Quick answer: A bank statement loan qualifies a self-employed borrower on deposits instead of tax returns. The lender reviews 12 or 24 months of statements and removes deposits that are not business revenue. Next it applies an expense factor or an accountant-prepared profit and loss statement. Finally it divides the result by the number of months reviewed. That monthly figure becomes qualifying income. Credit, assets, reserves and appraisal review all still apply.
Self-employed borrowers run into the same wall over and over. The business is healthy, the bank balance is real, and then the tax return arrives with every legal deduction taken. Underwriting reads the bottom line, not the top line, and the loan amount collapses. A bank statement loan exists for exactly that gap.
This page walks the calculation the way an underwriter runs it. It also names the cases where this product is the wrong answer. Valley West Mortgage has been lending in Las Vegas since 2004, and we place plenty of self-employed borrowers into ordinary conforming loans instead. Knowing which file you have is the whole job.
Key takeaways
- Bank statements are an approved verification record, not a loophole. Regulation Z lists "financial institution records" as an example of the third-party evidence a lender may use to verify income under 12 CFR § 1026.43(c)(4).
- This is not a no-income-verification loan. The ability-to-repay rule applies to every closed-end loan secured by a dwelling. Income still gets verified. The record used to verify it changes.
- Gross deposits are never the qualifying number. Transfers, loan proceeds, refunds, asset sales and personal gifts come out first. What remains is then reduced by an expense factor or by a prepared profit and loss statement.
- The 12-month and 24-month choice is arithmetic, not preference. A growing business usually qualifies higher on 12 months. A business with a strong earlier year usually qualifies higher on 24.
- Personal and business accounts get read differently. Money that reaches a personal account has often already had business expenses taken out, so programs treat the two account types under separate rules.
- Full documentation wins when it can. If your returns support the payment, a conventional, FHA or VA loan is almost always the better file. In Clark County the 2026 FHA one-unit limit is $541,287 and the conforming limit is $832,750.
What is a bank statement loan?
A bank statement loan is a mortgage that establishes your income from deposit activity rather than from filed tax returns. It sits inside the non-QM category. That category covers loans that fall outside the qualified-mortgage definition in Regulation Z. If the category itself is new to you, start with what puts a loan outside the qualified-mortgage box and then come back here for the mechanics.
Why the product exists at all
The tax code lets a self-employed person deduct ordinary and necessary business expenses, and net earnings from self-employment flow to the return after those deductions. That is correct tax behavior. However, conventional underwriting reads the same return and qualifies you on what is left. Fannie Mae's guide is explicit on the standard. A lender must document income that is stable, has a documented history of receipt, and is reasonably expected to continue. A contractor who legitimately wrote down a strong year can therefore show a modest qualifying income on a very healthy business.
Instead, the bank statement route reads the deposits. Importantly, it does not invent income. Rather, it measures the same business at a different point in the accounting chain. It then discounts that measurement to approximate the expenses the return would have shown.
This is not a no-income-verification loan
Say the phrase plainly so it cannot be misread: a bank statement loan is not a no-income-verification loan, and it is not a stated-income loan. Income is verified. The lender collects statements directly and reconciles them. It then excludes what does not belong, and documents the arithmetic in the file. What changes is the record used for verification, not whether verification happens.
The rule behind that is 12 CFR § 1026.43(c). A creditor may not make a covered transaction without a reasonable and good-faith determination that the consumer can repay it. Paragraph (c)(4) then requires the lender to verify income using third-party records that provide reasonably reliable evidence. Furthermore, paragraph (c)(4)(iv) names financial institution records as one of the acceptable examples. Bank statements are on the list in the regulation itself.
So why is it non-QM?
The binding reason is pricing, and it is not a relaxed standard. A qualified mortgage under § 1026.43(e)(2)(vi) has to price within a set distance of the average prime offer rate, and these loans usually sit outside that band. Separately, and as a market fact rather than a rule, no agency will purchase income derived from a lender's own deposit formula, so the loan is held or sold to private investors instead.
In practice the consequence is legal, not moral. Under § 1026.43(e)(1) a qualified mortgage carries either a safe harbor or a presumption that the lender followed the ability-to-repay rule, depending on how the loan is priced. A non-QM loan carries neither, so the underwriting file has to stand on its own evidence. In short, scrutiny goes up rather than down. If you want the provider-level view of these programs, we keep a page on how we structure alternative documentation files for Las Vegas borrowers.
How do lenders calculate income from bank statements?
Of course, every program differs in its details. Nevertheless, the sequence is remarkably consistent, and it runs in five steps.
The five steps, in order
- Fix the review window. Either the most recent 12 or the most recent 24 consecutive months. Statements must be consecutive and complete, all pages included.
- Total the gross deposits. Every credit that hit the account inside the window gets added up first.
- Subtract ineligible deposits. Transfers between your own accounts, loan proceeds, tax refunds, asset sales, insurance settlements and personal gifts all come out. This step is where most files move the most.
- Apply the expense treatment. Either a fixed expense factor set by the program, or a profit and loss statement prepared by a licensed tax professional, or a third-party expense statement. The method is chosen up front and applied consistently.
- Divide by the months in the window. The result is monthly qualifying income. It then feeds debt-to-income exactly like a salaried borrower's base pay does.
What drives the expense factor
The expense factor is the single biggest lever in the calculation, and it is set by the investor's published guidelines rather than by your loan officer. Three things typically move it. Business type comes first, because a consulting practice with almost no cost of goods is not a restaurant. Second, your documented ownership percentage matters, since a partial owner is credited with a partial share of the deposits. Third, some programs will accept a lower factor when a CPA or licensed tax preparer certifies the actual expense ratio of the business in writing.
Notably, that last option is worth asking about early. Moreover, it is the one part of the calculation a well-prepared borrower can influence before the file is submitted. A letter that arrives in week four cannot fix an income figure that was set in week one.
What the number is not
Qualifying income from a bank statement calculation is not your take-home pay, and it is not what your accountant would call profit. It is an underwriting construct built to approximate sustainable earnings from observable cash flow. Consequently, it can land above or below the number you carry in your head. Either direction happens, and the outcome is usually decided by how clean the deposit record is.
Want the calculation run on your actual statements before you apply?
Send us the account type, the months you have available, and roughly how much of each deposit is business revenue. We will walk the arithmetic with you and tell you honestly whether full documentation would serve you better. Call (702) 696-9900 or start online.
Start a fast quoteShould you use 12 or 24 months of statements?
Naturally, borrowers often assume 24 months is the safer choice because it looks more thorough. In reality, though, the answer is arithmetic. The window that produces the higher average is usually the better window, provided your program offers both.
The trade the two windows make
| Consideration | 12-month statements | 24-month statements |
|---|---|---|
| Best fit | A business that has grown recently, or one that changed shape in the last year | A business with a strong earlier year, or one with heavy seasonal swings |
| Smoothing effect | Less smoothing, so one exceptional month moves the average noticeably | More smoothing, so single months matter less |
| Paperwork volume | Twelve consecutive statements, all pages | Twenty-four consecutive statements, all pages |
| How programs commonly price it | Investor guidelines commonly price the shorter window less favorably | Commonly the better-priced of the two, though each investor sets its own pricing |
| Risk if revenue dipped | A recent slow stretch lands squarely in the average | A recent slow stretch gets diluted by the earlier year |
Run both before you choose
So ask your loan officer to compute both windows on the same statements. Notably, it takes very little time, and the two numbers frequently differ by hundreds of dollars a month. In addition, the difference in qualifying income can matter more than the difference in pricing, because income drives the loan amount you are allowed to borrow at all.
A Las Vegas contractor brings 24 months of business account statements. Gross deposits over the most recent 12 months total $216,350. Three deposits do not qualify as business revenue: a $9,000 transfer from her personal savings, $6,500 from selling a work truck, and a $4,850 insurance premium refund.
Ineligible deposits: $9,000 + $6,500 + $4,850 = $20,350.
Eligible deposits, 12 months: $216,350 − $20,350 = $196,000.
Assume the program applies a 50 percent expense factor: $196,000 × 50% = $98,000. Monthly: $98,000 ÷ 12 = $8,166.67.
Her prior 12 months were slower. Eligible deposits for that earlier year came to $154,000.
Eligible deposits, 24 months: $196,000 + $154,000 = $350,000. Applying the same factor: $350,000 × 50% = $175,000. Monthly: $175,000 ÷ 24 = $7,291.67.
Difference: $8,166.67 − $7,291.67 = $875.00 per month in qualifying income, on identical statements.
In this case the 12-month window wins, because the business grew. Reverse the two years and the 24-month window wins instead. The 50 percent factor above is an assumption chosen to show the arithmetic clearly. Your factor is set by the investor's guidelines and by your business type, and it may be higher or lower. Every figure here is illustrative arithmetic. It is not a quote, an offer, an approval, or a commitment to lend.
How are personal and business accounts treated differently?
Above all, this question decides more approvals than most borrowers expect. The two account types sit under separate rules because the money in them has traveled a different distance.
Business accounts
First, a business account holds gross revenue. Operating costs are still ahead of that money, so programs apply an expense factor to approximate them. The lender also wants evidence that the account belongs to the business and that you own the share you claim. Furthermore, if the business has multiple owners, expect the deposits to be credited to you in proportion to your documented ownership percentage. Fannie Mae's conventional standard defines self-employment as a 25 percent or greater ownership interest, and most alternative documentation programs borrow that same threshold.
Personal accounts
By contrast, a personal account is different in kind. Money usually arrives there after the business has already paid its costs, so applying a full expense factor a second time would double-count. Many programs therefore treat personal-account deposits under a lighter reduction, or none at all. However, the trade is a documentation burden. You have to show that the deposits genuinely came from the business, which usually means a clear transfer trail from business to personal.
What actually goes wrong
In practice, commingling is the recurring problem. When a single account receives client payments, a spouse's paycheck, rent from a roommate and periodic transfers from savings, the reconciliation becomes slow and the excluded pile grows. Therefore, if you are twelve months out from buying, the highest-value move available to you is simple. Open a dedicated business account and route revenue through it exclusively. Nothing else you do will improve the calculation as much.
Which deposits count, and which get excluded?
In principle, only business revenue counts. Everything else is noise the underwriter has to strip out, and the stripping is done deposit by deposit rather than in a lump.
The exclusion list
| Deposit | Usual treatment | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Client or customer payments | Counts | This is the revenue the calculation is designed to measure. |
| Card processor settlements | Counts | Same revenue, delivered in batches by a merchant processor. |
| Transfers from your own accounts | Excluded | The money was already yours, so counting it would double-count. |
| Loan or credit line proceeds | Excluded | Borrowed funds are a liability, not earnings. |
| Tax refunds | Excluded | A return of money you already paid, not new revenue. |
| Sale of business equipment or vehicles | Excluded | Converting an asset to cash does not repeat next year. |
| Insurance settlements and refunds | Excluded | Non-recurring, and unrelated to operating revenue. |
| Gifts and family support | Excluded | Not business income, and not reasonably expected to continue. |
| A single unusually large deposit | Documented, then decided | Underwriting asks for the source before treating it either way. |
The recurrence test behind every row
Read the right-hand column again and one principle explains all of it. Underwriting is asking whether the deposit will happen again. That is the same question Fannie Mae asks of a salaried borrower's overtime and bonus, and the same question behind the continuance standard in its general income guidance. As a result, a one-time windfall helps your balance sheet and does nothing for your qualifying income.
Round numbers invite questions
Meanwhile, expect any large, round, unexplained deposit to draw a written request for its source. Specifically, a $25,000 credit with no invoice behind it will be questioned, while $24,318.44 from a named client rarely is. Label your transfers in your banking app, keep invoices for your largest jobs, and the reconciliation gets faster. The same discipline shows up in ordinary files too, which is why an underwriter's condition list so often includes a letter of explanation about a single deposit.
What replaces the tax returns?
Notably, removing tax returns from a file does not shrink the file. It changes what fills it, and the substitutes are all third-party records rather than borrower statements.
The substitution list
| Document | What it proves | Who provides it |
|---|---|---|
| 12 or 24 consecutive months of statements, all pages | The deposit record the income is built from | Your bank, or a direct verification service |
| Business license or state registration | The business exists and has existed long enough | State or local licensing authority |
| CPA, EA or licensed tax preparer letter | Your ownership percentage, the business type, and often the expense ratio | An independent tax professional |
| Profit and loss statement for the review period | An accounting view of revenue against expenses | You or your accountant, depending on the program |
| Borrower attestation of business activity | Your own written description of the business | You |
| Credit report and current debt record | Obligations that sit alongside the new payment | The credit bureaus |
| Asset statements for down payment and reserves | The funds are yours and are sourced | Your bank or investment firm |
| Appraisal | The value and condition of the collateral | An independent appraiser |
Why the third-party letter carries so much weight
Now notice how much of that list comes from someone other than you. That is deliberate. It traces straight back to § 1026.43(b)(13). That paragraph defines a third-party record as one prepared or reviewed by an appropriate person. Specifically, that person cannot be the consumer, the creditor, the mortgage broker, or an agent of either. An accountant's letter is the strongest single document a self-employed borrower can bring to one of these files. Accordingly, request it early, and ask your preparer to state ownership percentage and expense ratio in plain figures.
Where this sits among the alternatives
Still, bank statements are one route of several. Some borrowers do better on a 1099 program, others on an asset-based calculation, and investors buying rentals often belong on a different product entirely. We compare the whole set in our rundown of the documentation alternatives. If the property is a rental, look instead at qualifying a rental on the lease rather than on your deposits. A DSCR file leaves your personal income out of the calculation altogether.
What does the rest of the file look like?
The income method changes. Otherwise, almost nothing else does, and several requirements get firmer rather than looser.
Reserves
Reserves are the months of housing cost you can still cover after closing. Specifically, they cover principal, interest, taxes, insurance and any association dues. Bank statement files generally carry a reserve requirement where a comparable agency file might carry none. The exact number is set by the program and moves with loan size, occupancy and credit profile. Plan for it early, because reserves are the requirement that most often surprises a borrower who was focused on the down payment.
Down payment and credit
Expect a larger down payment than a comparable agency loan requires, and expect your credit profile to be read closely. To be clear, alternative documentation does not mean an alternative credit standard. In fact, because the loan gives up the qualified-mortgage presumption of compliance, the rest of the file is generally held to a firmer line. Anyone promising an approval before reviewing a file is describing something we do not offer and would not recommend.
The debt side is unchanged
Once the deposit calculation produces a monthly income figure, it drops into debt-to-income like any other income. Your car payment, student loans, credit card minimums and the new housing payment all sit on the other side of the ratio. Improving the deposit calculation therefore has a limit, and past that limit the only remaining lever is reducing debt. Our explainer on the way lenders weigh your debt load against income covers the mechanics.
Timeline and paperwork
These files take longer than a straightforward salaried purchase. Twenty-four statements have to be reconciled by hand. Meanwhile, the accountant's letter arrives on the accountant's schedule, and a single unexplained deposit can add a week. Consequently, starting the document gathering before you write an offer is worth more here than on almost any other loan type. The general document list every mortgage file starts with still applies, with the statement package layered on top.
When is a bank statement loan the wrong answer?
Finally, here is the section most pages about this product leave out. A bank statement loan costs more than an agency loan, and that cost is the price of the documentation flexibility. When the flexibility is not needed, the cost buys nothing.
Six cases where full documentation serves you better
| Your situation | Usually the better route | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Your returns already show enough net income to qualify | Conventional, FHA or VA | You are paying for flexibility you do not need. |
| You are eligible for a VA loan | VA | The benefit is difficult to beat, and a full-entitlement Veteran has no county loan limit. |
| A W-2 co-borrower can carry the file | Conventional or FHA | Documented wage income qualifies without any expense factor. |
| The business is under two years old | Wait, or use a co-borrower | Most programs want a documented operating history, and shorter histories narrow your options sharply. |
| You are buying a rental property | DSCR or conventional investor financing | The lease can carry the loan, which removes your personal income from the question. |
| Deposits are heavily commingled and cannot be untangled | Fix the accounts, then reapply | The calculation will punish an account it cannot read. |
The Clark County numbers that decide the first question
So run the agency test before anything else. For 2026 HUD sets the FHA one-unit limit in Clark County at $541,287, and FHFA sets the baseline conforming one-unit limit at $832,750. Both are national-formula outcomes rather than local negotiations. HUD's own limit file shows the arithmetic. Clark County's median sale price of $462,000 produces $531,300 at the 115 percent calculation. That lands below the national floor of $541,287, so the floor governs the county.
Why does that matter here? Because if your documented income supports a payment inside those limits, the conventional or FHA route is the cheaper file nearly every time. Start with the tax-return route to a self-employed mortgage and only move to alternative documentation when the returns genuinely will not support the loan. Buyers headed for conforming financing can also read where conforming financing sits for Clark County buyers. On the microsite side, we walk through what a contractor's paperwork looks like on the conventional side in more detail than fits here.
Valley West takeWe run the full-documentation math first on every self-employed borrower who calls about this product. In fact, a meaningful share of them end up on a conventional or FHA loan instead. That is not modesty. A bank statement loan that a borrower did not need is a worse outcome than no loan at all. After all, the borrower pays for it every month for years. So bring us two things before you decide: your last two returns, and twelve months of statements. We will compute both paths, show you the two qualifying incomes side by side, and tell you which file we would put our own name on. We have been lending in Las Vegas since 2004, we lend in 32 states and DC, and that comparison costs nothing.
What to do next if you are still deciding
So gather the statements now rather than later, because the review window is always the most recent months and it keeps moving. Meanwhile, ask your accountant for the ownership and expense-ratio letter, since that document has the longest lead time. Finally, get a real preapproval before you shop, and read what a preapproval letter can promise before underwriting sees the file so the letter you carry means what you think it means.
Not sure which documentation path your file belongs on?
We will run the conventional calculation and the bank statement calculation on the same borrower and show you both numbers. If full documentation wins, we will tell you so. Call (702) 696-9900 or start online with a Las Vegas loan officer.
Start a fast quoteFrequently asked questions
The basics
What is a bank statement loan?
A bank statement loan is a mortgage that establishes a self-employed borrower's income from deposit activity rather than from filed tax returns. The lender reviews 12 or 24 consecutive months of statements and removes deposits that are not business revenue. Next it applies an expense factor or an accountant-prepared profit and loss statement. Finally it divides the result by the number of months reviewed. That monthly figure becomes qualifying income and then feeds debt-to-income the same way a salaried borrower's base pay does.
Is a bank statement loan a no-income-verification loan?
No. A bank statement loan is not a no-income-verification loan and it is not a stated-income loan. The ability-to-repay rule at 12 CFR 1026.43(c) applies to every closed-end consumer loan secured by a dwelling. It also requires the lender to verify income using third-party records that provide reasonably reliable evidence. Paragraph (c)(4)(iv) lists financial institution records as an acceptable example. Income is verified on these loans. Only the record used to verify it changes.
The calculation
Should I use 12 or 24 months of bank statements?
Whichever window produces the higher qualifying income, assuming your program offers both. A business that has grown recently usually qualifies higher on 12 months. In that case the stronger recent revenue is not diluted by an earlier slower year. A business with a strong earlier year or heavy seasonal swings usually qualifies higher on 24 months. Here the longer window smooths the variation. Programs also commonly price the 24-month option more favorably, though each investor sets its own pricing. So ask your loan officer to compute both windows on the same statements before choosing.
Do lenders count every deposit in my account?
No. Only business revenue counts. Transfers between your own accounts are excluded, and so are loan or credit line proceeds. Tax refunds, proceeds from selling equipment or vehicles, insurance settlements and personal gifts also come out. None of them is recurring business income. A single large or round deposit with no clear source will draw a written request for documentation before underwriting decides how to treat it. Labeling transfers and keeping invoices for your largest jobs makes the reconciliation noticeably faster.
Can I use a personal bank account instead of a business account?
Often yes, and the treatment differs. Money that reaches a personal account has usually already had business expenses taken out of it. As a result, many programs apply a lighter reduction to personal-account deposits than to business-account deposits, or none at all. The trade is documentation: you have to show the deposits genuinely came from the business, which normally means a clear transfer trail. Commingled accounts that mix client payments, a spouse's paycheck and savings transfers are the hardest version of this file.
Documents and alternatives
Do I still need tax returns for a bank statement loan?
Generally not for the income calculation itself, which is the point of the product. The file still fills up with other third-party records. Those include a business license or state registration, plus a letter from a CPA or licensed tax preparer. That letter states your ownership percentage and often the expense ratio. The file also carries a profit and loss statement for the review period. Finally, it carries credit and debt records, asset statements for the down payment and reserves, and an appraisal. Removing the returns changes what fills the file rather than how much fills it.
When is a bank statement loan the wrong choice?
When your tax returns already support the payment. A bank statement loan costs more than an agency loan. That cost is the price of the documentation flexibility, so it buys nothing when the flexibility is not needed. Full documentation is also usually better in four other cases. The first two are VA eligibility and a W-2 co-borrower who can carry the file. The others are a business under two years old, and a rental that a DSCR loan could qualify on its lease. In Clark County the 2026 FHA one-unit limit is $541,287 and the baseline conforming limit is $832,750, so run the agency test first.
The bottom line
In summary, a bank statement loan is a measurement method rather than a shortcut. It reads your business at the deposit line instead of the tax line. Then it discounts that reading to approximate expenses. Finally, it holds the rest of the file to a standard that is generally firmer than an agency loan's. Understanding the five steps is what lets you influence the outcome. Moreover, the biggest levers are all available before you apply. They are a clean dedicated account, labeled transfers, and an accountant's letter in hand.
The honest close is the same one we give on the phone. Above all, run the full-documentation math first. If your returns support the loan, take the agency route and keep the difference. If they do not, this product exists for exactly that reason, and it is a legitimate, fully underwritten mortgage rather than a relaxed one.
Sources
Federal regulation
- 12 CFR § 1026.43(c), Regulation Z ability-to-repay rule. Paragraph (c)(1) requires a reasonable and good faith determination of repayment ability at or before consummation. Paragraph (c)(2) lists the eight factors a creditor must consider. Paragraph (c)(4) requires verification of income or assets using third-party records that provide reasonably reliable evidence, and paragraph (c)(4)(iv) names financial institution records among the acceptable examples: ecfr.gov
- 12 CFR § 1026.43(b)(13), Regulation Z. Defines a third-party record as a document prepared or reviewed by an appropriate person other than the consumer, the creditor, the mortgage broker as defined in § 1026.36(a)(2), or an agent of the creditor or mortgage broker, among other categories: ecfr.gov
- 12 CFR § 1026.43(e)(2), Regulation Z. The general qualified mortgage definition, including the verification prong at (e)(2)(v)(B)(1) that points back to paragraph (c)(4), and the pricing test at (e)(2)(vi) measured against the average prime offer rate: ecfr.gov
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, "What is a Qualified Mortgage?" Explains the ability-to-repay rule, the presumption of compliance a qualified mortgage carries, and the requirement to consider and verify income or assets and debts: consumerfinance.gov
Loan limits for the agency comparison
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, FHA Mortgage Limits lookup, CY2026, Clark County, Nevada. One-family limit $541,287, with a median sale price of $462,000 recorded for the county and an effective date of January 1, 2026: hud.gov
- Federal Housing Finance Agency, "FHFA Announces Conforming Loan Limit Values for 2026." The baseline one-unit conforming loan limit value for 2026 is $832,750: fhfa.gov
Self-employment income and tax treatment
- Internal Revenue Service, Self-Employed Individuals Tax Center. Business income and expenses are reported on Schedule C, and net earnings from self-employment are what remain after allowable expenses: irs.gov
- Fannie Mae Selling Guide B3-3.1-01, General Income Information (03/04/2026). The lender must document that income is stable, has a documented history of receipt, and is reasonably expected to continue: fanniemae.com
- Fannie Mae Selling Guide B3-3.5-01, Underwriting Factors and Documentation for a Self-Employed Borrower (12/13/2023). Any individual with a 25 percent or greater ownership interest in a business is considered self-employed, and lenders generally obtain a two-year history of prior earnings: fanniemae.com
Across Valley West: Each program keeps its own site. Service members and veterans can read the VA benefit explained for Nevada buyers. Meanwhile, buyers weighing a lower down payment will find how FHA reads a Clark County file covered in depth. Once the loan closes, protecting the house is a separate conversation with our insurance agency.
Keep reading
- LearnWhat is a non-QM loan?The definitional guide to loans outside the qualified-mortgage box.
- QualifySelf-employed mortgage guideThe full-documentation route, and how returns become qualifying income.
- QualifyMortgages without tax returnsEvery documentation alternative compared side by side.
- InvestDSCR loan requirementsWhen the rental income carries the file instead of your deposits.
Last updated: July 26, 2026 — new guide covering how a bank statement loan derives qualifying income, written for self-employed Las Vegas borrowers. The ability-to-repay and verification rules quote 12 CFR § 1026.43(c)(1), (c)(2), (c)(4) and (c)(4)(iv). They also quote the third-party record definition at § 1026.43(b)(13), and the general qualified mortgage definition at § 1026.43(e)(2). Each was read against the live eCFR text on this date. The qualified-mortgage presumption of compliance follows CFPB consumer guidance. The Clark County FHA one-unit limit of $541,287 and the county median sale price of $462,000 come from HUD's own CY2026 mortgage limits lookup, pulled on this date. The $832,750 baseline conforming limit comes from the FHFA 2026 announcement. Self-employment income treatment follows the IRS Self-Employed Individuals Tax Center, Fannie Mae Selling Guide B3-3.1-01 and B3-3.5-01. All figures in the worked example are hand-computed and labeled illustrative. This page contains no rate figures.
