Tools
Borrowing power calculator
What a lender will lend comes down to your surplus after they have assessed your expenses and added a buffer to the rate. This shows the range that surplus services, every assumption behind it, and the subtraction that produced it — so if the number is lower than you expected, you can see which line did it.
After tax — what actually lands in your account each month.
Everything the household spends, excluding rent you would stop paying and any repayment entered below.
Not a rate we offer.
$120,000
Assumptions — the last four are yours to set
These are the settings a lender applies to your numbers, and they are the reason a borrowing-power figure is lower than your income suggests. We fill in the two we can point at a source for. The other four are credit policy, and no lender publishes it — so rather than start you on our guess, this calculator asks you for them and shows nothing until it has all four.
- The buffer is 3.00 percentage points because APRA requires lenders to assess a loan at least 3 percentage points above the rate you would actually pay. APRA — macroprudential policy settings, 28 May 2026. As at 10 September 2026.
- The minimum household expenses figure is a lender’s floor — the least it will assess you at however frugally you actually live. Lenders use a household expenditure benchmark that varies with income, postcode and household size. Those benchmarks are licensed and lender-specific, so we will not reproduce one: put in the figure you want to test, and remember a lender’s own is the one that counts.
- Card limits are assessed at a percentage of the limit — the whole limit, whether or not you owe anything on it, which is why an unused card reduces what you can borrow. The percentage is credit policy and differs by lender, so it is yours to enter here.
- The maximum LVR caps the loan against your deposit, and the low end of the range decides how much of your surplus a lender is assumed to commit. Both differ by lender and by product. Ask us what a particular lender uses — that is a question with a real answer, and it is the one we are licensed to give.
4 of 4 still to set
Set the four assumptions and your range appears here.
- Minimum household expenses — still to set
- Card limit assessed at — still to set
- Maximum LVR — still to set
- Low end of the range — still to set
These four are a lender’s credit policy, and no lender publishes it. We could put a plausible number in each — most calculators do — but you would read it as the rule rather than as our guess, and on a borrowing figure that is the difference between a decision and a disappointment. So they start empty. Put in what you want to test and the arithmetic below will show you exactly what each one costs you.
Or ask us what a particular lender actually uses — we hold the policies, and that is a question with a real answer rather than a typical one.
What this does not know: lenders also apply a debt-to-income limit, discount overtime, bonus, rental and self-employed income before they use it, and assess your expenses from your own statements rather than from what you type here. Every lender does all three differently, which is the whole reason the answer is a range and not a number, and the reason the four settings above are yours rather than ours.
How a lender gets to the number
Serviceability is a subtraction, not a multiple of your income. A lender takes the income it is prepared to count, removes the expenses it assesses you at, removes the repayments on everything you already owe, and asks whether what is left covers the new loan at a rate well above the one you would actually pay. The order matters, because each step can be the one that caps you.
- Income is counted, not assumed. Permanent salary is generally taken in full. Overtime, bonus, commission, casual income, rental income and self-employed profit are all discounted before they are used, and by how much is the lender’s policy rather than a rule. This calculator takes what you enter at face value, so if your income is any of those, treat its answer as the optimistic end.
- Expenses are assessed, not accepted. A lender reads your own bank statements and applies a household expenditure benchmark as a floor. If your declared spending is below that benchmark, the benchmark is what gets used — which is the single most common reason a borrowing-power figure comes out lower than someone expects.
- A credit card counts at its limit. Not its balance. An unused card with a large limit reduces what you can borrow, and reducing or closing one before you apply is the cheapest change most people can make.
- The rate it is assessed at is not the rate you pay. APRA requires lenders to test a loan at least three percentage points above the rate on offer, so a loan at 6% is assessed at 9%. That buffer is a prudential requirement, not a lender being difficult. APRA — macroprudential policy settings, 28 May 2026. As at 10 September 2026.
- Your deposit caps it a second time. Serviceability sets what you can repay; the deposit sets how much of a purchase price the loan can be. Whichever is smaller is your answer, and the calculator says which one is binding.
What this calculator does not model
- Debt-to-income limits. Many lenders cap total debt at a multiple of gross income regardless of surplus, and that cap can bind before serviceability does.
- Tax. Income here is net, after tax, because a gross-to-net conversion needs a tax table that changes every year — and a stale one on a credit site is worse than none. Negative gearing, deductions and the tax treatment of an investment property are all outside it, and are questions for your accountant.
- Lenders mortgage insurance, stamp duty and purchase costs. The indicative purchase price is the loan plus your deposit and nothing else. Stamp duty varies by state, by price and by whether you are a first home buyer; LMI is priced off the loan size and the LVR. Both come out of your deposit, so the real price you can reach is lower than the figure shown. How deposits and LMI actually work.
- Anything specific to a product or a lender. No lender is named here and none of these settings is any lender’s policy. They are typical figures, chosen to be conservative, and a broker works with the real ones.
This calculator is general information only. It does not take account of your objectives, financial situation or needs, and it is not credit advice or an offer of credit. Every figure it produces is indicative only and is not a quote, an offer or a pre-approval. What a lender will advance is determined by that lender after a full assessment of your verified income, expenses and credit history, and it will differ from the range shown here. Approval is subject to lender assessment; credit criteria, fees and charges apply. See our terms.
Nothing you type here leaves your browser. There is no account, nothing is sent to us and nothing is stored.
The number a lender gives you is the one that counts.
Two lenders assessing the same file can land more than a hundred thousand dollars apart, because they count income and expenses differently. That is the part a broker is actually for. Work out the repayment on a figure with the repayment calculator, or read what lenders look at in our frequently asked questions.
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