Expat Buy to Let Mortgage Rates UK: What Overseas Landlords Pay

What overseas landlords pay on a UK buy to let mortgage

If you live abroad and want to rent out a UK property, the first number you will want is the rate. Here it is in plain terms. A UK landlord with a good file can find a five-year fix from about 5% at 60% to 75% loan to value once a typical £2,000 product fee is paid. An overseas landlord should expect to pay around 1% more, because lenders price in income earned in another currency and the extra work of lending to someone outside the UK.

That single point is worth about £156 a month on a £187,500 interest-only loan, and about £1,875 a year. The rest of this page shows where the benchmark rates sit at 1 November 2026, what lifts or lowers the premium, and how to read a headline rate once the fee is added.

As a specialist expat mortgage broker, we place buy to let loans for overseas borrowers every week. For who qualifies, which documents lenders ask for and how the application runs, see the related pages at the foot of this page. This page stays on the rate itself.

Where buy to let rates stand at 1 November 2026

UK mortgage rates have risen since the summer. Moneyfacts put the average buy to let rate at 5.36% for a two-year fix and 5.73% for a five-year fix in September 2026, and the Bank of England held Bank Rate at 3.75% that month. Averages hide a wide spread, so the table below shows the cheapest fixed rates on the market for UK-resident landlords at 1 November 2026. The first two columns are the lowest rate with a product fee of about £2,000. The last two show the lowest rate at any fee, with that fee in brackets.

Fee-free products cost more, usually by about 0.2% to 0.4% above the £2,000-fee figures. These are published comparison figures from Rightmove, Which? and Moneyfacts. They are not a quote, and they are the rates a UK resident would see. Your own rate depends on your income, where you live, the property and the lender.

Rates last reviewed 1 November 2026 by Daniel Yorke, Founder.

What expats pay compared with UK residents

Lenders that accept overseas applicants are a smaller group, and they carry more risk and more work on each case. Income may be paid in dirhams, dollars or Singapore dollars. Credit history may sit in another country. Tax and legal checks take longer. All of that goes into the price, which is why expat and foreign national buy to let rates usually start roughly 1% or more above the UK-resident figures in the table, in the mid 5% range for the best cases.

The table below puts numbers on that gap. The first block adds about 1% to the UK-resident figures above. It is an estimate of where an overseas landlord with a strong file would be priced, and not a lender quote.

There is also a published reading of what expat landlords were actually quoted. FORTO Finance, in its Expat Mortgage Demand and Origination Monitor reported by Mortgage Introducer on 20 October 2026, put average expat buy to let rates at 5.89% at 60% loan to value, 5.99% at 70% and 5.70% at 80% on 28 September 2026. The 60% rate had dipped to 4.96% in late August before rising by 82 basis points in the weeks to 21 September, which shows how quickly this market reprices. The report does not give the fixed term, and the 80% figure sits below the 70% figure, so treat it as an average of a thin sample and not as a price list.

The premium in pounds. A £250,000 flat, a £187,500 loan, interest only. At 5.03% the payment is about £786 a month. At 6.03% it is about £942. That is £156 a month more, or £9,375 over a five-year fix. It stings. It is also the normal price of borrowing from abroad, and it does not mean the deal is bad. What matters is whether the rent covers the payment with room to spare.

What pushes your rate up or down

Deposit first. Lenders price 60% to 65% loan to value best. Most of the overseas landlords we see borrow 65% to 75%, and each step up costs a little more. Put in more cash and you borrow less, at a lower rate.

Then the owner. A limited company set up just to hold the property, known as a special purpose vehicle, usually adds 0.3% to 0.5%. Some lenders will not take a director who lives abroad at all. Our page on buying UK investment property through a limited company goes through the pros and cons.

Then the fix. The five-year rates in the table sit slightly under the two-year ones, and many lenders stress a five-year fix at a lower rate, so you may borrow more. Planning to sell inside two years? Take the two-year.

Then the property. HMOs and holiday lets have their own pricing and a short list of lenders. See HMO mortgages for expats and holiday let mortgages for expats. Loan size also bites: many lenders will not go below £100,000 to £150,000.

Last, where you live and what you earn in. Each lender has a list of countries it likes, and most knock a slice off foreign income in case the currency moves against you. Our guide to currency conversion for expat mortgages has the numbers.

A cheap rate with a big fee

Fees catch people out. A buy to let arrangement fee is often 2% to 3% of the loan, and the keenest rates come with the heaviest fees.

Try it on the £187,500 loan. Deal one: 5.03%, £2,000 fee. Interest over five years is £47,156, so you pay £49,156 in total. Deal two: 4.55%, £6,100 fee. Interest is £42,656, so you pay £48,756. Deal two wins by £400, a tiny margin for a rate half a point lower, and you hand over £4,100 more on day one. Leave early and deal two loses.

Do the sum over the years you really expect to keep the loan.

Fixed or tracker

Fixed, for most of our clients. With income in dirhams, dollars or Singapore dollars, one steady sterling payment is easier to live with. A tracker follows Bank Rate. On this loan, every one point move is about £156 a month either way. Fixed pricing follows swap rates instead, so the two can drift apart.

Interest only is the norm. You pay the interest, then clear the capital from savings, a sale or a remortgage. Repayment costs more each month and suits anyone who wants the property owned outright by a set date.

What the rent has to be

Lenders look at the rent before they look at you. They take the interest at a stress rate above your real rate and want rent of 125% of that interest for basic rate taxpayers and limited companies, or 145% for higher rate taxpayers. At a 5.5% stress rate the interest on £187,500 is about £859 a month. So the rent must be at least £1,074 at 125%, or £1,246 at 145%.

Push the rate up and you pay more, and the rent may no longer stretch to the loan you wanted. Our article on how rental income affects an expat buy to let mortgage explains the test. Try your own figures in the expat buy to let mortgage calculator.

Getting a better rate

Four things move the needle.

• A bigger deposit. Between 25% and 40% is common, and the top of that range gets the best pricing.
• A tidy file. Have ready your tax returns, your bank statements, evidence of where the deposit came from, and details of any UK property you own.
• Speed. Products are pulled and repriced within hours when swap rates jump. Monday is not Friday. Once you have a property, get a product reserved, and ask whether you can switch if rates drop before completion.
• The right door. Plenty of high street lenders turn overseas applicants away, and a decline stays on your credit file. A whole-of-market broker knows which lender will take your country and income, and goes there first.

When the fix runs out

At the end of the fixed period you drop onto the lender’s standard variable rate, usually far higher. Start looking three to six months early. Our remortgaging for expats page explains how, and we are happy to run a fresh comparison once you are inside six months.