The short answer
Every bank asks for proof of who you are, what you earn and what you already owe. The list below is what our panel typically requests. It is lender practice rather than regulation, so it varies between banks, and the variation is usually about income rather than identity.
What every applicant is asked for
Identity and residency documents, evidence of income, and recent bank statements covering the accounts your salary and commitments move through. Those three categories are common to every file on our panel.
Where files differ is the evidence of income. A salaried applicant is usually the simplest case. A business owner, a freelancer, or anyone whose pay is substantially commission or bonus will be asked for more, and different banks ask for different things.
- Lender practiceThe document list is set by each bank, not by the Central Bank, and it varies across our panel.
What usually holds a file up
Rarely the obvious documents. It is more often an inconsistency: a salary certificate that does not match the bank statements, a liability that appears in the credit report but not on the application, a recent large transfer with no explanation, or a probation period nobody mentioned.
None of those are fatal, and all of them are far cheaper to deal with before the file goes in than after a bank has declined it. A decline is visible to the next bank; a conversation is not.
Why the list is not the whole job
Collecting documents is the easy half. The harder half is knowing which bank reads your particular evidence most favourably, and presenting it in the order that bank expects.
That is the part no checklist and no calculator covers, and it is the reason the same set of documents produces different answers at different banks.
Document requirements are set by each lender and are panel practice, not regulation. Checked against our panel on 26 August 2026.