Ask "who lends on buy-to-let" and the honest answer is that dozens of lenders do, but almost none of them lend on the same terms. One will not touch a limited company. The next treats special purpose vehicle lending as its main book. One wants two years of accounts and a five-figure minimum income. Another underwrites the rent and ignores your salary entirely. The result is that the same purchase can be declined and approved on the same day, by two lenders looking at identical numbers.
This page is a map of the buy-to-let lender market, organised the way lenders actually differ. It sets out the three tiers of lender, which of them accept a company or SPV borrower, the criteria that vary from one to the next, and how to tell which category your case belongs in. It is educational and factual. It does not recommend a specific lender or product, and it is not a regulated financial promotion. For the tax question of whether to borrow personally or through a company, we summarise the point and link to the detailed guides rather than re-arguing it here.
The three tiers of buy-to-let lender
The lending market sorts into three broad tiers, and knowing which one fits you is more useful than any rate table.
- High-street banks and larger building societies. These price sharply and are the cheapest home for a case that fits their box: a personal-name borrower, a standard flat or house, clean provable income and no complications. Their appetite for anything unusual is small. Many either do not lend to limited companies at all or only do so through a separate specialist division.
- Specialist and challenger lenders. This is the working core of buy-to-let. These lenders accept limited companies and SPVs, houses in multiple occupation, holiday lets, portfolio landlords, thin or complex income and unusual property. They charge a modest premium in rate or arrangement fee for that flexibility. The great majority are intermediary-only and do not deal with the public directly.
- Private banks and portfolio lenders. At the top of the portfolio scale, private banks and larger portfolio lenders handle multi-property books, bespoke structures and higher loan sizes, often with relationship-led underwriting rather than a fixed product grid.
The tier you belong in is decided by your structure, your property type and your portfolio size, not by which brand advertises the lowest headline number. A case that fits the high-street box will usually be cheapest there. A case that does not fit belongs with a specialist, where a slightly higher cost buys an approval instead of a decline. The regulatory backbone for how all three tiers underwrite affordability is the PRA's supervisory statement SS13/16 on buy-to-let underwriting standards, which sets the framework each lender then interprets in its own policy.
Which lenders lend to SPVs and limited companies, and which are personal-only
This single question splits the market more than any other. Almost all specialist and challenger lenders now lend to a limited-company or SPV borrower, and many treat it as their primary book. Most high-street banks do not, or only do so through a walled-off specialist arm with its own criteria.
The mechanics are different too. A company borrower is not judged on the company's trading accounts, because a clean SPV typically has none. It is underwritten on the rental income and an interest coverage ratio, supported by personal guarantees from the directors. That is why a company incorporated this month can borrow where a high-street application would fail on "no accounts". If you are buying through a day-old company with no history, see SPV mortgages for a newly-formed company with no income for how that case is underwritten.
Company lenders also care about how the SPV is set up. Most want the letting-and-operating SIC code 68209 as the main activity and can decline a company registered only under a trading-flavoured code such as 68100. The point is a lender-criteria one, not a tax one. For the ltd-co lender product options in depth, our guide to limited-company buy-to-let mortgage options covers the products themselves; this page covers the lender categories behind them.
The criteria that vary between lenders
Buy-to-let criteria are not standardised, so "declined" from one lender rarely means "unaffordable". These are the levers that move most from lender to lender. Treat the table as a checklist of where two lenders can disagree on the same case, not as a set of fixed numbers, because each item is lender-specific and changes with the market.
| Criterion | Where lenders differ |
|---|---|
| Borrower type | Personal name only, or personal and limited-company/SPV. The biggest single split in the market. |
| Interest coverage ratio (ICR) | Commonly 125% for basic-rate and company borrowers, 145% for higher-rate individuals. The 145% band reflects the Section 24 finance-cost restriction on personal borrowers. |
| Stress rate | Often around 5.5%, or the pay rate plus 2% on shorter fixes, with a lower stress on five-year fixes and pound-for-pound remortgages. Set by each lender. |
| Minimum income | Some want no minimum and lend purely on rent; others set a floor, often around 25,000 pounds, especially for first-time or thin-income cases. |
| SIC code (company borrowers) | 68209 preferred as the main activity; 68201 and 68320 usually accepted; a trading-only code such as 68100 can trigger a decline. |
| Portfolio limits | High-street lenders often cap the number of mortgaged properties or total borrowing; portfolio lenders assess the whole portfolio instead. |
| Experience and age | Some require an existing homeowner or prior landlord experience; maximum age at the end of term varies widely. |
| Top-slicing | Some lenders allow surplus personal income to bridge a marginal rent-coverage gap; many do not. |
Because the ICR and stress rate are set within, not fixed by, the PRA framework, the same rent can clear one lender's affordability test and fail the next. Two figures decide almost every case: the coverage ratio and the stress rate. To see how they interact for your numbers, our buy-to-let rental stress test calculator models the ICR, and the buy-to-let mortgage calculator sizes the loan and repayment. For the full mechanics of how a buy-to-let mortgage works end to end, start at the complete guide to buy-to-let mortgages.
Worked example: one case, one decline, one approval
The clearest way to see the tier effect is to run a single purchase past two lenders. Take a landlord buying a 160,000 pound flat through a brand-new SPV, renting at 850 pounds a month, at 75% loan-to-value (a 120,000 pound loan).
- The high-street application. The bank does not lend to SPVs and, where it does, wants two years of company accounts. The day-old company has none. The case is declined before it reaches valuation. Nothing about the affordability was tested; the borrower structure alone closed the door.
- The specialist application. A specialist SPV lender underwrites the rent, not the company history. Its interest coverage ratio is 125% at a 5.5% stress. The 120,000 pound loan stressed at 5.5% costs 550 pounds a month in interest, and at 125% coverage the rent needs to reach 687.50 pounds a month. The 850 pounds rent clears it with headroom, so the case proceeds. The personal guarantees from the directors stand behind the loan in place of trading accounts.
The purchase never changed. The decline was a policy mismatch: the case landed in the wrong tier. Moved to a lender whose criteria fit an SPV, the identical numbers were approvable. This is the single most useful thing to understand about the buy-to-let market, and the reason a wasted direct application to the wrong lender (with the hard credit footprint it leaves) is worth avoiding.
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Portfolio and professional-landlord lenders
Portfolio lending is its own tier. Under the PRA's rules that took effect on 30 September 2017, a landlord with four or more mortgaged buy-to-let properties across all lenders is a portfolio landlord and faces specialist underwriting. The lender does not just assess the new purchase; it stress-tests the whole portfolio in aggregate and asks for a portfolio schedule, a business plan and sometimes cash-flow forecasts.
High-street lenders frequently cap the number of mortgaged properties or the total borrowing they will hold for one landlord, which is why scaling landlords move to portfolio lenders early rather than hitting a ceiling mid-purchase. The mortgage stress-test and aggregation mechanics are covered in our portfolio landlord mortgages guide. That is a finance question and distinct from the tax planning around a growing portfolio, which sits with the property tax guides.
Specialist edge-case lenders
Beyond structure and portfolio size, a set of specialist lenders exists precisely for the cases the mainstream declines. Each is a lender-criteria niche, not a different kind of loan.
- Expat and non-resident landlords. A small panel lends to UK nationals living and paid abroad, usually at a higher deposit and often through an SPV, where mainstream lenders decline on residency and currency grounds. The tax on the rent runs through HMRC's non-resident landlord scheme. See expat and non-resident landlord mortgages. This is investor framing only.
- Self-employed applicants. Where a high-street affordability model wants a two-year income average, self-employed-friendly lenders accept a single year's SA302 and lead on the rental income. See self-employed buy-to-let mortgages.
- Newly-formed SPVs. Lenders that underwrite the rent and personal guarantees rather than company accounts will lend to a day-old company, as in the worked example above.
What these lenders do not cover. Every lender on this page is in the business of unregulated, business-purpose buy-to-let. None of it includes a consumer buy-to-let or a regulated mortgage contract, which arises where the borrower, or a person related to the borrower, occupies or will occupy the property. If you are buying a home for yourself or a relative, or taking a first or second charge on a residential home, that is a regulated mortgage and not something we introduce. Speak to an FCA-authorised mortgage adviser for that. The perimeter is drawn by article 61 of the Regulated Activities Order and explained in FCA guidance PERG 4.10A on the buy-to-let business-versus-consumer distinction.
How a broker reaches lenders you cannot approach directly
The reason a broker matters in this market is structural, not promotional. The bulk of specialist, challenger and portfolio lenders distribute only through authorised intermediaries and will not accept an application straight from a borrower. Their products and their live criteria are effectively closed to a direct approach. High-street lenders remain open to you directly, which is fine when your case fits the high-street box, but the specialist tiers (SPV, HMO, portfolio, expat, thin income) are where intermediary access is the point.
A whole-of-market broker also carries current knowledge of which lender's policy fits which case, which avoids the wasted application and the hard credit footprint that a mistimed direct approach leaves. This page deliberately does not name lenders or recommend a product. Naming a specific product would move the content from education into a financial promotion, and the perimeter for that is set by section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. Market-wide lending context, rather than any individual quote, is published by UK Finance.
The tax side sits on top of the lender choice
Which lender approves you is a finance question. Whether you should be borrowing in your own name or through a company is a tax question, and it usually comes first, because it dictates which tier you even apply to. The short version: an individual landlord no longer deducts mortgage interest from rental profit and instead receives a basic-rate (20%) tax credit under the Section 24 finance-cost restriction, while a company deducts finance costs in full against profit. That gap is the single biggest reason SPV buy-to-let demand exists, and it also drives the 145% versus 125% coverage split above.
We do not re-derive that decision here. Work through it in the limited company versus personal ownership tax comparison, and for how the interest relief itself works see the buy-to-let mortgage and Section 24 tax-relief guide. The finance-cost restriction is set out in HMRC's Property Income Manual. Getting the structure right before you approach a lender saves you from applying in the wrong tier and, more importantly, from owning the property in the wrong wrapper for the next decade.