Low Doc and No Doc Commercial Loans in Australia (2026): No Tax Returns, One Year of Statements, and the 12-Month Lenders

Low Doc and No Doc Commercial Loans in Australia (2026): No Tax Returns, One Year of Statements, and the 12-Month Lenders

The searches all describe the same wall from different sides: “no doc loans”, “low doc business loan”, “low doc commercial loans”, “no documentation loan”, “no doc business loans”, “short term business loan”. The wall is a lender asking for two years of tax returns that are late, lean, or structured for tax rather than for borrowing. This page is the map around it: what each document tier means, which documents replace the returns, what the lenders that write this lending actually publish, and where the short-term and 12-month lenders fit when the loan itself only needs to run for a year.

Can you get a commercial loan with no tax returns in Australia?

Yes. Low doc and no doc commercial loans replace tax returns with other evidence: your BAS, twelve months of business bank statements, a letter or declaration from your accountant, a signed income declaration, or the lease on the property itself. The price of the lighter file is a lower maximum loan-to-value ratio, usually 65 to 80 per cent, and a rate above full doc. Seven lenders publish their terms; the table below compares them.

What does not change is the assessment. Every lender on this page still decides whether the loan is affordable and whether the security and the exit hold up. Low doc changes what evidences the income; no doc changes how much weight the security carries. Neither removes the credit decision, and the lenders that say “no financials, no problem” still say “subject to credit assessment” in the next line.

What is a low doc loan, and how does it differ from a no doc loan?

The industry uses four tiers, and the searches blur them. Knowing which tier you are in is the first half of the answer, because it decides which lenders will look at the file and what loan-to-value ratio they will go to.

• Full doc. Two years of tax returns and financials, plus BAS and bank statements. The widest choice of lenders and the sharpest pricing, because the lender sees the whole business. Our commercial property loan rates guide covers what full doc borrowers are paying in 2026.
• Low doc, also written lo doc, lite doc or alt doc. Income is evidenced by alternatives to the tax return: BAS, business bank statements, an accountant’s letter or declaration, or a borrower’s own declaration supported by one of those. La Trobe Financial calls its version Lite Doc; Thinktank splits it into Mid Doc and Quick Doc; Liberty, RedZed and Pepper Money call it low doc or alternative documentation. The lender still tests serviceability, on the alternative evidence.
• Lease doc. For tenanted commercial property. Income verification is primarily the current lease, so the rent has to cover the interest by the lender’s margin and your own financials stay out of it. La Trobe Financial and Thinktank both publish a lease doc product.
• No doc, also written no documentation loan, no docs loan or self-certified. No tax returns and no financials. The lender relies on a self-declared income and, above all, on the property security and a clear exit: a sale, a refinance to a term lender once the financials exist, or a receivable. Prime Capital publishes this as “no tax returns or financials required, self-declared income accepted”; Liberty’s short term commercial loan says “no financials required”; the private lenders, Aquamore and Assetline Capital, assess the asset and the exit. Terms are short, usually up to three years and often twelve months, and the rate is the highest of the four tiers.

So “low doc no doc loans” is really two products with a step between them: low doc still proves income, by other means; no doc lends on the security and the exit. The step matters because it moves the loan from a 30-year commercial mortgage to a short-term facility with a date on it.

What replaces the tax returns: the documents lenders actually accept

Each lender names its own list. Read together, the published lists reduce to seven documents, and most files use two or three of them.

• Business Activity Statements. Usually the last four quarters, lodged with the ATO, so the turnover is a figure the lender can trust. La Trobe Financial names BAS as an accepted income verification method on its Lite Doc product; RedZed lists BAS among its alternative income verification options.
• Business bank statements. Typically twelve months of the trading account, showing revenue arriving and expenses leaving. RedZed accepts business bank statements; the one-year statement refinance at a select major lender is built on exactly this document.
• Accountant’s letter or declaration. Your accountant confirms the income figure you are declaring, on their letterhead. La Trobe Financial’s Lite Doc verification is “accountant’s letter and borrower declaration”; RedZed accepts accountant declarations; Assetline Capital publishes an accountant declaration form for private lending. The letter is only as strong as the accountant’s willingness to sign it, which is why lenders read it closely.
• Borrower declaration, also called self-declared or self-certified income. You sign a statement of your income and the lender relies on it, usually alongside a lower loan-to-value cap. Prime Capital’s products all state “self-declared income accepted”.
• The lease. On a tenanted property, the executed lease and rent history can be the income evidence, which is the whole basis of a lease doc loan.
• Statement of position. A one-page summary of what the business and its owners own and owe. It does not prove income; it shows the lender the balance sheet the income sits on, and it pairs with bank statements in the one-year refinance.
• One year of tax returns instead of two. Not low doc at all, but often the simplest fix: Pepper Money publishes a “1 year tax return full doc option” on its commercial property loan, which keeps you in the full doc tier with a single, recent return.

Notice what is not on the list: a two-year-old return that shows a lean year, and financials that are not finished. The alternative documents exist precisely so that neither of those decides the loan.

Which document tier are you in? A 30-second check

Tick what you can produce this week. The result names the tier, the loan-to-value ceiling the published products go to, and the lenders on this page whose published verification fits.

Low doc commercial loans: the lenders and what they publish (read 11 September 2026)

Only figures each lender publishes on its own site appear here, with the date they were read. Rates are the lender’s advertised “from” rate, which the lender itself says depends on loan-to-value ratio, security and the level of verification supplied. Where a lender publishes a range rather than a figure, the range is quoted; where it publishes nothing, the cell says so.

La Trobe Financial: Lite Doc Commercial and Lease Doc

La Trobe Financial publishes the clearest low doc terms of any lender in the market. Its Lite Doc Commercial loan accepts alternative income verification such as a BAS statement or an accountant letter, with the verification required stated as an accountant’s letter and borrower declaration. Loans run from $100,000 to $25,000,000 at 70 per cent LVR, or $50,000,000 at 65 per cent, over a maximum 30-year term with interest only available for up to five years. The advertised borrower rate is from 8.29 per cent p.a. and the application fee is from 1.25 per cent of the loan amount, excluding valuation and legal fees.

Its Lease Doc loan carries the same amounts, term and fee, with income verification primarily based on the current lease and an advertised rate from 7.89 per cent p.a. That 0.40 per cent gap between the two products is the market’s own price on a lease versus a declaration.

Liberty: Low Doc Commercial and Short Term Commercial

Liberty’s low doc commercial loan publishes a maximum LVR of 80 per cent, loans from $100,000 to $8,000,000, terms up to 30 years, owner occupier and investor purposes, an established business requirement and alternative income verification. Liberty is unusually plain about the trade-off: the 80 per cent and the advertised rate from 8.00 per cent p.a. are for customers who can provide sufficient income verification, and customers providing less are subject to further LVR restrictions and higher rates. Interest only periods carry a 0.50 per cent rate loading. The fee schedule is fully published: application fee from $795 (a $1,045 fee may apply), establishment fee from 1.00 per cent with a minimum of $2,500 or $5,000, a $34.50 monthly service fee, $595 settlement, $695 documentation, and a 1.00 per cent deferred facility fee if the loan is repaid before the earlier of the end of term or the third anniversary, plus a $795 discharge fee.

Its short term commercial loan is the no doc cousin: “no financials required”, rates from 9.80 per cent p.a., maximum LVR 80 per cent, $100,000 to $4,000,000, terms up to three years, with the deferred facility fee rising to 2.00 per cent. Same fee schedule otherwise.

RedZed: self-employed commercial property loans

RedZed writes commercial property loans for the self-employed at up to 75 per cent of the property’s value, with loan terms of up to 30 years and no annual reviews, which it points out means no review fees. Its alternative income verification options are accountant declarations, BAS or business bank statements, with full financials or tax returns as the other path. RedZed publishes a headline “rates starting from” figure that is based on a prime principal and interest loan at 55 per cent LVR or less, with a loan size between $150,000 and $3,000,000, and states that rates depend on LVR, loan amount and the type of security; the headline is not quoted here because it does not describe a low doc file.

Pepper Money: commercial property loan with alternative documentation

Pepper Money’s commercial property loan runs over flexible terms of 1 to 30 years with a maximum loan size of $5,000,000 ($3,000,000 on residential securities), interest only for up to five years with no interest loading, a maximum LVR of 80 per cent on business real property purchases and refinances, alternative documentation options, and a one-year tax return full doc option. Applications are accepted after two years of ABN registration, and Pepper publishes an approval time of 11 to 12 business days for eligible loans under $1,500,000. Its commercial lending information is dated 10 August 2026.

Thinktank: Full Doc, Mid Doc, Quick Doc and Lease Doc

Thinktank lends exclusively through brokers and publishes commercial loans from $100,000 to $10,000,000, terms up to 30 years with interest only up to five years, owner occupied or investment, LVR up to 80 per cent, and five documentation options: Full Doc, Mid Doc, Quick Doc, Lease Doc and Specialised Securities. It states that alternative income verification options are available, that servicing uses the most recent financial information, that there is no credit scoring, and that there are no annual reviews or ongoing fees; tax debt is considered and GST funding, a line of credit and cash out are available. The LVR and loan size for each documentation tier sit in its product guides rather than on the public page, so they are not quoted here. Thinktank publishes what it does not do: credit impaired lending, construction, aged care, highly specialised properties, vacant land and postcodes with fewer than 10,000 people.

Prime Capital: no doc, self-declared income

Prime Capital is the plainest no doc lender on the page: “no tax returns or financials required, self-declared income accepted” on every product. Business Basics runs from $250,000 to $5,000,000 over up to three years, interest only, at a maximum LVR of 75 per cent. Business 30 runs from $250,000 to $3,000,000 over up to 30 years, interest only for three years then principal and interest, at a maximum LVR of 80 per cent. Business Jumbo covers $5,000,000 to $25,000,000 over up to three years at 75 per cent, and the builder and renovation products lend $1,000,000 and up with interest capitalised at up to 70 per cent. Prime Capital states that its maximum LVRs are for residential houses on less than 4,000 square metres, so the security is usually a house, not the business premises, and the loan is business-purpose lending against it.

Aquamore and Assetline Capital: the short-term private lenders

Aquamore writes short-term commercial loans of up to $7,500,000 through approved brokers, at a maximum 75 per cent LVR, on first and second mortgages, and assesses every application case by case, including new businesses, limited revenue and bad credit. It states that most short-term loans are settled within a year but can run to 24 months, that rates may be from 6 per cent p.a. depending on the risk profile, and that it aims to respond within 48 hours. Assetline Capital’s private lending is property-backed funding from $500,000 to $40,000,000, structured around the asset and the exit strategy, with same-day indicative terms, funding within 48 hours of valuation, a no-valuation facility for qualifying scenarios, and an accountant declaration for income verification; it names consolidating business, ATO or private debts into a single facility with a clear exit as a use.

The comparison table

Two patterns fall out of the table. The long-term low doc lenders, La Trobe Financial, Liberty, RedZed, Pepper Money and Thinktank, all cap at 70 to 80 per cent and run to 30 years, so a low doc file is a real commercial mortgage, not a stopgap. The no doc lenders, Prime Capital, Liberty’s short term product, Aquamore and Assetline Capital, run to three years or less, and their loan-to-value caps sit on the security rather than the income; that is what buys the absence of paperwork.

No doc business loans for a year: the short-term and 12-month lenders

A separate group of searches, “no doc business loans”, “short term business loan”, “short term business funding”, “no doc business funding”, is not looking for a 30-year mortgage at all. It is looking for money that runs for about a year, against property, without financials, for a reason with a date on it: an ATO debt that has to be settled, a purchase whose settlement is fixed, a contract that needs working capital before it pays, or a business whose last financials do not reflect the business it is now and needs twelve months to produce a set that does.

That is what the short-term lenders on this page are built for, and it is why they can drop the tax returns. Prime Capital’s Business Basics runs up to three years interest only at 75 per cent. Liberty’s short term commercial loan runs up to three years at 80 per cent with no financials required. Aquamore states that most of its short-term loans are settled within a year and can run to 24 months. Assetline Capital issues same-day indicative terms and funds within 48 hours of valuation. None of them is reading your tax returns because none of them is relying on your income to repay the loan over decades; they are relying on the security and the exit.

Three things follow, and they are the discipline of using this money well.

• The exit is the application. A short-term lender assesses how the loan ends, a sale, a refinance to a term lender once the financials exist, or a receivable, before it assesses anything else. Assetline Capital says so on its page: it assesses the quality of the real estate security and the strength of the exit strategy. Walk in with the exit written down.
• Twelve months is a working budget, not a maximum. Interest at short-term rates for a year is a real cost, and interest capitalised into the loan grows the debt the exit has to clear. Set the term to the exit, not to the maximum the lender offers.
• The refinance out should be planned on day one. The natural exit from a no doc loan is a low doc or full doc commercial loan twelve months later, once the BAS and statements tell a clean story. Pepper Money’s one-year tax return option and the one-year statement refinance below are the two most common landing points.

One year of trading, one year of statements: the no tax returns refinance

If the business has been trading for a year and the debt you want to move already exists, the answer may not be low doc at all. A select major lender is currently refinancing existing business lending for businesses that have operated for at least one year, using twelve months of business bank statements and a statement of position instead of tax returns, with standard credit assessment applied to that evidence. It is the closest thing the market has to a mainstream “no tax returns” product, and because it is a major lender the pricing sits with ordinary business lending rather than with the private lenders. Our no tax returns business loan refinance guide sets out the two documents, who qualifies and what it does to the rate.

The one-year threshold recurs across the market in different forms. Pepper Money accepts commercial applications after two years of ABN registration and a single year of tax returns. Liberty asks for an established business on its low doc commercial loan. The private lenders will consider a business that is brand new, in Aquamore’s words, because they are lending on the security. So “how long do I need to have traded” has three answers: about a year for the statement-based refinance, two years of ABN for Pepper’s alternative documentation, and no minimum at the short-term private lenders, priced accordingly.

Low doc business loan or low doc commercial loan: which one are you searching for?

The two phrases are searched almost interchangeably and they describe different products. A low doc commercial loan is secured on commercial property, a warehouse, a shopfront, a medical suite, and is used to buy, refinance or release equity from it; the lenders in the table above write it. A low doc business loan is money for the business itself, working capital, equipment, an ATO debt, a fit-out, and it can be secured on residential property (Prime Capital’s products, and the private lenders), secured on the business premises, or unsecured through a cash-flow lender that reads your bank feed rather than your returns.

The distinction matters for price. Property-secured lending is cheaper than unsecured lending at every documentation tier, because the lender has an asset to sell if the exit fails. If you own property, business or residential, a low doc loan against it will usually cost less than a “no doc business loan” from a cash-flow lender, and it can run for 30 years rather than 12 months. Everstone arranges both routes and starts from the property, because that is where the cheaper money is; our commercial equity release guide covers borrowing against premises you already own.

What low doc and no doc commercial loans cost: the published rates and fees

The published starting rates on 11 September 2026 run from 7.89 per cent p.a. (La Trobe Financial Lease Doc) and 8.00 per cent p.a. (Liberty Low Doc Commercial) through 8.29 per cent p.a. (La Trobe Financial Lite Doc) to 9.80 per cent p.a. (Liberty Short Term Commercial, no financials), with Aquamore stating that its short-term rates may be from 6 per cent p.a. depending on the risk profile and RedZed, Pepper Money, Thinktank and Prime Capital pricing by file or in product guides rather than on the page. Every one of those lenders says the same thing beneath the figure: the actual rate depends on loan-to-value ratio, security, and the level of verification supplied. Liberty says it in so many words; the advertised rate is for customers who can provide sufficient income verification, and less verification means a higher rate.

Set against full doc, the gap is real but narrower than most borrowers expect. Full doc commercial rates for strong owner-occupier files sit lower, and our commercial property loan rates guide tracks the published figures; the low doc premium is typically the difference between a bank and a non-bank, plus the verification loading. The fees are where low doc diverges more sharply: La Trobe Financial’s application fee is from 1.25 per cent of the loan, Liberty charges an establishment fee from 1.00 per cent with a minimum of $2,500 or $5,000 on top of the application fee, and both Liberty products carry a deferred facility fee (1.00 per cent low doc, 2.00 per cent short term) if you repay early, which is exactly what a borrower planning a 12-month exit intends to do. Read the early repayment fee before choosing a short-term product, because the refinance out is the point.

On a $1,000,000 low doc facility, a 1.00 per cent establishment fee is $10,000 and a 1.25 per cent application fee is $12,500, before valuation and legal costs. Those numbers belong in the comparison alongside the rate, and our commercial loan refinancing costs guide runs through the full list.

How a lender assesses a file with no tax returns

Because the tax return is gone, the other evidence carries more weight, and lenders read it harder. From the published policies and from the files we run, these are the six things that decide a low doc or no doc commercial application.

• Loan-to-value ratio and the security. The published caps, 65 to 80 per cent, are the lender’s protection for the missing income evidence. The property type moves the cap: a standard warehouse or office sits at the top of the range, a specialised asset lower. Our commercial deposit and LVR guide explains the asset ladder.
• The exit, on any short-term facility. A dated, evidenced way out: a contract of sale, a refinance approval in principle, a receivable. The private lenders assess this first.
• ABN, GST registration and trading history. Pepper Money publishes two years of ABN; Liberty asks for an established business; the statement-based refinance needs a year of trading. The private lenders have no minimum.
• The conduct of the accounts. Twelve months of statements show the lender what the tax return would have hidden: seasonality, dishonours, ATO payment plans, the real revenue. Clean conduct is the strongest low doc evidence there is.
• The accountant’s letter. Lenders read who signed it, whether the figure reconciles to the BAS, and whether the accountant has qualified it. A letter that simply restates the borrower’s own declaration adds little; one that confirms lodged BAS turnover adds a lot.
• Tax debt and credit history. Thinktank says tax debt is considered; Assetline Capital names consolidating ATO debt as a use; Liberty and RedZed both say they assess blemished credit case by case; Thinktank does not do credit impaired lending. An ATO debt is not a bar, but it has to be disclosed and, usually, paid out from the loan.

Who these loans suit, and who should not use them

Low doc commercial lending suits the business owner whose income is real and whose paperwork is behind: the practice that changed accountants mid-year, the trade whose last return shows a deliberately lean year, the investor whose tenanted property pays for itself and who has no wish to open the family company’s financials to a bank. It suits the buyer with a 25 to 35 per cent deposit who would rather pay a non-bank margin for twelve months than miss the property, and refinance to full doc when the returns are in.

No doc and short-term lending suits a defined problem with a defined exit: an ATO settlement, a fixed completion date, a bridge between a purchase and a sale, capital while the financials are prepared. It does not suit a business that cannot describe how the loan ends. A 12-month facility that rolls into a second 12-month facility at short-term rates is the most expensive money in this market, and the exit that was going to be a refinance has to be planned as one from the start, with the low doc lenders in the table above as the landing point.

If you can produce two years of finished returns, do not use any of this. Full doc opens more lenders at better prices, and the only reason to go low doc with full financials in hand is speed, which the short-term lenders sell at a premium you do not need to pay.

In the words people search: no doc loans, low doc business loans, short term business funding

Because the same product is searched under a dozen names, here is the map from the phrase people type to the product it usually means and the section of this page that answers it.

• “No doc loans”, “no doc loan”, “no docs loans”, “no documentation loan”. Lending without tax returns or financials, on self-declared income and the security. Usually short term. See the four tiers and the short-term lenders.
• “No doc lenders”, “no doc loan lenders”. Prime Capital, Liberty’s short term commercial product, Aquamore and Assetline Capital publish no doc or no financials products; the others are low doc. See the table.
• “Low doc business loan”, “low doc business loans”. Money for the business on alternative income evidence, secured or unsecured. See business versus commercial.
• “Low doc commercial loans”, “commercial low doc loans”, “low-doc commercial loans”, “low doc commercial loans australia”. A commercial property loan on BAS, statements or an accountant letter. See the lenders.
• “No doc business loans”, “business no doc loans”, “no docs business loan”, “no document business loans”, “no doc business funding”. Short-term business money without financials, usually property-backed. See the 12-month lenders.
• “Short term business loan”, “short term business loans”, “short term business funding”, “short term commercial loans”. Facilities of three years or less, often twelve months, from Liberty, Aquamore, Assetline Capital and Prime Capital. See the short-term lenders.
• “Lease doc loan”. A commercial loan where the lease is the income evidence. See the four tiers.
• “What is a low doc loan”, “low doc”, “doc loans”, “low doc no doc loans”. The definitions. See the four tiers.
• “Private commercial loans”, “commercial private money loans”. Aquamore and Assetline Capital are private lenders; Prime Capital and La Trobe Financial are non-bank lenders. See the short-term lenders.
• “Commercial loan no tax returns”, “business loan no tax returns”. Either a low doc commercial loan or the one-year statement refinance. See one year of statements.

How Everstone runs a low doc commercial file

We start with the documents, not the lender. The first conversation establishes what you can produce this week and what you could produce in a month, because one accountant letter or one lodged BAS often moves a file from no doc to low doc, and that step is worth 1 to 2 per cent a year and 25 years of term. Then we match the evidence to the published policies above and to the lender policies that are not published, run the loan-to-value ratio against the actual security, and, on any short-term facility, write the exit into the application before the lender asks for it.

The team are former bankers, which matters more on low doc than anywhere else in lending, because the credit decision is made on judgement about the evidence rather than on a formula, and knowing how a credit assessor reads an accountant’s letter or a set of statements is the difference between an approval and a conditional decline. Everstone Finance operates under the Best Interests Duty, is paid by the lender on settlement, and arranges commercial and business lending for owners across Australia, most of it by video. If the right answer is to wait three months for the returns and go full doc, that is the answer you will get.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Related guides

Important information