Buying a Home on an L-1 Visa: What Intracompany Transferees Need to Know

The L-1 transferee arrives in a strange position. You have eight years at the same multinational, a title that took a decade to earn, a salary that puts you comfortably in the top decile of your new zip code — and a US credit file with nothing in it. You are simultaneously the strongest and the weakest borrower in the room, depending on which page the underwriter is reading.

Everything below assumes an L-1A manager or executive, or an L-1B specialized-knowledge transferee, moving to Irving, Fremont, Alpharetta or Tampa on a company transfer. Most of it applies to both.

Start With What Is Not a Problem

There is no approved visa list. Fannie Mae Selling Guide B2-2-02 says the agency "purchases and securitizes mortgages made to non-U.S. citizens who are lawful permanent or non-permanent residents of the United States under the same terms that are available to U.S. citizens," and that it "does not specify the precise documentation the lender must obtain." No list of eligible visa classes appears anywhere in it. L-1 is not on a list because there is no list. The full text and what it means for you is in Fannie Mae Has No Approved Visa List.

What is closed to you is FHA. Mortgagee Letter 2025-09, mandatory for case numbers assigned on or after May 25, 2025, "removes the Non-permanent Residents sections in its entirety." L-1 holders are non-permanent residents, so FHA is out in 2026 — the background is in FHA Just Closed the Door on H-1B Borrowers. Conventional is your path, and at the income levels most L-1 transferees carry, conventional was the better option anyway.

The L-1 Insight: Your Overseas Years Count

This is the one thing that separates a well-handled L-1 file from a badly handled one.

Conventional underwriting wants a two-year employment history. A transferee who started in the US eleven months ago looks, on a naive read, like someone with eleven months of work history. That is not how an experienced underwriter reads it.

The L-1 category exists precisely because you were employed by a qualifying related entity abroad for at least one continuous year in the three years before the transfer. That is the statutory basis for the visa. Your I-797 approval notice is documentary evidence of continuous employment with the same corporate group, and many underwriters will treat time at the overseas affiliate as continuous employment with the same employer rather than as a gap or a job change.

What makes that argument land is documentation, not assertion. Put in the file:

• The I-797 approval notice for the L-1 petition, which names the petitioning US entity and the qualifying relationship

• A letter from HR stating your original hire date with the group, your continuous service, your current US title and salary, and the expectation of continued employment

• Overseas payslips or employment letters covering the prior period, with certified English translations where needed

• An org chart or transfer letter showing the entity relationship, if HR can produce one

That set overlaps heavily with the general immigration document list in Your I-797, I-94 and Green Card. Send all of it as one PDF on day one, or start the file directly and we will tell you what is missing before an underwriter does.

Underwriter judgment varies here, which means lender selection matters more than usual. Two lenders will read the same file differently and both will be within the rules — that is the mechanics of Lender Overlays.

Foreign Income and Foreign Currency

Here is where L-1 files get genuinely complicated, and where honesty serves you better than optimism.

If part of your compensation is still paid by the foreign entity, in rupees or pounds or dirhams, that portion is harder to use. It is not automatically excluded, but it has to survive three tests that US payroll income clears automatically: it must be documented with translated statements and deposit evidence, it must show stability, and the lender has to be comfortable it continues. Currency movement is the sticking point — income denominated in a currency that moved 9% against the dollar last year is difficult to call stable, and conservative underwriters discount or exclude it.

Take Rajesh, a composite of files we see in Irving. L-1A, $210,000 total compensation, of which $170,000 is US W-2 payroll and $40,000 is paid by the Indian parent.

Scenario	Qualifying monthly income	Housing payment	Other debts	DTI
US payroll only ($170,000)	$14,167	$4,400	$900	37.4%
Full compensation ($210,000)	$17,500	$4,400	$900	30.3%

Same house, same payment, seven points of DTI. That difference decides whether a marginal file clears. Get the foreign-income documentation assembled before you apply, not after a condition shows up.

Two practical moves. First, ask HR whether your full compensation can be run through US payroll — some employers will, and it removes the problem entirely. Second, if it cannot, gather twelve to twenty-four months of foreign payslips, bank statements and translations up front.

The Credit File Problem

Your CIBIL score does not come with you. US scores are built from US tradelines, and an eight-year credit history in Mumbai produces a US file with nothing in it. Does Your CIBIL Score Work in the United States? covers the mechanisms that partially bridge this, including Nova Credit and American Express Global Transfer, and their limits.

The practical version: open a US credit card in month one, even a secured one, and set up autopay. Financed properties, scores and reserves are all things you can build faster than you think, but not faster than a 30-day close.

L-1A, L-1B and the Continuance Question

	L-1A	L-1B
Who	Managers and executives	Specialized-knowledge employees
Maximum stay	Seven years	Five years
Common green card path	EB-1C, which does not require a labor certification	Typically EB-2 or EB-3, subject to the India backlog

That EB-1C path is the reason L-1A files often read more comfortably to an underwriter thinking about continuance. It is generally a shorter route to permanent residence than the EB-2 and EB-3 queues, and an L-1A transferee with an employer already pursuing EB-1C has a story the file can tell. Whether it applies to you is an immigration attorney's question, not ours — but if a petition has been filed, the approval notice belongs in your file.

Either way, do not let a loan officer tell you that your remaining L-1 validity is too short. There is no agency minimum, and the "two years left" rule is not a rule. That is an overlay, and overlays are shoppable.

Where the Down Payment Comes From

Transferees often have the money in the wrong country. That is fixable. Fannie's B3-4.3-04 on personal gifts does not require the donor to be a US person and does not require the funds to originate in a US account, so a parent in Pune can fund your down payment. On the India side, the Reserve Bank's Liberalised Remittance Scheme allows a resident individual USD 250,000 per financial year, Form A2 is mandatory and PAN is compulsory. On the US side, IRS Form 3520 is an information return, not a tax, and it is triggered above $100,000 in gifts from foreign persons in a year. We worked through all of it in Can I Use Gift Money from My Parents in India for a Down Payment?. Confirm the India-side mechanics and any tax collected at source with a chartered accountant, and the US filing with a CPA.

Your own savings in an Indian account work too. Move them early, because a wire of that size lands as a large deposit and your underwriter will ask where it came from.

The L-2 Spouse

Your spouse on an L-2 with an EAD can work, and that income counts like any other wage income once it meets the standard history and continuance tests. That second income frequently moves an L-1 household from a $700,000 approval to a $1,000,000 one, which in Fremont or Santa Clara is the difference between looking and buying — Santa Clara County's median sale price for existing single-family detached homes in August 2026 was $1,900,000 per the California Association of REALTORS, against a 2026 high-cost conforming ceiling of $1,249,125. Above that, you are in jumbo, and jumbo underwriting is stricter about exactly the things L-1 files are weakest on.

We covered EAD categories and the continuance test in depth in EAD Card Mortgage: Everything Non-Permanent Residents Need to Know — read that rather than a summary here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can I get a mortgage on an L-1 visa?
A: Yes. Fannie Mae B2-2-02 treats non-permanent residents on the same terms as US citizens and publishes no approved visa list, so L-1A and L-1B holders are eligible for conventional financing. FHA is not available — Mortgagee Letter 2025-09 eliminated non-permanent resident eligibility for case numbers assigned on or after May 25, 2025.

Q: I have only been in the US for six months on an L-1. Do I meet the two-year work history rule?
A: Often yes. The L-1 category requires prior qualifying employment with a related entity abroad, and many underwriters treat that overseas time at the same corporate group as continuous employment. Document it: the I-797 approval notice, an HR letter stating your original hire date with the group, and translated overseas payslips.

Q: Will my lender count income paid by my foreign employer?
A: It depends on the lender and on how well you document it. Foreign-currency compensation has to be evidenced with translated payslips and deposit records, and it must look stable and likely to continue. Some lenders discount or exclude it. Ask your employer whether your full compensation can be run through US payroll instead.

Q: Can my L-2 spouse's income be used to qualify?
A: Yes, once your spouse holds an EAD and has employment that meets the standard history and continuance requirements. It is treated as ordinary wage income. Their work authorization documents go into the file alongside yours, and the earlier you send them the fewer conditions you collect.

Q: Do I need a US credit score before I apply?
A: You need something the lender can score or document. A CIBIL score does not transfer, so plan on building US tradelines, or ask about non-traditional credit documentation. Open a card in your first month and set autopay — the file needs history, and history only accrues with time.

Ready to get started? Masala Loans by Matador Lending specializes in exactly this. Call 713-366-4668 or get your no-haggle rate at masalaloans.com.

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