveyancer

This part is published, and it changed. Biometric residence permits stopped being issued at the end of 2024, so there is no card to show. Settled status is held online in a UK Visas and Immigration account.

• Share codes. A share code generated from the account lasts 90 days and can be used as many times as needed before it expires. GOV.UK describes it as proving status to employers or landlords, or when travelling. Our guide to the online record of status explains how the account works, and codes are generated through the GOV.UK view and prove your immigration status service.
• Signing in. The account is opened with the passport, national identity card or biometric residence card it was set up with, plus the phone number or email address used for sign-in. An expired biometric residence permit can still be used to sign in.
• Income records. Lenders set their own evidence requirements. For anyone self-employed, our guide to self-employment evidence covers the records that also matter to a settlement application.

Credit Records

Credit reference agencies are commercial companies, and lenders decide for themselves what weight to give a credit file. No official source sets a minimum length of UK credit history, so any figure quoted for one is a lender’s policy rather than a rule.

Two things about credit files are governed by law rather than by policy: under UK data protection law a person has the right to see the personal data an agency holds about them and to have inaccurate data corrected. Registering to vote is a separate matter, governed by electoral law: British, Irish and qualifying Commonwealth citizens resident in the UK can register, and settled status alone does not confer the right to vote in a UK parliamentary election. See our guide to British citizenship.

Buying Before Settlement

No immigration rule requires settled status before buying property, and owning property is not a route to any immigration status. Two published rules do change the tax bill, and neither turns on immigration status:

• The non-resident surcharge. GOV.UK states: if you are “not present in the UK for at least 183 days (6 months) during the 12 months before your purchase you are ‘not a UK resident’ for the purposes of SDLT”, and a 2% surcharge usually applies on a residential property in England or Northern Ireland. It is a presence test, so it can catch a British citizen living abroad and not catch someone here on a time-limited visa.
• The additional property rate. A further 5% applies where buying the property means owning more than one residential property. GOV.UK says it does not apply where the purchase replaces a main residence sold within 36 months of completion, and that a refund can be claimed where the old home is sold after completion.

Both can apply at once, on top of the standard rates. See our guide to buying property as a visa holder.

Government Schemes

These are the published schemes and their conditions:

• First Homes scheme. A first-time buyer may be able to buy a home for 30% to 50% less than its market value, and it must be their only or main residence. GOV.UK says the scheme is only available in England. The published conditions are: aged 18 or older, a first-time buyer, able to get a mortgage for at least half the price of the home, and earning no more than £80,000 a year before tax (£90,000 in London) in the previous tax year. Where people buy together, all must be first-time buyers and their joint income must be within the same cap. Councils may add local criteria — for example prioritising key workers or people already living in the area — which apply only for the first 3 months a property is on sale.
• Shared Ownership. Buying a share of a property and paying rent on the rest.
• Lifetime ISA. Up to £4,000 can be paid in each year until the age of 50, with the first payment made before the age of 40. The government adds a 25% bonus, up to £1,000 a year. The £4,000 counts towards the annual ISA limit, which is £20,000 for the 2026 to 2027 tax year. Paying in and earning the bonus stop at 50.

Check the GOV.UK homeownership page for the latest schemes and eligibility criteria.

Stamp Duty Land Tax

Stamp Duty Land Tax applies in England and Northern Ireland. Immigration status is not one of its inputs; price, whether the buyer is a first-time buyer, how many residential properties they will own and how much time they have spent in the UK are. The published residential rates for a single property are:

• up to £125,000: nothing;
• the portion from £125,001 to £250,000: 2%;
• the portion from £250,001 to £925,000: 5%;
• the portion from £925,001 to £1.5 million: 10%;
• the portion above £1.5 million: 12%.

First-time buyer relief means no stamp duty up to £300,000 and 5% on the portion from £300,001 to £500,000. GOV.UK says the relief cannot be claimed at all if the price is over £500,000. Everyone buying together must be a first-time buyer.

The additional 5% applies where the purchase means owning more than one residential property, and GOV.UK does not limit that to properties in the UK. The 2% non-resident surcharge applies where the buyer has not been present in the UK for at least 183 days in the 12 months before the purchase. Where both apply, they are paid on top of the standard rates. HMRC publishes the rates, the calculator and the refund routes on the GOV.UK Stamp Duty Land Tax pages.

Where the Two Sets of Costs Meet

The settlement application and a house purchase are separate processes with separate published costs. Settlement is £3,226 for each person applying, with no fee for the fingerprints and photograph and no immigration health surcharge; the priority service is £500 and the super priority service £1,000. British citizenship, which GOV.UK says usually follows after a minimum of 12 months holding settlement, is £1,839: £1,709 to apply and a £130 citizenship ceremony fee.

On the purchase side, the published costs are the stamp duty above and whatever the lender and conveyancer charge, which are commercial. Our guide to UK visa fees, our guide to settlement requirements and our settlement cost breakdown set out the immigration side.

Questions and answers