Home Loans for Nurses in Australia: 10% Deposit, No LMI at Select Lenders (2026)

Home Loans for Nurses in Australia: 10% Deposit, No LMI at Select Lenders (2026)

What are home loans for nurses, and can you buy with a 10% deposit and no LMI?

Home loans for nurses are policies written by individual banks, not a government scheme, and many nurses can use them to buy with a 10% deposit and pay no LMI. Several Australian lenders waive Lenders Mortgage Insurance for eligible registered nurses and midwives borrowing up to 90% of the property value, treating them as lower-risk essential workers. Eligibility depends on registration, income and the lender, so terms vary.

Standard borrowers who put down less than 20% are charged Lenders Mortgage Insurance, a one-off premium that protects the lender (not you) and typically costs $15,000 to $30,000 depending on loan size and LVR. For Registered Nurses and Midwives on $90,000 or more a year, select lenders will waive it outright up to 90% LVR. Lists and thresholds change, which is why we check current policy before you apply rather than assume.

What else do nurse home loans include beyond the LMI waiver?

The waiver grabs the headline, but the wider professional package usually brings more with it, on pricing, offset, fees and assessment speed:

• Sharper interest rates, commonly 0.10% to 0.20% under the lender standard variable rate, held for the life of the loan
• A 100% offset account as standard, which can quietly save tens of thousands in interest over the years you hold the loan
• Waived or reduced package fees at a number of lenders
• The waiver on investment properties at some lenders, handy if you intend to keep building a portfolio
• Quicker credit assessment at lenders that run dedicated medical or healthcare teams

Who qualifies for a home loan for nurses in Australia?

Registered Nurses (RNs), Registered Midwives, Nurse Practitioners and Clinical Nurse Specialists are generally eligible. The exact lists move around a little from lender to lender, but that is roughly the shared picture across the major banks through 2026. Three groups are conditionally eligible, depending on the lender:

• Enrolled Nurses: most lenders leave ENs off their medical waiver lists, though for first home buyers the 5% Deposit Scheme frequently delivers the same result, a 5% deposit with no LMI
• Agency or non hospital nurses: some lenders insist on hospital employment
• Casual nurses: eligible at most lenders, with casual earnings assessed over a 48-week base

Income threshold

As a rule of thumb, lenders look for at least $90,000 a year in total assessable income from a nurse. If your base wage alone falls short but overtime and allowances carry you past that line, you can generally still qualify, provided the income is evidenced cleanly across recent payslips.

A documented example. One major bank publishes its policy openly: registered nurses and midwives earning $90,000 a year or more can borrow with the LMI waived up to 90% LVR, and that bank annualises casual income over 52 weeks for waiver applicants, rather than the 48-week base most lenders use. Several other lenders run comparable policies with their own profession lists and conditions.

Can graduate, agency and overseas nurses still get a home loan?

Often, yes, but through a different door than the nurse waiver, because some waivers are written narrowly.

Graduate nurses

A nurse in a graduate year is normally a Registered Nurse with AHPRA registration already in hand. What frequently is not satisfied is the income threshold, because a graduate base wage plus a part year of shift loadings tends to land under it. A graduate nurse is often better served by the 5% Deposit Scheme route, at least for a first purchase.

Agency and ABN nurses

Plenty of lender policies are written around direct hospital employment, so a nurse placed on a ward through an agency can sit outside them. Nurses invoicing through their own ABN sit further out again, because the file gets assessed as self-employed rather than as a wage earner. Agency nurses regularly get where they wanted to go through the 5% Deposit Scheme if it is a first home, a family guarantor structure or ordinary high-LVR lending, with the income evidenced cleanly.

Nurses employed overseas

The nurse-specific policy is written around Australian employment. An Australian nurse who is living and working overseas is assessed under expat and non-resident lending rules instead, and does not get the nurse-specific benefit described on this page. Start with Australian expat home loans if you are an Australian abroad, and see buying property in Australia from overseas if you are buying into Australia from another country.

How do lenders count overtime, penalty rates and allowances on a nurse mortgage?

For front-line hospital-employed nurses, several major lenders now count 100% of overtime and shift allowances when assessing serviceability. One major lender spells this out directly on its public site. Other major lenders and a number of second-tier lenders run comparable rules.

Run your file through ordinary lending policy and the bank discounts your variable income. Of your overtime, shift allowances, weekend penalties and on-call work, often only 60% to 80% ends up counted in the borrowing calculation. For a nurse earning $95,000 base plus $30,000 in overtime, allowances and penalty rates:

• Under standard policy (variable income shaded to 80%): assessed income around $119,000
• Under nurse specific policy (variable income counted at 100%): assessed income of $125,000
• What it means in practice: in the order of $30,000 to $50,000 in extra borrowing capacity, purely from how the same income is read

A pay rise under your award counts as well. Award increases are permanent pay, not a bonus: pay a lender can count in full once it is flowing through your payslips. As a rule of thumb, every $10,000 of extra salary can support up to roughly $50,000 of additional borrowing under a debt-to-income cap of five, subject to full serviceability assessment, and our nurses pay rise analysis runs what a new payslip does to borrowing power.

Does salary packaging increase how much a nurse can borrow?

It can. If you salary package through a public hospital or not-for-profit health service, the right lender will gross that benefit up and count it as income. Because packaged dollars are effectively pre-tax, grossing them up can add a meaningful amount to your assessable income, and to how much you can borrow, often without you earning a cent more.

Public and not-for-profit health workers can salary package a portion of their pay for living expenses, plus a separate meal and entertainment cap, free of fringe benefits tax. Not every lender grosses it up, and the ones that do treat it differently, so it pays to be matched to a lender that reads it generously. It is one of the first things we check for a nurse.

What home buying programs for nurses exist in Australia?

There is no single government scheme called a nurse home loan. What people are usually after when they search for home buying programs for nurses is four separate things, run by four different parties, that a nurse can line up against each other:

• Lender-run professional waivers. Written by individual banks rather than by government, and the only one of the four that turns on your occupation.
• The Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme. Open to first home buyers whatever their job, subject to eligibility and property price caps.
• State first home owner grants and stamp duty concessions. Set by each state and territory, so what a nurse saves here depends on where the property is, not on where they work. The state thresholds are set out below.
• Employer-linked salary packaging. Not a buying scheme at all, but for nurses at public and not-for-profit health services it changes assessable income.

A nurse with a 10% deposit buying above a state concession threshold usually wants the lender waiver. A nurse with a 5% deposit buying under the cap usually wants the scheme.

Should a nurse first home buyer use the 5% Deposit Scheme or the LMI waiver for nurses?

It comes down to your actual numbers, and you use one instead of the other rather than both together. Under the Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme, formerly known as the Home Guarantee Scheme, eligible first home buyers can buy with as little as a 5% deposit and pay no LMI, whatever their job, because the government guarantees the gap up to 15% so the lender treats the loan as fully secured. The full first home route for nurses, with deposit examples and how shift income is counted, is in our guide to first home loans for nurses.

From October 2025 the scheme dropped its income caps and place limits, and lifted the property price caps (for example up to $1.5 million in Sydney and $1 million in Brisbane). You still borrow up to 95% of the value, you apply through a participating lender, and you must live in the home.

For an Enrolled Nurse, a casual not yet at the $90k mark, or a nurse who sits just outside the medical criteria, the 5% Deposit Scheme can be the better of the two doors. We model both before pointing you at one.

What stamp duty do nurse first home buyers pay in each state?

It depends on the state. The LMI waiver is a lender policy, so it works the same way across Australia. Stamp duty does not: each state and territory sets its own first home buyer thresholds, and they vary widely. Here is roughly where they sit in 2026:

State	No stamp duty up to	Concession up to
VIC	$600,000	$750,000
NSW	$800,000	$1,000,000
QLD	$700,000 established (new builds exempt)	$800,000
WA	$600,000 (from May 2026)	$800,000

SA, TAS, ACT and NT run their own first home buyer schemes with different thresholds. Always confirm the current figure with your state revenue office before you commit.

For every state, see our guide to first home buyer grants and stamp duty by state.

Do mortgages for nurses apply when you refinance a loan you already have?

They can: nurse policy is not only a first purchase tool. A profession policy can matter on a refinance as much as on a purchase, because a lender that reads a nurse’s overtime, penalty rates and part time hospital income generously reads them that way whether you are buying or moving an existing loan across.

If you took your loan out before you were eligible, whether you are eligible now is worth checking rather than assuming. A nurse who was a graduate, casual, part time or under the income threshold at the time was assessed under ordinary policy, so the overtime and allowances were shaded down and the LMI was paid in full. Whether a profession policy fits now depends on your role, employer, income mix and the lender.

The same income recognition matters when releasing equity, because a lender that counts your penalty rates in full can see more servicing capacity than one that shades them. What is actually available turns on the valuation, the lender’s limits and what you can service.

None of this is automatic: refinancing takes time and paperwork, and there can be costs in leaving your current loan, which we count before you decide. Our guide to refinancing a home loan from application to settlement walks through what happens and in what order, when to refinance a home loan deals with the timing, and our refinance savings calculator shows what a switch does to your own figures.

Investment loans for nurses: can you use the same benefits to buy an investment property?

Often, yes, at select lenders. The profession based benefits on this page are assessed on your nurse income, and several lenders extend them to investment purchases as well as a home, though the deposit and waiver terms for investment lending differ from owner occupied lending and are set on each file. A few lenders want your own home financed first, but plenty do not.

Three things change on an investment file: the lender shades the expected rent, typically counting 70 to 80 per cent of it, investor pricing sits above owner occupier rates, and the deposit you bring decides which desks will look at it. Start with how much deposit an investment property needs and how investment property loan rates are set.

How do you apply for a nurse home loan, and what does a mortgage broker for nurses cost?

It starts with a quick conversation, and it costs you nothing: the lender pays us at settlement, and every commission is disclosed to you in writing before anything proceeds. If you are a Registered Nurse, Midwife or Nurse Practitioner thinking about buying or refinancing in Australia in the next 6 to 12 months, here is how the process runs with us:

1. A first call, no documents: we walk through your income mix, savings, timing and goals.
2. A lender comparison in a few days: the strongest options laid out side by side.
3. Application and documents: payslips, ID, bank statements and an employment letter from the hospital, with the file prepared and lodged by us.
4. Approval and valuation: the lender orders a valuation on the property, and on a tidy nurse application formal approval generally comes back inside 5 to 10 business days.
5. Settlement: the loan draws down on the date your contract sets.

Your own bank can only ever quote you its own policy. A mortgage broker for nurses compares the policies side by side: which lenders waive LMI at 90%, which count overtime and penalty rates at full value, which assess part time hospital income pro rata, and which read salary packaging generously.

Home loans for nurses: frequently asked questions

Is there an LMI waiver for nurses in Australia?

Yes, at select lenders. Eligible Registered Nurses and Midwives can borrow up to 90% LVR with no LMI, commonly with a minimum income around $90,000 a year. Lists and thresholds change and not every lender takes part, so we verify current policy before you apply. This can save $15,000 to $30,000 in upfront LMI costs on a typical purchase.

How much deposit do you need for a home loan for nurses?

Many nurses can buy with a 10% deposit and pay no LMI, because several Australian lenders waive Lenders Mortgage Insurance for eligible registered nurses and midwives borrowing up to 90% of the property value. Eligible first home buyers in any job can instead use the Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme with a 5% deposit and no LMI. Eligibility depends on registration, income and the lender, so terms vary.

Are there special first home buyer programs for nurses?

Yes. A nurse buying a first home can use either a profession-based LMI waiver at select lenders (10% deposit) or the Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme (as little as 5% deposit and no LMI, subject to eligibility and property price caps), not both. Either can potentially be combined with state first home owner grants and stamp duty concessions, and with full counting of overtime and penalties for borrowing power. Which combination fits depends on your price point, state and income shape.

How much can a nurse borrow in Australia?

It turns on your base pay, how much of your income is variable, the debts you already carry and the lender you choose. As a rough guide, one registered nurse on a $95k base with $25k of overtime and allowances can usually borrow somewhere between $550,000 and $700,000 under nurse policy, and two nurses together can often clear $1m. A quick first call will give you a real figure for your own situation.

Will the lender count my penalty rates and shift allowances?

For nurses on a hospital payroll, several major lenders recognise overtime, shift allowances and penalty rates at their full value under healthcare policy, evidenced through your payslips and a recent ATO Notice of Assessment. Under ordinary lending policy, often only 60% to 80% of that variable income ends up counted in the borrowing calculation.

Do I have to be a hospital nurse to qualify for the LMI waiver?

At the major lenders the answer is usually yes, with direct hospital employment the simplest case to get across the line. A handful extend to community and aged care nursing, while agency shifts, clinic roles and self-employed nursing are often left out, so we confirm your exact position lender by lender.

Can a casual nurse get the LMI waiver?

Casual income is accepted for the waiver at most lenders, worked out over a 48-week base rather than a full 52. You will usually need to show 6 to 12 months of steady shifts with one employer, or in the same role across a few.

Are enrolled nurses excluded from the LMI waiver?

Most often yes: most lenders leave Enrolled Nurses off their medical waiver lists. The Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme frequently delivers the same result, a 5% deposit with no LMI, for eligible first home buyers in any job, and we weigh both routes for you.

Can my partner be a non-nurse and we still get the waiver?

Yes. Where one applicant qualifies under nurse policy and holds a genuine share of the income or equity, many lenders can apply the waiver across the whole loan, so a partner outside healthcare is no barrier. Lists and thresholds change, so we verify current policy before you apply.

How long does approval take on mortgage loans for nurses?

On a clean nurse file with documents in order, formal approval usually arrives within 5 to 10 business days, and settlement typically follows around 30 days later in line with your contract. The documents are payslips, ID, bank statements and an employment letter from the hospital.

Sources and useful references

• Housing Australia: the 5% Deposit Scheme
• ASIC Moneysmart: home loans
• Ahpra: nursing and midwifery registration
• Fair Work Ombudsman: penalty rates, allowances and other payments

Related guides

• Home Loans for Doctors: 5% Deposit, No LMI, Loans to $5m
• Home Loans for Dentists
• Home Loans for Accountants: The LMI Waiver
• Home Loans for Teachers
• Home Loans for Lawyers
• Home Loans for Police, Firefighters and Paramedics
• First Home Buyer Grants & Stamp Duty by State
• Casual Income Home Loans: How Lenders Count Casual Pay