Qualifying for a physician mortgage comes down to six things: your degree, your stage of training, your credit, your debt-to-income ratio, your employment documentation, and the property itself. Notice what is not on that list. A large down payment and years of pay stubs, the two things that block most early-career doctors from a conventional loan, are usually not required.
Requirements are set by each bank individually, because these loans are kept in-house rather than sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. That means there is no universal standard. It also means that if one lender says no, another can still say yes to exactly the same borrower.
Run your own numbers: our physician mortgage payment calculator shows what the monthly payment would be, and what the same house would cost on a conventional loan once mortgage insurance is added in.
1. Your Degree Has to Be on the List
This is the requirement that disqualifies more people than any other, and it is the first thing to confirm.
MD and DO are accepted essentially everywhere. Dental degrees, DDS and DMD, are accepted at most programs. After that it thins out quickly, and the lists genuinely differ from bank to bank.
The lists differ from program to program. One disclosure may name MD, DO, DDS, DMD and DVM and leave off DPM and OD. Another names MD, DO, the dental degrees, residents, fellows and nurse anesthesia credentials. A third publishes no list at all.
So a veterinarian has a real option at one bank and nothing at the next. A nurse anesthetist may be named outright in one program flyer and absent everywhere else. A podiatrist usually has to ask. There is no shortcut around checking.
2. Where You Are in Training
Most programs serve four stages, and the terms tighten or loosen depending on which one you are in:
- Graduating medical students with a signed residency contract
- Residents and fellows still in training
- Attending physicians starting a new position
- Established physicians already in practice
Programs commonly run separate tracks for medical students, residents and practicing physicians, and residents and fellows are usually named directly in the eligibility language.
The larger loan tiers sometimes carry a years-in-practice condition, though neither of those lenders publishes one. If you are borrowing near the top of a program’s range straight out of training, ask.
If you are still in training, physician mortgage loans for residents and fellows works through the salary math and what it actually buys.
3. Credit Score
Here is an honest answer you will not find on most sites: the major physician lenders do not publish a minimum credit score.
Most publish only that your loan-to-value options vary based on your FICO score. Third-party directories quote minimums of 660, 700, 710 and 720 for the same programs, which tells you those numbers are secondhand.
What the published language does tell you is how it works in practice. Your score does not usually decide approval on its own. It decides which tier you land in, meaning how much you can borrow at how little down.
For comparison, FHA publishes its thresholds plainly: 3.5% down at a 580 score, 10% down between 500 and 579, and no FHA financing below 500 (HUD Mortgagee Letter 2010-29).
4. Debt-to-Income, and the Student Loan Question Inside It
Your DTI compares your monthly debt payments to your monthly income. Physician programs commonly publish a ceiling of 50%, which is more generous than the typical conventional limit and is a large part of why the product exists.
But the ceiling matters far less than how your student loans get counted inside it. With median medical school debt at $215,000, the monthly figure a lender writes down can be $0, about $1,075, or about $2,150 depending entirely on the rule they use (AAMC, October 2025).
Some programs publish a rule that student loans deferred more than 12 months from closing are not counted. Others publish no student loan rule at all. That difference is worth more to your application than a fifty-point credit score swing. We break it down in how student loans are counted on a mortgage application.
5. Income and Employment Documentation
This is where physician loans diverge most from everything else. Instead of pay stubs, most programs will accept a signed employment contract.
Disclosures typically require proof of sufficient income, or an active employment contract with proof of sufficient income, plus reserves. Residents also provide a letter from the employer. Published windows commonly run from about 60 days out to 150 days before you relocate or start a new job, with 90 days the most common, and 90 or more days before residency begins.
If you are a 1099 or contract clinician rather than a W-2 employee, which is common in emergency medicine, anesthesia and locums work, some programs publish that they offer specialized underwriting for that situation. Not every lender does, so it is worth raising early.
Practical checklist of what to have ready:
- Your signed employment contract, with start date and salary
- An employment verification letter if you are a resident or fellow
- Two years of tax returns if you have earned income
- Recent pay stubs if you are already working
- Bank statements showing reserves
- Student loan documentation showing your plan and current payment
6. Down Payment and Reserves
Many programs require nothing down at the lower tiers. A common pattern is 100% financing up to around a million dollars, then 5% down into the mid one millions, then just over 10% down at the top of the range.
Reserves are the quieter requirement. Reserves are months of mortgage payments you have to have left in the bank after closing. Most programs say reserves vary by loan amount and publish no number of months.
Ask about reserves early. It is the requirement most likely to catch a resident by surprise, because a zero-down loan can still require real savings.
And remember closing costs. Even with no down payment, expect 2% to 5% of the purchase price at the table (Freddie Mac, February 2026). Some programs publish seller contributions of up to 3% for residents, which can absorb a good part of that.
7. The Property Itself Has to Qualify
Physician programs generally limit themselves to a primary residence. Not a second home, not a rental.
Neither publishes rules for condominiums, multi-unit properties or new construction. If you are looking at a condo or a duplex, get that confirmed before you write an offer, because it is a common and avoidable way for a deal to fall apart late.
What None of Them Publish
To be straight with you about the limits of what anyone can tell you in advance, these figures are not published by the major programs:
- Minimum credit score
- Reserve requirements in months
- State availability lists
- Interest rates or any premium over conventional
- Years-in-practice conditions on the larger tiers
Numbers for these circulate widely and contradict each other. When you see one, ask where it came from.
Getting Yourself Ready
A few weeks of preparation makes this much smoother:
- Confirm your degree qualifies with a specific lender
- Pull your credit and fix anything that is simply wrong
- Get your student loan plan and payment documented in writing from your servicer
- Avoid new debt, especially a car loan, in the months before you apply
- Have your employment contract and any employer letter in hand
That last one about new debt is worth taking seriously. A $700 car payment can cost you well over $100,000 of borrowing capacity.
Worth reading alongside this: the twelve mistakes that cost doctors money, most of which happen before anyone looks at a rate.
Where to Go From Here
If you would rather not call five banks to find out whose rules you fit, that is exactly what we handle. Tell us your degree, your training stage, your state and your numbers, and we will match you with a lender. About two minutes, and no cost to you.
Related reading: how physician mortgage loans work, what the zero down tier really covers, and how much house you can actually afford.
Last verified September 9, 2026, against published lender disclosures and agency guidelines. We recheck this page monthly.