Buying a home in Germany as an international doctor
Your contract is fixed-term. You have been in the country for eighteen months. Your savings sit in an account in Madrid, Bucharest or Mumbai. Every one of these is a reason a German bank says no — and every one of them has a solution. They are just not the same solution.
Germany recruits you as a doctor — and then treats you as a risk
German hospitals actively recruit physicians from abroad. The same country’s banks then apply a credit process that was designed for someone who has lived, worked and borrowed in Germany for twenty years. The result is familiar to almost every international physician I speak to: an excellent salary, a secure profession, a permanent shortage of colleagues — and a rejection letter.
It is not personal, and it is not discrimination. It is a checklist. A German credit committee looks for four things, and an international doctor typically fails on three of them for reasons that have nothing to do with creditworthiness.
What actually blocks the file — and what solves it
- The fixed-term contract. Many hospital posts (Assistenzarzt in specialist training, research contracts, cover appointments) are time-limited. A standard scoring model treats a fixed term as an income cliff. What matters is not the contract wording but the market behind it: a physician in specialist training in a shortage discipline has an employability that few permanent employees can match. That case has to be made in the file, in German, with evidence — not asserted in a conversation.
- The probation period. Some lenders will not even open a file during the first six months. Others will. Knowing which is not a matter of negotiation — it is a matter of knowing the lender’s policy before the enquiry is made. A declined application leaves a trace; a well-placed one does not.
- The residence permit. A German lender wants to see a right of residence that plausibly outlives the fixed-rate period. An EU passport removes the question entirely. An EU Blue Card, a §18b permit or a settlement permit each sit differently in a credit assessment — and a permit tied to one employer is read differently from one that is not. This is where files are lost silently, because nobody explains which document actually changes the answer. Details on the Blue Card financing page.
- No Schufa history. Germany scores credit behaviour, and a thin file is not a good file — it is an empty one. Two years of German banking, a mobile contract, a current account without returns: that is a history. Its absence is not evidence against you, but it must be replaced by something — usually by income strength, equity and a lender that reads the case rather than the score.
Any one of them is manageable. Three at once — fixed term, short residence, no Schufa history — will fail with a lender whose process is automated. It will not fail with a lender who underwrites manually. There are both kinds in Germany. Which one receives your file is the single decision that determines the outcome, and it is made before a single document is sent.
Your equity is abroad — and that is a compliance question, not a banking one
You have savings in your home country. You transfer them to Germany for the purchase. From that moment the money is not simply yours in the eyes of the bank: under German anti-money-laundering law (Geldwäschegesetz) the lender must establish the origin of funds. That is not scepticism about you personally. It is a statutory duty, and it applies to every euro of equity, wherever it comes from.
In practice this means: bank statements showing the accumulation, an employment history that explains it, documentation for a gift from parents (with the correct wording — a gift and a loan are not the same thing and are treated very differently in the calculation), evidence for the sale of a property abroad. The documents must exist before the money moves, not after. Reconstructing the provenance of a transfer that already happened is one of the most tedious and avoidable delays in the entire process.
Foreign-currency income adds a further layer — and a legal one that most brokers have never read. If you are paid in a currency other than the euro, or if you live outside the euro area, German law grants you a conversion right under § 503 BGB, and lenders react to that right in ways that surprise borrowers. It is explained in full on the page about the conversion right for foreign-currency borrowers.
The profession is still the strongest asset you have
None of the above should obscure the central fact: physicians are among the most creditworthy borrowers in Germany. Unemployment in the profession is effectively nil, income is high and rises predictably, and the shortage of doctors is structural rather than cyclical. Lenders know this. Several German banks price and underwrite medical professionals as a distinct client group precisely for that reason.
What that means for you: a 100 % financing — the full purchase price, with the transaction costs paid from your own funds — is realistic for a physician with a solid income, even early in a career. What it does not mean is that any lender will do it. The gap between the bank that says no and the bank that says yes is not a matter of your file. It is a matter of which desk your file lands on.
That is my work: I place the case with lenders who assess it manually and who understand medical careers, from a panel of more than 500 institutions, and I do it before an application is formally recorded anywhere. What you should bring to that conversation is on the page about mortgages for doctors.
Answered briefly
Can I get a mortgage during my probation period?
Does a fixed-term contract rule me out?
How much equity do I actually need?
My parents want to help. Does that count?
Do I need to speak German for this?
Before you approach a bank, let’s see the file
Free, non-binding, and in English. I will tell you honestly whether it works today, what is missing if it does not — and which lender is the right one to ask. No application is submitted until we both know the answer.