Mortgage With One Year’s Accounts: Who Lends and How Your Figures Get Assessed

Published 15 August 2026 · Last reviewed 13 August 2026

In short

Yes — you can get a mortgage with one year’s accounts. A smaller pool of specialist lenders will consider a single year of finalised figures, particularly where the trading is consistent, the business is established in its field, and the rest of your profile is strong. The lender you approach matters more than the number of years.

Right — if you’ve been trading for yourself for a year or so and you’ve just got your first set of accounts back from the accountant, here’s the thing nobody tells you clearly: the “you need three years” line you keep hearing is a myth. We deal with self-employed applications every week, and a good chunk of them are people in exactly your position — one solid year behind them, a deal they want to buy, and a high-street lender that’s already said no. Usually the problem isn’t your income and it isn’t your business. It’s that the application went to the wrong door.

This page explains who actually lends on a single year of accounts, how those lenders read your figures, and what you can do now to put yourself in the strongest honest position. It’s information to help you plan — not advice, and not a lending decision.

Can you get a mortgage with only one year’s accounts?

Yes, and we want to be plain about it because the confusion costs people deals. The belief that the self-employed “can’t borrow until they’ve got three years’ books” is one of the most common things we hear, and it’s wrong. Most mainstream lenders do prefer two or three years, that part is true. But a smaller group of lenders will look at one year of finalised accounts and make a sensible decision on the wider picture.

What does this mean? Basically, fewer years means a smaller pool of lenders and closer scrutiny — not an automatic no. The lender wants comfort that this one year isn’t a fluke, so the rest of your story has to hang together. That’s the bit we work on before anyone’s credit gets searched.

The killer insight: it’s the lender’s appetite, not your number of years, that decides this

This is the single most important thing on the page, so it gets its own heading. When you’ve got one year of accounts, your borrowing isn’t really decided by some universal rule about “years required.” It’s decided by which lender you approach, because lenders sit on a spectrum of appetite.

Some won’t touch a single year at all. Some will consider it but want extra evidence that the year is representative. A few are genuinely comfortable with one year where the case is clean. Same applicant, same accounts — and the answer swings from a flat decline to a workable offer purely on the lender’s stance. What you experience is “I keep getting rejected.” What the lender sees is “this case doesn’t fit our particular box.” Those are two very different problems, and only one of them is actually about you. Our job is to read the appetite across the market and take your case to a lender whose box you already fit.

How does a lender assess one year of accounts?

It depends a little on how you trade, so let’s split it. Here’s the rough decision table our advisers run through.

How you trade	What the lender usually reads	What they tend to focus on
Sole trader / partnership	Your net profit (your share, for a partnership) as shown in the accounts and your SA302	Whether the single year is consistent and looks sustainable
Limited company director	Salary plus dividends drawn — or, with some specialist lenders, salary plus your share of net profit	Which income figure they count, and whether the company is established
Contractor (day rate)	An annualised figure based on your contract day rate, often without needing years of accounts at all	The contract, the day rate, and your track record in the field

A couple of things worth pulling out of that table. If you’re a contractor, the “one year of accounts” question sometimes doesn’t even apply the way you’d expect — several lenders assess a day-rate contractor on the contract itself rather than on filed accounts, which can be a much friendlier route. And if you’re a limited company director, the income figure the lender counts can make a far bigger difference than the number of years. We cover that in detail on our company director mortgages page, and there’s a fuller walk-through of the income side on our self-employed mortgages hub.

Does it matter how I trade — sole trader vs limited company vs contractor?

It matters a lot, and this is where people trip up by assuming “self-employed is self-employed.” It isn’t, not to a lender.

A sole trader is generally assessed on net profit. A limited company director gets assessed on whichever income basis the lender uses — and a tax-efficient set-up that keeps profit in the company can quietly shrink your borrowing with a mainstream lender, while a lender that reads net profit sees the real strength. A day-rate contractor often gets the cleanest run of all, because the contract does the talking.

I’ll give you an example. Consider a typical landscaping business that incorporated a year ago. His accountant — doing a proper job on tax — paid him a modest salary and left the rest of the healthy profit in the company. His own bank looked at the small salary and modest dividends, saw a low number, and offered him next to nothing. The business was genuinely doing well; the accounts just didn’t say so in the language his bank reads. Placed with a lender that assesses the company’s net profit, the same single year told a completely different story. Nothing about how he ran his business changed — only which lender read it. (To be clear: how you draw income from a company is a question for your accountant, not us. Our job is matching the picture your accounts already paint to a lender who reads it properly.)

What lenders will want to see

Whatever your set-up, a one-year case lives or dies on the evidence hanging together. Here’s the kit we get ready before approaching anyone:

• Your first year of finalised accounts — prepared and signed off by a qualified accountant, not draft figures.
• Your SA302 tax calculation — the HMRC document showing the income you declared.
• Your tax year overview — the matching HMRC record that should line up with the SA302 and the accounts.
• Business and personal bank statements — usually the most recent few months, to show the trading is live and consistent.
• An accountant’s certificate or reference — some lenders ask for this to confirm income and the health of the business.
• A short explanation of any quirks — a one-off cost, a slow opening month, anything in the figures that needs context, ready before they ask.

Consistency between these documents matters as much as the figures themselves. When your accounts, your SA302 and your tax year overview all tell the same story, a one-year case is far easier to lend against. Our page on SA302s and tax year overviews explains exactly how to pull these and why mismatches cause so many declines.

How much can I borrow on one year’s accounts?

Honestly, the right answer is “it depends on the figure the lender accepts and the multiple they apply to it” — and that’s not us dodging. There’s no fixed rule, and anyone quoting you a hard number sight-unseen is guessing. What we can tell you is that the number of years’ accounts and the income basis the lender uses tend to move your borrowing more than almost anything else.

A useful way to think about it: with one year, your priority is widening the pool of lenders who’ll engage at all, and making sure whichever lender you land on is reading your income generously and fairly rather than conservatively. Get those two things right and the borrowing usually looks a lot healthier than the first rejection suggested. For a rough ballpark before you speak to anyone, our mortgage calculator gives you a starting feel — just treat it as a sketch, not a decision.

Sole trader vs limited company vs contractor: how the one-year route compares

To bring it together, here’s how the three set-ups tend to fare with a single year behind them.

	Sole trader	Limited company director	Day-rate contractor
Main income figure	Net profit	Salary + dividends, or salary + net profit	Annualised day rate
One-year appetite	Workable with specialist lenders	Workable; income basis is the swing factor	Often the smoothest route
Biggest watch-out	One year looking representative	Tax-efficient accounts understating income	Gaps between contracts
What helps most	Clean, consistent figures	The right lender reading net profit	A current contract and track record

The pattern across all three is the same: with one year, the choice of lender does most of the heavy lifting. That’s the whole game.

Payam’s experience — Most high-street lenders want an average of your last two years’ accounts, which is fine if your business is steady and mature. But that is not everyone, and there are now lenders — high-street and specialist — who will look at your latest year’s figures instead. What they really want to understand is why the latest year is stronger: if your profit has jumped sharply, they will ask what changed. Some lenders cap how big a year-on-year increase they will accept; others will still average the two years; others will take the latest year if they can see a clear upward trend across the period; and a few will simply take a true latest-year figure on criteria alone, without asking for projections. There are extra levers too — using net profit rather than dividends can sometimes let you borrow more, and one or two lenders will even look at profit before corporation tax, which is highly unusual. There are real wins in this space if you know where to look — we have been placing these cases since 2008.

How we place a one-year case

Here’s how our advisers approach it, in order, so you can see there’s a process rather than a punt:

1. We work out how you trade and which income figure gives you the strongest, honest number.
2. We check your accounts, SA302 and tax year overview actually match — mismatches are a top cause of declines.
3. We map which lenders have real appetite for one year of accounts in your situation.
4. We get any quirks in the figures explained up front, before an underwriter asks.
5. We place the case with a lender whose criteria your single year already fits — so it holds up at underwriting.

That sequence is why a case that’s been declined elsewhere can still get placed. We’re a specialist broker and complex-income work is core to what we do, so a one-year self-employed application is familiar ground rather than an awkward exception.

Frequently asked questions

Can I get a mortgage with only one year’s accounts?›

Often yes, with the right lender. A single year of finalised accounts narrows the pool and means closer scrutiny, but an established, consistent business can still secure a mortgage. The lender you approach matters more than the number of years.

Do I need two or three years of accounts to be safe?›

No — more years widens your options and tends to mean easier acceptance, but it isn’t a rule. Some lenders will consider one year, and some assess contractors on their contract rather than on filed accounts at all.

I’ve just gone self-employed — is it too soon to apply?›

Not necessarily. Once you have your first year of finalised accounts and a matching SA302 and tax year overview, there are lenders who’ll consider you. Trading consistently in a field you’ve worked in before tends to help.

Does it matter if I’m a sole trader, a director, or a contractor?›

Yes, quite a lot. Sole traders are usually assessed on net profit, directors on whichever income basis the lender uses, and contractors often on their day rate. Each route has different lender appetite, which is why matching the case to the lender is the key step.

Will one year of accounts limit how much I can borrow?›

It can narrow the lender pool, which is why getting your case to a lender that reads your income fairly is so important. There’s no fixed borrowing rule for one year — it comes down to the figure the lender accepts and the multiple they apply.

Can you help if I’ve already been declined?›

Yes — that’s a large part of what we do. A decline elsewhere is very often a lender-fit problem rather than an income problem, and the case can frequently be placed with a lender whose criteria suit a single year of accounts.

Send us your one year of accounts — we’ll tell you who’s likely to lend

If you’ve got your first year of finalised accounts in hand and you’re not sure who’ll touch them, that’s exactly the case we like. Send us your set-up — how you trade and that single year of figures — and we’ll tell you the concrete next step: which type of lender is likely to read your year fairly and what to get ready before you apply. Request a callback to get started.

Related guides & tools

• Self-employed mortgages
• Mortgage calculator
• Contact us / request a callback

Sources

• GOV.UK – Self Assessment tax returns. https://www.gov.uk/self-assessment-tax-returns
• GOV.UK – Construction Industry Scheme. https://www.gov.uk/what-is-the-construction-industry-scheme
• FCA Handbook – Mortgages and Home Finance: Conduct of Business Sourcebook. https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook/MCOB/
• FCA Financial Services Register – Niche Advice Limited, FRN 750263. https://register.fca.org.uk/