Mortgage deposit in France: is it compulsory?

What the texts say

No law defines the deposit. Service-public.gouv.fr simply describes it as the share of your savings (current account, savings accounts, CEL, company savings plan) that you choose to allocate to the project: “this amount will then be called the personal deposit”.

The HCSF standard contains no deposit criterion. Decision D-HCSF-2021-7 of 29 September 2021 imposes two cumulative criteria on banks (art. 1):

• the borrower’s taux d’effort (debt-to-income ratio) does not exceed 35%;
• the loan term does not exceed 25 years, with tolerance up to 27 years for new builds (Véfa, i.e. off-plan sale; building contract) or existing property with works. The works threshold, set at 25% of the total cost in 2021, was lowered to 10% by decision D-HCSF-2023-6, applicable since 1 January 2024.

The debt-to-income ratio is calculated by dividing annual borrowing costs (on all debt) by annual income, taking the year in which those costs are highest (art. 4). Banks may depart from these criteria for 20% of their quarterly lending, of which at least 70% is reserved for main residences and at least 30% for first-time buyers (art. 2, as amended by the decision of 29 June 2023). Neither the loan-to-value ratio nor the deposit appears in this text.

What the bank makes of it. Each bank assesses your creditworthiness on the basis of your income, savings, expenses and debts (service-public.gouv.fr). The deposit is therefore not a legal condition, but it forms part of the assessment of your application, in the same way as the savings you have left over.

The costs to fund on top of the price

Service-public.gouv.fr lists the costs to add up to arrive at the total amount of a transaction:

• the price of the home (or of the construction, and of the land);
• the cost of the guarantee: mortgage, hypothèque légale spéciale du prêteur de deniers (the lender’s statutory lien) or a guarantee bond;
• notary’s fees;
• loan arrangement fees and borrower insurance;
• account-opening fees if your salary must be paid into the lending bank;
• the fees of the broker and estate agent, where applicable.

Notary’s fees on existing property. These are mainly made up of droits de mutation (transfer duties). Their maximum overall rate is 6.32% from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2028: of which no more than 5% for the département and 1.20% for the commune (municipality). A first-time buyer purchasing a main residence keeps the departmental rate voted before the increase, generally 4.50%, lower in a few départements (see hausse des droits de mutation (transfer duty increase)). On top of this come the contribution de sécurité immobilière (land registry fee, 0.1%, at least €15) and the notary’s emoluments, on a sliding scale from 3.870% up to €6,500 down to 0.799% above €60,000 (impots.gouv.fr, page amended on 17 July 2026). For new builds subject to VAT, the taxe de publicité foncière (land registration tax) falls to 0.71%.

ANIL adds to this list the account-opening and application-processing fees, insurance, the guarantee and, for a construction, interim interest, the taxe d’aménagement (development tax) and dommages-ouvrage (building damage) insurance.

Loans that finance 100%… except the costs

Two regulated loans can finance the whole transaction: the prêt conventionné (regulated agreed loan) and the prêt d’accession sociale (PAS, social home-ownership loan). But they finance neither notary’s fees, nor mortgage registration fees, nor application-processing fees (service-public.gouv.fr, page checked on 2 October 2026). ANIL sums it up as follows: “You will need to set aside a deposit to fund them.”

The Action Logement home-purchase loan, for its part, can be granted without a personal deposit, according to the organisation’s FAQ, and its transaction cost includes the transaction fees. See our page prêt Action Logement (Action Logement loan).

What the Banque de France publishes on deposits

The Banque de France does not publish an “average deposit” in euros. Its supervisory authority, the ACPR, publishes the LTV (loan-to-value) every quarter, i.e. the amount lent relative to the value of the property. For June 2026 lending (file updated on 24 September 2026):

In other words, more than one loan in six is for an amount greater than the value of the property. The ACPR also publishes an average debt-to-income ratio of 31.0% and an average initial term of 22.5 years for the same month.

Which professional to consult

The courtier en crédit (mortgage broker) compares banks and knows which ones finance the costs. The notaire (notary) works out the exact purchase costs, which set the minimum deposit to plan for. The agent immobilier (estate agent) helps you assess the price, and therefore the value the bank will use to calculate the LTV.