Foreign National Loans for US Investment Property

Yes, a foreign national can finance a US investment property without US credit. The loan is made to a US LLC, not to you personally, and it is underwritten on the asset and the plan: the property's value, its rent or its exit, and your ability to service the loan. You form the LLC, obtain its EIN without a Social Security number, open and fund a US bank account in the LLC's name, and document who you are and where the money comes from.

On our programs a non-US investor borrows on the same terms as a US investor. There is no foreign-national rate premium and no reduction in leverage for living abroad. Loan sizes run from $1M to $5M, a term sheet comes back in 24 to 48 hours, and a clean file closes in about two weeks. US-based investors use exactly the same programs; this page simply walks through them from the point of view of someone borrowing from outside the country.

These are the published terms that apply to a non-US investor. Leverage figures are maximums: the amount offered on a given deal depends on the property, the plan and the exit, and the term sheet states it.

A foreign national loan, in the sense used on this page, is a business-purpose loan made to a US legal entity, almost always a US LLC, that a non-US resident owns. It is secured by US investment property that nobody in the ownership will live in, and the money is used to buy, renovate, build, refinance or hold that property as an investment.

Because the borrower is a company and the purpose is investment, the loan sits outside US consumer lending. That is the reason the qualification is different. A consumer lender has to establish a person's ability to repay from their US income and US credit file, which a non-resident does not have. A business-purpose lender looks at the asset and the plan: what the property is worth, what it rents for or sells for, and whether the owner has the means to carry it.

The table below sets the two side by side. It is qualitative on purpose: the point is which door you should knock on, not a price comparison.

Only as a business-purpose mortgage to your US LLC, never as a consumer mortgage to you personally: Passy Capital does not arrange loans to individuals. The loan is secured by the US investment property, like any loan secured by real estate, but it is made to your LLC rather than to you, and the property is non-owner-occupied. That is what most foreign investors are looking for when they search for a foreign national mortgage on a US rental, a flip or a build held in an LLC.

It is not a consumer mortgage. A consumer mortgage is made to an individual, can cover a residence or a second home, and is decided on personal income and a US credit file. A business-purpose mortgage to your US LLC is decided on the property and the plan, sits outside consumer lending rules, and is available only for investment property. That is why no US credit history is needed, why the terms are the same as for a US investor, and why any personal use of the property by you or your family takes a file outside what we arrange.

Non-US residents investing in US residential property through a US LLC. You do not need US citizenship, US residency, a green card, a visa, a Social Security number or a US credit score. Individuals and families investing their own capital qualify, and so do operators who already run renovation or development businesses at home and want to do the same work in the US.

What the underwriting needs to see is simple to state. The deal has to make sense on its own: a purchase price and value that support the loan, a rent that covers a DSCR loan, or a plan and an exit that cover a bridge, flip or construction loan. And you have to show that you can carry the deal: the equity for your share of the purchase or project, and reserves to service the loan.

Financing is available to investors from eligible countries, after standard identity and anti-money-laundering checks, and never to sanctioned countries or individuals. Eligibility of your country is the first thing we check, before any time is spent on the property, because it is the one question that no amount of preparation changes.

Each program matches a stage of the investment. Many non-US investors use two in sequence: a short-term loan to buy and improve, then a DSCR loan to hold.

Residential investment property that nobody in the ownership lives in. In practice that means:

We finance investment property across many US markets. The pages below cover the states where non-US investors most often ask us to finance, with the local points that matter to an investor: how foreclosure and title work there, transfer taxes, insurance and permitting.

The LLC is the borrower, so it comes first. Forming one is fast and can be done entirely from abroad: you choose a state, appoint a registered agent there, file the formation documents and adopt a simple operating agreement. For a single property, forming the LLC in the state where the property sits is often the simplest choice; a company formed elsewhere will normally have to register in the property state too, with a second set of fees and filings.

The LLC then needs an EIN, its federal tax identification number. A non-resident without a Social Security number obtains it with IRS Form SS-4, applying by fax or mail rather than through the online tool. That step takes anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, and the LLC's US bank account can only be opened once the EIN exists. This is the single most common reason a foreign investor's closing runs late, and it has nothing to do with the financing.

The practical rule: form the LLC and file for the EIN the same week you sign a purchase contract, or before you start looking if you can.

The list is short, and it describes the company, the money and the property rather than a personal US borrowing history. It falls into four groups.

The financing is not the long part of a cross-border purchase. The steps below run partly in parallel; the ones on your side of the table, the entity and the paper trail behind the money, are the ones to start first.

Your equity, the reserves and, at closing, the funds to complete reach the United States by international wire. They should arrive in the LLC's US bank account, in US dollars, and the closing funds go from there to the title company. Plan the currency conversion in advance: a large transfer can be split, timed, or arranged through a specialist provider, but the exchange rate on the day is your risk and not something the loan absorbs.

International wires take time to arrive and banks on both ends may ask questions about a large transfer. Leave margin before the closing date rather than sending the money in the last two days. Confirm the title company's wiring instructions by calling a number you already know to be theirs, never one taken from an email: real estate wire fraud targets exactly this step.

Source of funds is the part that surprises some investors, and it is the same everywhere: the lender and the title company need to see where the money comes from, not only that it exists. That means documents that trace it from its origin (the sale of an asset, savings built over time, distributions from a business you own) to the account it is wired from. Money from a third party, a family member or a partner, needs its own documentation. When the trail is clean the review is quick. When it has to be rebuilt it is the slowest part of the file, so assemble it at the start.

This is not tax advice, and the right structure depends on your home country and its treaty with the United States. These are the points every non-US investor should raise with a US tax adviser before buying, because some of them are expensive when missed.

Our fee is 1% to 2% of the loan, paid at closing out of the transaction. There are no upfront fees: nothing to pay for the term sheet, nothing to pay to have the deal reviewed. The term sheet states the pricing and the fee before you commit, so the full cost is known while you can still walk away.

Third-party costs exist on any US closing, whoever finances it: the appraisal, title insurance and the title company's closing charges, the registered agent and formation costs of the LLC, recording fees and any transfer taxes in the property state, and hazard insurance on the property (plus flood insurance where the property is in a flood zone). They are set by the providers and the state, not by us.

The process above is the same for every eligible country. What changes is the home-country side: how money leaves, how documents are certified, and which tax treaty applies. These guides cover the specifics.

Short answers to the question as nationals of each country usually ask it.

Many foreign-national programs price a non-resident higher and lend less, on the reasoning that a borrower abroad is harder to pursue. Ours do not. The loan is secured by the US property and made to a US company, so the collateral and the legal framework are the same whoever owns the company. What the underwriting needs from you, the means to carry the deal and a documented source of funds, is something a non-US investor can show as well as a US one.

Passy Capital is Swiss-founded. We work across time zones with investors who are used to buying property at home and are doing it in the US for the first time, and the person you speak to on the first call is the one who structures the deal and stays on it to closing.