US-Based Lenders That Will Finance Foreign Property in 2026

Start with the baseline so you're not disappointed. US commercial banks cannot take a first-lien mortgage on real property in France, Spain, Mexico, or anywhere outside the United States. Their charter, their appraisal networks, their title insurance policies, and their servicing systems all assume a US county recorder's office on the back end. A US mortgage on a house in Lisbon is about as feasible as a Portuguese mortgage on a house in Lincoln, Nebraska. It doesn't happen.

What does exist is a second category of financing where the lender takes collateral that is inside the US — your house, your portfolio, your retirement account with a loan provision, or your business — and gives you cash that you then wire abroad to close on a foreign property. That is not really a 'foreign property mortgage'; it's a US-secured loan that you happen to spend overseas. The only true cross-border mortgage lenders who take foreign collateral for US-based clients are a handful of international boutiques, mostly tied to HSBC, Enness, America Mortgages, or European private banks. Wise's guide to overseas property mortgages for Americans puts it bluntly: most US lenders are hesitant, and your real options are international lenders or local banks in the country where the property sits.

Understanding this two-buckets distinction (US-collateral loans vs true cross-border mortgages) is the entire game, because the products, rates, tax consequences, and failure modes are completely different between them.

HSBC is the one global retail bank that actually runs a cross-border mortgage desk for US-connected clients in 2026. HSBC Expat's international mortgage product advertises financing in 11 jurisdictions: Australia, Canada, mainland China, France, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, UAE, and the United Kingdom. Notice what's missing: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Mexico, Thailand, and most of Latin America. If you're buying in any of those, HSBC cannot help on the foreign side.

For the countries HSBC does cover, the product is typically a 60 to 75 percent LTV loan in the local currency, rates benchmarked to the local reference (SONIA in the UK, Euribor in France), and underwriting that looks at your US income and US credit as long as you're a Premier or Jade client. Wise's 2025 write-up of HSBC's international mortgage walks through the minimum relationship balance (typically $100k in deposits or investments with HSBC US or another HSBC entity). Without the Premier relationship, you cannot access the international desk.

HSBC's big limitation for Americans is the same one every US bank has to wrestle with: FATCA and IRS reporting. American clients get treated as 'specified US persons,' which means HSBC has to run extra KYC, report the account to the IRS via Form 8938 flowthrough, and in some subsidiaries (France in particular) the bank periodically restricts new account opening for US citizens to reduce compliance load. America Mortgages' head-to-head comparison with HSBC is useful reading precisely because it's written by a competitor and flags the real friction points: relationship minimum, country limits, and slow turnarounds.

America Mortgages is a Singapore-based international mortgage brokerage that has carved out the 'US expat buying back home or buying abroad' niche. Their core business is arranging US mortgages for non-resident foreign nationals and for Americans living overseas who want to buy in the US, but they also arrange foreign mortgages for Americans through their network of lender relationships. In 2026 they claim access to over 150 lender programs.

For Americans buying outside the US, America Mortgages is less a direct lender and more a concierge that matches your file to a local lender in the destination country (a Portuguese bank, a Mexican border bank, a Thai leasing structure). They are not going to beat the rate you would get walking into the local bank yourself, because they add a broker margin. What they sell is speed, document translation, and the simple fact that they have already placed files with the same credit committee 50 times. For US expats buying in Asia, they are by far the most-mentioned name in forums. For Americans buying in Europe, Enness Global's cross-border desk shows up more often because Enness focuses on high-net-worth European private bank relationships.

Both firms charge broker fees of 0.5 to 1.5 percent of the loan amount at closing. Both insist they have free initial consultations. Both are worth talking to before you commit to any path, even if you end up self-financing, because the one-hour conversation gives you a realistic picture of what your file looks like to a lender.

Here is the product that most Americans with taxable brokerage accounts end up using, even though it almost never shows up in 'how to buy property abroad' articles. A pledged-asset line of credit (PAL at Schwab, SBLOC at Fidelity, margin at Interactive Brokers and Robinhood) lets you borrow against your stocks and bonds at rates lower than a HELOC, with essentially no application friction, no appraisal, no currency mismatch, and no ties to the foreign property.

Schwab's Pledged Asset Line currently prices at roughly SOFR plus a spread that ranges from about 2.9 percent on balances under $250k down to about 1.5 percent on $5M+, so all-in rates in spring 2026 are roughly 7.2 percent at the small end and 5.8 percent at the large end. You can borrow up to 70 percent of the value of most diversified equity portfolios, and up to 90 percent against investment-grade bonds. Fidelity's Securities-Backed Line of Credit is almost identical in structure but pools into their PLEDGED LOC program, with rates slightly better than Schwab for larger balances. Interactive Brokers' margin rates are the best in the business for this use case, currently about 5.8 to 6.3 percent on mid-six-figure balances, and IBKR will not even ask you what you're spending the money on because they legally cannot (it's a margin loan, not a non-purpose loan).

The trade-offs you need to understand before you sign up. First, Schwab's PAL is a 'non-purpose' loan and the proceeds contractually cannot be used to buy securities, which is fine for a house, but you also can't redeposit them into your Schwab brokerage account (they have to be wired out to a different bank). Second, the rate is variable and resets monthly with SOFR, so a Fed cut helps you and a Fed hike bites. Third, a market drawdown in your pledged portfolio can trigger a maintenance call that forces you to post cash or sell securities at the worst moment. Bogleheads has a long-running thread titled 'Schwab Pledged Asset Credit Line' and another on 'line of credit secured by brokerage account' that are the best plain-English reference material on how maintenance calls actually play out.

For buyers under $500k purchase price who already have a $1M+ taxable portfolio, the pledged-asset line is usually the right answer. You get European mortgage rates (5.8 to 7.2 percent), zero paperwork, zero currency friction, zero broker fees, and full control of your foreign closing.

If your biggest asset is your US primary residence rather than a taxable brokerage, a home equity line of credit or a cash-out refinance is the next-best play. Rates in 2026 are running about 7.5 to 8.75 percent variable for HELOCs and 6.25 to 6.75 percent fixed for 30-year cash-out refis, so a refi is cheaper than a HELOC but requires you to reset your whole mortgage and pay new closing costs.

The math to run is simple. Suppose you have a $700k US home with a $280k mortgage at 3.1 percent (the pandemic-era refi you did in 2021) and you want to buy a €300k (about $325k) apartment in Lisbon. Option A is a HELOC for $325k at 8.0 percent variable, keeping your 3.1 percent mortgage intact. Annual interest: about $26,000. Option B is a cash-out refi to a $605k mortgage at 6.5 percent fixed. Annual interest: about $39,000. But Option B wipes out your 3.1 percent cheap money, so the real incremental cost of Option B is roughly $39,000 minus $280,000 times 3.1 percent = $30,300, compared to Option A's $26,000. The HELOC wins, and it wins bigger the longer you hold. Unless rates drop significantly, keep the cheap money.

Bankrate's HELOC rate tracker and Mortgage News Daily are the two trackers I check weekly, because the spread between HELOC and refi shifts a lot based on Fed expectations. One nuance American buyers miss: most US HELOCs require your US primary residence (or second home) to be owner-occupied, and some contracts have language that prohibits using the proceeds to buy real estate outside the US. Read your HELOC agreement. In practice, lenders rarely audit the use of funds, but a technical default is a bad place to be if something else goes wrong.

If your retirement account has a loan provision (most employer-sponsored 401ks allow up to $50,000 or 50 percent of your vested balance, whichever is less), you can borrow at the prime rate plus 1 or 2 points, pay yourself back the interest, and use the proceeds for anything, including a down payment on a Portuguese apartment. Fidelity's 401(k) loan FAQ has the federal rules: maximum loan amount, five-year repayment, and the rule that if you leave your employer, the loan becomes due in full within 60 days or it's treated as a taxable distribution.

For self-employed Americans, the Solo 401k is the nuclear option. A Solo 401k with a custodial provider like Nabers Group, Mysolo401k, or Rocket Dollar allows a loan up to $50,000 on the same federal terms, and the rate and repayment schedule are set by your own plan document. More powerfully, a Solo 401k can also hold foreign real estate directly as a plan investment under the Section 408 self-directed rules, which means you can skip the loan entirely and have the plan buy the Portuguese apartment as a retirement asset. The IRS's guidance on prohibited transactions is the ground rule here: you cannot personally use the property or rent to family, and every dollar in and out has to flow through the plan. This is a specialist's move, not a DIY path, and it's worth two hours with a self-directed retirement CPA before you go near it.

Expats on the ExpatFIRE forums discuss Solo 401k foreign real estate strategies regularly. A glance through r/ExpatFIRE's search for 'Solo 401k real estate' pulls up threads with concrete numbers on how buyers structured their plans.

In three Latin-American-adjacent markets, a big slice of American buyers never touch a US or a local bank at all. They take developer financing. This is a loan extended directly by the developer of a new-construction project, typically at the time of purchase, with terms that usually look like: 30 to 50 percent down, 5 to 8 year term, 7 to 10 percent fixed, and interest-only for the first year or two.

The pros are obvious: you skip bank underwriting entirely, and developers will lend to buyers with no local credit history and no Spanish tax ID. The cons are less obvious: you are a creditor of a single developer, not a bank, so if the project stalls or the developer goes bankrupt you lose both your down payment and your loan collateral simultaneously. Nomad Capitalist's write-up of Playa del Carmen developer financing and the warnings on International Living's Mexico property forums are worth reading for the failure modes. The single biggest red flag: a developer offering you 0 percent down and 'no qualification required'. That is almost always a sign of a struggling project trying to liquidate pre-construction inventory at a loss.

For Portugal, developer financing shows up mostly on new builds in the Algarve and on Lisbon urban-regeneration projects. Rates are less aggressive (typically 5 to 7 percent), terms shorter (3 to 5 years), and the expectation is that you refinance into a proper Portuguese bank mortgage once you have residency. Our moving to Portugal guide walks through the residency pathway.

If your purchase is $2M or larger and you have a real investable-asset base to go with it, you graduate into the international private banking tier, where banks like Lombard Odier, Julius Baer, Pictet, Mirabaud, UBS Wealth, Edmond de Rothschild, and Banque Havilland will structure bespoke loans against combinations of your portfolio, the property, and sometimes your future income. The rate is often shockingly good, 3.5 to 5.5 percent all-in in 2026, because the bank is making its real money on your assets under management, not the interest on the loan.

The catch is the relationship minimum. Most of these houses want $2M to $5M AUM before they'll set up an account, and the mortgage product is offered alongside a discretionary or advisory portfolio mandate. Enness Global is the most common broker for Americans who want private-bank-style cross-border financing without an existing private-banking relationship; they'll package your file and shop it to their European private bank network.

One warning: private banks do not move fast. Underwriting can take 60 to 120 days, KYC for US persons is especially slow under FATCA, and the first 18 months of the relationship feel like a slow courtship. If you have a closing deadline 45 days out, a private bank is not your solution. Use a pledged-asset line to bridge, then refi into the private bank facility after closing.

Three tax issues cross-border buyers routinely stumble into. First, PFIC exposure on foreign mutual funds. If you use a foreign mortgage, the bank often requires you to hold an offset or wealth-management product in local currency funds, and those funds are almost always Passive Foreign Investment Companies under IRS Section 1297, triggering punitive mark-to-market taxation on every rebalancing. The rule of thumb: never hold non-US-domiciled funds in an account linked to your foreign mortgage. Keep the offset account in straight cash or in US-domiciled ETFs held elsewhere.

Second, IRS Form 8938 reporting for specified foreign financial assets. A foreign bank account holding a mortgage offset deposit is reportable once you cross $50,000 at year-end (or $75,000 any day of the year) for single filers. The foreign real estate itself is not reportable on 8938, but the mortgage account usually is. FBAR (FinCEN Form 114) kicks in at $10,000 aggregate across all foreign accounts and is separate.

Third, mortgage-interest deductibility. Interest on a mortgage secured by a foreign home can be deductible on Schedule A if the home qualifies as a 'qualified residence' under Section 163(h), but only if the home is used as a primary or secondary residence more than 14 days per year (or more than 10 percent of rental days). A pure investment property does not qualify, but a second home you use six weeks a year does. IRS Publication 936 walks through the tests. Interest on a pledged-asset line is a margin-interest expense, which is deductible only to the extent of net investment income (Form 4952), not against property or salary income. That distinction matters a lot if you're doing the math on after-tax cost of borrowing, and our full guide on how to transfer $1M from the US to Europe for a house purchase covers the wire mechanics and the related reporting.

If you spend an evening reading r/ExpatFIRE and r/AmerExit threads about foreign property financing, a pattern emerges. Nobody uses a single product. The typical buyer stacks two or three tools.

Common stack 1: pledged-asset line for the down payment + local country mortgage for the balance. You use a Schwab PAL at 6 percent to cover the 40 percent down payment needed for an Italian or Spanish bank, then the local bank funds the other 60 percent at 3.5 percent, and you slowly pay down the PAL as the local mortgage amortizes. All-in blended rate: about 4.5 percent.

Common stack 2: HELOC on US home + cash savings. You use a HELOC at 8 percent for 40 percent of the purchase and put 60 percent cash in. This is what buyers with low-rate legacy US mortgages do, because they refuse to touch their 3 percent primary mortgage. The effective rate is the HELOC rate times the HELOC portion, and you keep full ownership of the foreign property without a local bank involved.

Common stack 3: cash from a US asset sale + developer financing. Buyers who just sold a US house, inherited a brokerage account, or cashed out of a startup often use 100 percent cash and skip leverage entirely. On r/ExpatFIRE threads about buying in Mexico and Portugal you see this repeatedly: 'sold my Bay Area condo, paid cash for a Lisbon flat, put the rest in VTI.'

The stack you pick depends on what's on your balance sheet. There is no universal answer, but there is almost always a better answer than 'walk into a local bank cold and apply.'

If you're starting from zero and want a manageable list of calls to make this week, here is what I'd dial in this order. HSBC Expat international mortgages if you're buying in one of their 11 countries and you can meet the Premier minimum. America Mortgages if you're buying in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, or you want a broker who already knows your lender. Enness Global if you're buying in Europe and have a private-bank-capable file. Your existing brokerage (Schwab, Fidelity, or Interactive Brokers) to pre-qualify for a pledged-asset line, which takes about 10 days. Your existing US mortgage lender for a HELOC quote on your US home, if you own.

That's five calls, probably four hours of phone time, and by the end of it you will have a clear, realistic picture of which path fits your file. The last thing to do is run the numbers side by side in a spreadsheet with two rows: total all-in interest cost over your expected holding period, and total flexibility (how easy it is to unwind). Whichever row matters more to you is your answer.

For the transaction itself, our companion piece how to transfer $1M from the US to Europe for a house purchase walks through the wire mechanics, FBAR and 8938 reporting, and the currency hedging strategies. And if you're looking specifically at Italian banks for the local-mortgage leg, our Italian mortgages for Americans guide has the LTV, rates, and broker shortlist for that country.