Borrowing power calculator — how much can I borrow?

How much can I borrow on my income?

Indicative maximum loan for a single applicant, built from the site’s own tax model for net income and its own loan model for capacity. Assessed at 9.29% — a 6.29% product rate plus APRA’s 3 percentage point serviceability buffer, reconfirmed in May 2026 — over 30 years. Living expenses are assumed at $2,500 a month for one adult plus $750 per dependant, excluding rent, childcare fees and any existing debt. Planning estimates, not approvals.

Two patterns are worth reading off this table. Dependants cost capacity in fairly even steps — roughly $750 a month each, which removes about $90,846 of borrowing at the assessed rate, before childcare fees are counted at all. And on these assumptions no row reaches 6 times income: the buffer binds first, which is why the debt-to-income cap tends to bite on investor files and low-deposit households rather than on a single salaried applicant.

General information only — not personal credit advice, a pre-approval or an offer of finance, and no credit check is performed. A real lender applies its own credit policy, substitutes an expense benchmark such as HEM where declared expenses are lower, shades bonus, commission, overtime and rental income, counts credit card limits rather than balances, and applies property and postcode rules. Two lenders can assess the same file tens of thousands apart.

What the 3% serviceability buffer costs you

The same surplus, converted to a loan twice: once at the 6.29% rate you would actually pay, and once at the 9.29% rate a lender must satisfy itself you could pay. No dependants, no other debts. The gap is not a fee and not negotiable — it is the buffer doing its job.

The buffer removes close to a quarter of capacity at every income level, because it is a proportional adjustment rather than a flat deduction. That also explains something borrowers find counter-intuitive: a rate cut does not restore capacity one-for-one, because the assessed rate falls with it and the gap stays roughly the same proportion. With the cash rate at 4.60% after four increases during 2026, capacity has moved the other way.

General information only — not personal credit advice or an approval. Estimates use the assumptions stated above, not any individual lender’s policy.

What each commitment removes from your borrowing power

Priced on a single applicant earning $130,000 with no dependants, assessed at 9.29% over 30 years. Each row is the capacity that commitment costs on its own — they stack, so carrying several removes the sum.

The credit card row is the one worth acting on, because it is the only commitment on the list that can be removed with a phone call. A limit you never draw on still costs capacity at every lender, and closing or reducing it is usually the fastest single improvement available to a file. The study-debt row cannot be removed, but it does shrink as income rises past the top threshold, and paying a HELP balance down early rarely helps capacity because the compulsory repayment is set by income, not by balance.

General information only — not personal credit advice. Card limits are commonly assessed at 3.8% of the limit a month, but some lenders use 3% and a few assess an interest-free period differently. Study debt treatment varies between lenders. Confirm your own position with a broker before acting.

The debt-to-income cap, described correctly

Since 1 February 2026, APRA has limited how much high debt-to-income lending an Australian lender may write. No more than 20% of a lender’s new owner-occupier loans, and separately no more than 20% of its new investor loans, may be at a DTI of 6 times income or above. The two portfolios are measured separately, so an investor-heavy lender cannot use owner-occupier headroom to fund investor lending above the line.

The most common error in published Australian coverage is describing this as a 6-times cap on borrowers. It is not. The limit sits on the lender’s book, not on your application. A bank can write your loan at seven times income and remain fully compliant — it is managing a quota across everything it approves that quarter. What that means in practice is a narrower window and closer scrutiny above 6×, not an automatic decline: expect more questions about expenses, less appetite late in a reporting period, and real variation between lenders on how much of their quota is already spent.

Three categories sit outside the cap entirely: construction of a new dwelling, purchase of a newly erected dwelling, and bridging finance. That exemption is deliberate policy — it keeps the cap from restricting new supply — and it is worth knowing if you are choosing between an established purchase and a build.

For a single salaried applicant, the cap rarely binds first. On the assumptions behind the table above, capacity lands between roughly four and five and a half times gross income, because the 9.29% assessment rate constrains the file before the DTI line does. Where the cap matters is investor portfolios, households carrying a second loan, and low-deposit buyers borrowing close to their ceiling.

How lenders treat different kinds of income

The tables on this page assume steady salary, which is the simplest case and the most generous. Anything less predictable is shaded before it counts, and the shading rules are lender policy rather than regulation — which is exactly why the same file can produce very different numbers across a panel.

• Overtime, bonus and commission. Commonly accepted at 80% of a two-year average, though some lenders take 100% for essential-services roles and others require a longer history. If a meaningful share of your income is variable, lender selection is worth more than a rate discount.
• Casual and contract income. Usually needs six to twelve months in the same role, and is often shaded further. Contract income can be treated as PAYG or as self-employed depending on how the contract is written.
• Rental income. Typically shaded to 70–80% to allow for vacancy, management fees and maintenance, while the full loan repayment on the investment counts as a commitment. This is why investors hit a servicing wall long before they run out of deposit.
• Self-employed income. Assessed from tax returns and notices of assessment, usually the lower or the average of the last two years. Add-backs for depreciation, one-off expenses and superannuation above the guarantee can materially change the assessed figure, and not every lender allows the same ones.
• Government payments. Family Tax Benefit and similar payments are accepted by some lenders, discounted by others, and excluded by a few — often depending on the age of the children the payment relates to.

Capacity is only one of two constraints

Borrowing power tells you what a lender will lend. Your deposit tells you what you can buy with it, and the binding constraint is whichever runs out first. On $130,000 the tables above give a capacity of about $685,179. Using all of it at 80% LVR — the level where no lenders mortgage insurance applies — buys a $856,474 property, which needs $171,295 of deposit plus stamp duty and purchase costs in cash. For most buyers that cash requirement, not the capacity, is the harder half.

The Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme changes the deposit side, not the capacity side. Renamed from the First Home Guarantee on 1 October 2025, it removed the income caps and the 35,000-place annual limit — places are now unlimited with no waitlist. Eligible first-home buyers can borrow with a 5% deposit and pay no LMI, and single parents or legal guardians need 2%. Property price caps still apply and differ by state: $1.5m in Sydney and $800k for the rest of NSW, $950k Melbourne and $650k regional Victoria, $1m Brisbane and $700k regional Queensland, $850k Perth and $600k regional WA, $900k Adelaide and $500k regional SA, $700k Hobart and $550k regional Tasmania, $1m in the ACT, and $750k Darwin with $600k elsewhere in the NT.

Worth being explicit about the trade-off: a scheme place lets you buy sooner with less cash, but it does not increase what you can service. Borrowing 95% of a purchase price means a larger loan and a larger repayment on the same income, so the serviceability test gets harder, not easier. You apply through a participating lender rather than to Housing Australia directly.