How much can you
borrow?

Your borrowing capacity is set by serviceability, not just income. Lenders take your after-tax income, subtract your living expenses, existing debt repayments, and a margin against your credit card limits, then check whether the surplus can cover the new loan repayment assessed at your interest rate plus APRA's 3.0 percentage point buffer.

As a rough guide in early 2026, a single applicant on $95,000 with no debts can typically borrow around $440,000 to $480,000, and a couple on a combined $160,000 around $800,000 to $900,000 — but the exact figure swings heavily with your expenses, dependents, HECS debt, and credit card limits. This calculator estimates it from your real numbers.

Roughly $276,000 as a single applicant, on standard assumptions: no HECS debt, no other loans or credit cards, $2,500 a month in living expenses, a 6.2% rate assessed with APRA's 3.0 percentage point buffer over 30 years. The figure is engine-consistent with this calculator, so entering $70,000 above with those inputs reproduces it.

Real applications move the number in both directions — a HECS debt or a car loan pulls it down, a second applicant's income pushes the household figure up by more than you'd expect because each person gets their own tax-free threshold.

About $102,000 gross as a single applicant, on the same standard assumptions (no HECS, no other debts, $2,500/month expenses, 6.2% rate plus the 3.0pp APRA buffer, 30-year term). To borrow $750,000 you'd need roughly $139,000, and $1,000,000 roughly $179,000.

Couples reach each target on a lower combined income than a single applicant needs alone. These are serviceability estimates only — your deposit and the lender's maximum LVR cap the purchase price separately.

Yes — they are the same calculation under two names, and which one you see depends mostly on who built the tool. Australian banks almost all badge theirs 'borrowing power' (CommBank, NAB, ANZ, Westpac and the neobanks all use that wording), while brokers, regulators and lenders' internal credit teams tend to say 'borrowing capacity' or 'serviceability'.

There is no technical difference: both answer how much a lender will advance you given your income, your living expenses, your existing debts and the interest rate your application is stress-tested at. If you are comparing numbers between a bank's calculator and this one, the wording is not what causes the gap — the assumptions are.

Check three things before concluding one is wrong: the assessment rate each tool uses, whether it applies the HEM living-expense benchmark or the figure you typed in, and how it treats existing credit card limits, which lenders count at their full limit rather than the balance you actually owe.

Partly, and the differences matter enough to be careful. The core serviceability maths is the same, but lenders assess investment lending differently in three ways.

They will usually count only about 80% of the expected rent as income, to allow for vacancy and costs — some are stricter. They stress-test the new loan at the buffered rate like any other, but they also apply that buffer to your EXISTING mortgage, so an owner-occupier loan you comfortably afford today reduces your investment borrowing power more than you would expect.

And negative gearing may or may not be added back depending on the lender's policy. Interest-only periods, common on investment loans, can increase what you can borrow at the assessment stage while raising the total cost over the life of the loan.

Treat any figure here as an owner-occupier estimate and expect an investment assessment to come in lower.

Since October 2021, APRA has required Australian lenders to assess every new mortgage at an interest rate at least 3.0 percentage points above the actual product rate. So if your loan rate is 6.2%, the bank tests whether you could still afford the repayments at 9.2%.

The buffer exists to make sure borrowers can cope if rates rise. It is the single biggest reason your borrowing capacity is lower than a simple repayment calculation suggests — this tool applies the full 3.0pp buffer to the assessment.

Heavily. Lenders don't just take your word for your spending — they apply the Household Expenditure Measure (HEM), a benchmark of minimum reasonable living costs that scales with your income, location, and number of dependents.

If your declared expenses are below the HEM floor for your household, the lender uses the higher HEM figure. Every $500/month of assessed expenses reduces a 30-year borrowing capacity by roughly $60,000 to $70,000.

Cutting discretionary spending in the months before you apply genuinely lifts how much you can borrow.

Yes — and it's the limit, not the balance, that counts. Lenders assess roughly 3.8% of your total credit card limits as a monthly commitment, even if you pay the card off in full each month and owe nothing.

A $20,000 combined card limit is assessed as about $760/month of commitment, which can cut your borrowing capacity by $80,000 or more. Reducing or cancelling unused card limits before you apply is one of the fastest ways to lift your capacity.

A HECS-HELP debt reduces your net (after-tax) income because compulsory repayments are withheld from your pay once you earn above the threshold — $69,528 for 2026-27, up from $67,000 in 2025-26. Since 1 July 2025 the repayment is charged marginally: 15c per dollar of income above $69,528 (then 17c above $129,717), rather than a single rate on your whole income as under the old system.

Lenders treat that repayment as a reduction in serviceable income. On a $90,000 salary, an outstanding HECS debt can lower your borrowing capacity by $30,000 to $50,000.

Note: from 1 June 2025 the government changed how some lenders treat HECS for serviceability — many now disregard it if the debt will be cleared within 12 months. This calculator includes the HECS repayment in net income when you tick the box.

No. Borrowing capacity is an estimate of the maximum a lender might lend based on your income and commitments. A pre-approval (conditional approval) is a lender's formal indication, after reviewing your documents and credit file, that they're willing to lend up to a stated amount subject to conditions — but it's still not a guarantee, and it doesn't account for the property valuation.

This calculator gives you a capacity estimate to plan with; it is not a loan offer, pre-approval, or financial advice.

No — this tool estimates serviceability (how much repayment your income can support), not the deposit side. Your actual purchase price is the lower of your borrowing capacity and what your deposit allows at the lender's maximum loan-to-value ratio (LVR).

If you borrow more than 80% of the property value, you'll usually pay Lenders Mortgage Insurance (LMI). Use the Richify LMI Calculator and Stamp Duty Calculator to model the deposit and upfront-cost side alongside this capacity estimate.

Because each lender uses its own HEM benchmark, its own assessment of overtime and bonus income (many shade casual or variable income to 80%), its own treatment of HECS and childcare, and its own floor rate. Two lenders can differ by $100,000+ on the same applicant.

The figure here uses standard, conservative assumptions (full HEM-style expenses you enter, the 3.0pp APRA buffer, 3.8% of card limits) to give a realistic mid-range estimate — a broker can tell you which specific lenders assess your situation most generously.

Yes — Richify is available to download in Australia on the App Store and Google Play, and it is free to start. The app tracks your income, loans, super, ASX shares, and property in one place, so you can see how a new mortgage would move your net worth before you commit.

Felix and the specialist AI agents are built for Australians, with HECS, super, and CGT logic baked in.