Is a FEIN the same thing as a mortgage offer?

It is the standardised description of an offer, not a separate approval step. Once a bank is ready to lend, the FEIN sets out that specific offer's terms in the format the law requires. You then have at least ten days to review it before you can sign anything at the notary.

Can I get a fully fixed rate above 500.000 €?

Sometimes, but going into 2026 several banks stopped offering a genuine full-term fixed rate above roughly that amount, and moved to mixed-rate products instead: fixed for an initial period, commonly three years, then variable. Ask clearly which one is on the table, because a mixed product behaves very differently after the fixed period ends.

Why does my apostille and translation status matter more than my income?

It does not matter more. It is simply the step that is unfamiliar rather than difficult, and unfamiliar steps are what quietly add weeks. A strong income documented in an unrecognised format still has to clear the apostille and sworn-translation step before a Spanish underwriter can act on it at all.

Do these figures tell me what I will be offered?

No, and they are not trying to. They describe the market and the law. What you will be offered depends on your own income, commitments, age, currency and the specific bank. That is exactly what Arevont's mortgage service and its feasibility check are for.

Guides

Mortgage in Spain: how the market really works

In 30 seconds

A non-resident buying on the Costa del Sol should plan for a 60 to 70 % loan-to-value. This means 30 to 40 % of the price in cash, plus ~9 % to ~13 % in costs on top. Since 2019, the bank must give you a FEIN and a FiAE before you can sign anything.

FEIN: Ficha Europea de Información NormalizadaStandardised loan-offer sheet, Ley 5/2019

Interest rate: Fixed X,X % / Variable Euribor + X,X %
Total annual cost (TAE): X,X %
Tied products: Home insurance, life insurance...
Reflection period: 10 days minimum

Specimen. The values shown are illustrative.

Interest rate. The rate and its type, fixed or variable, in one standard format. This lets you compare two offers line by line.
Total annual cost (TAE). The total cost over the life of the loan, including fees, not just the headline rate.
Tied products. Tied products that lower the rate on paper but add their own cost. Check whether they are truly optional.
Reflection period. The minimum notice before you can sign, counted from the day you receive the FEIN.

What loan-to-value does the market publish for a foreign buyer?

Between 50 to 60 % and up to 80 %. Mostly your citizenship decides where you sit, not the country you live in. What follows is how a Spanish mortgage works for a foreign buyer in general: what the market publishes, what the law requires a bank to show you, and where a Czech or Polish application slows down.Banks treat EU citizens more favourably across the market. Several sources describe non-resident EU buyers sometimes reaching 70 to 80 percent when the property is genuinely intended as a main home, not a holiday home. Non-EU citizens, from any country, more often see 50 to 60 % or below, regardless of income level. This is because the bank is pricing the extra difficulty of enforcing a loan against someone outside the EU legal system, not judging the applicant's finances.

50 %80 %

Non-EU citizen, any property50 to 60 %
Non-resident EU citizen, second home60 to 70 %
EU citizen, genuine main residence (some banks)70 to 80 %

Position as of 17 August 2026, checked across three English-language 2026 market round-ups, rather than taken from a single bank's published rate sheet. These are market-published ranges, not a personal offer.

Your own number depends on the bank, your income, your existing commitments, and the property itself. A market range cannot tell you this.

Work it out

Purchase price

500.000 €

Bank valuation

470.000 €

94 % of the purchase price. The bank lends from its valuation, not from the price.

How much they lend

50 %

With income outside the euro, plan for about half.

Interest rate

3 %

Indicative. Rates change.

Term

20 years

Monthly payment

1.303 €

Mortgage amount235.000 €

Own funds265.000 €

Purchase costs (new build)64.839 €

You will need329.839 €

Own funds plus purchase costs. Over the whole mortgage you pay 312.793 € in 20 years.

The result is indicative. How much the bank really lends depends on its own review of your income and its own valuation of the property.

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Your own estimate: mortgage as a service

Sources

What are FEIN and FiAE, and why does a bank have to give them to you?

Two standardised documents, handed over before you can sign anything, since Ley 5/2019 (the LCCI, the mortgage credit contracts law). A Spanish bank cannot simply give you a mortgage deed on completion day. It must first give you the FEIN (Ficha Europea de Información Normalizada). This is the European standardised information sheet that sets out the loan's real terms. It must also give you the FiAE (Ficha de Advertencias Estandarizadas). This is a warnings sheet that flags anything unusual about the specific offer, such as a floor clause or a currency risk.You then have a minimum of 10 days to review both documents before you can sign anything. Before completion, you attend a free notarial act, the acta notarial previa, where a notary confirms that you received the documents and understood them. A mortgage cannot legally be signed without that act. This protection applies to a non-resident in the same way as to a Spanish resident. The law does not make an exception for a foreign buyer. But the documents arrive in Spanish, and reading them with a lawyer who works for you, not the bank, is what makes the notice period truly useful.

Before you can sign

Offer readyFEIN and FiAE issuedThe standardised terms and the warnings sheet, handed over first.
Minimum 10 daysReflection periodTime to review both documents, ideally with your own lawyer.
Before completionActa notarial previaFree notarial act confirming you received and understood the documents.
At completionMortgage deed signedAlongside the sale itself, funds released at that moment.

Arevont's legal coordination has your lawyer read the FEIN against the purchase contract's own dates before you sign anything. This lets a mortgage timing problem come up while there is still time to act on it, rather than at the notary's desk.

Coordination with a lawyer

Sources

Law 5/2019 of 15 March regulating Real Estate Credit Contracts (BOE) ↗

Does Ley 5/2019 protect a non-resident the same way it protects a Spanish resident?Yes, the law itself does not distinguish by residency. In practice, the FEIN and FiAE arrive in Spanish, on the bank's own schedule. So having a lawyer who works for you read them inside the notice period is what turns this legal protection into something you can use.

Fixed or variable, and what changed going into 2026?

A fixed 20-year rate currently runs at roughly 3,8 to 5,2 %, across both EU and non-EU applicants in the sources checked. A variable product is typically priced at Euribor plus a margin of 1,5 to 2,5 percentage points, so its real cost moves with Euribor instead of staying fixed.Going into 2026, several banks pulled back full fixed-rate offers above roughly 500.000 €, and introduced mixed-rate products instead: a fixed period, commonly three years, then a switch to variable for the rest of the term. If you are financing above that amount, ask clearly whether the offer in front of you is a genuine fixed rate for the whole term, or a mixed product. The two behave very differently after year three.

What people assumeWhat the 2026 market does

A fixed rate means the same monthly payment for the whole loan term: Only if it is a genuine full-term fixed product. A mixed-rate offer is fixed for an initial period, commonly three years, and variable afterwards. This is a very different product wearing the same label.
Variable is simply riskier and fixed is simply safer: Variable tracks Euribor plus a margin, so its cost moves with the wider market rather than with the bank's own decision. Whether that is riskier than a fixed rate depends on where Euribor is expected to go over your term. That is a question for whoever is arranging your financing, not a fact any general guide can settle.

Rate figures are a snapshot checked across three sources as of August 2026, not a live feed. Confirm current pricing with a broker before you treat any number here as an offer.

What slows down a Czech or Polish application specifically?

Almost none of it is about the paperwork being harder to produce. The real problem is that the paperwork is not in a form a Spanish bank's system already expects, and that causes trouble for a Czech or Polish applicant in a few predictable places.

Apostille and sworn translation, not just any translationA Czech or Polish tax return, payslip or company account must arrive with an apostille and, in most cases, a sworn Spanish translation. A translation that is accurate but not sworn is routinely rejected. This is the single most common reason a file sits incomplete.
A tax-return format the bank's checklist was not written forSpanish underwriting templates are built around a Spanish or Western European payslip and tax-return layout. A tax return from your own country contains the same information in a different structure. An underwriter reading that layout for the first time is slower than one reading a familiar format. This is simply because it is unfamiliar, not because of any rule.
Proving where the money came from, across a borderSpain's anti-money-laundering rules require the bank, and often the notary, to see a documented source for the funds involved. Money moved from a Czech or Polish account into Spain in the months before completion is easy to document if you keep the transfer records. Money that moved years earlier, through several accounts, is not easy to document. Rebuilding that trail late is where applications commonly stall.
A credit history that does not travel with youA Spanish bank cannot pull your Czech or Polish credit record the way it pulls a Spanish one. Instead, it relies on what you supply, and on its own more careful reading of an unfamiliar financial profile. This is part of why non-resident lending generally runs more cautiously than resident lending, regardless of how strong the underlying finances are.

None of this is specific to any one bank being difficult. It is the ordinary cost of a cross-border file. Starting the translation and apostille step early is the one thing that reliably shortens it.This describes general, well-established banking and anti-money-laundering practice, rather than a single named regulation. It has not been checked against any specific bank's own published document list. Confirm the exact list with your own bank or broker before you treat it as complete.

What to confirm before you sign the FEIN

The FEIN is the document that really matters. These are the three things worth checking against it, rather than trusting the summary conversation alone.

Whether the offer is a genuine fixed rate or a mixed-rate productThe two are marketed in a similar way but behave very differently after the initial fixed period ends. This matters most above the roughly 500.000 € band, where several banks stopped offering full fixed rates going into 2026. A bad sign is a verbal description of "fixed" that the FEIN itself does not confirm for the whole term.
What the FiAE flags as unusual about this specific offerA floor clause, a currency condition, or an early-repayment penalty that applies only to this offer is exactly what the FiAE exists to show, separately from the FEIN's general terms. A bad sign is an offer presented with no FiAE at all, or one where you were not given the stated minimum 10 days to review before signing.
Whether your documents need an apostille, a sworn translation, or bothAssuming a plain translation is enough is the most common reason a Czech or Polish file sits incomplete for weeks. A bad sign is a document accepted by one office and rejected by another, because it was translated but never apostilled, or the other way round.

Frankly

What the market publishes, and what it cannot promise you

Ley 5/2019 and the FEIN/FiAE system are read at source (BOE-A-2019-3814) and are settled law, not a market estimate. The loan-to-value ranges and the current rate figures are a different kind of claim. We checked them across three English-language 2026 market round-ups that agree with each other on the shape of the market. But none of the three is a primary regulatory text, rates move, and none of them is a personal offer to you. Treat these numbers as what the market currently publishes. Confirm your own number with a broker before you rely on it, and expect the figures to become outdated within months, not years.None of this tells you what you, specifically, will be offered, and it does not arrange an introduction to a broker. That is Arevont's mortgage service. It exists because the honest answer to "what will I get" depends on your income, your existing commitments, your age, the currency you are paid in and the specific bank, not on a market average.

Most common questions about mortgages in Spain

Is a FEIN the same thing as a mortgage offer?: It is the standardised description of an offer, not a separate approval step. Once a bank is ready to lend, the FEIN sets out that specific offer's terms in the format the law requires. You then have at least ten days to review it before you can sign anything at the notary.
Can I get a fully fixed rate above 500.000 €?: Sometimes, but going into 2026 several banks stopped offering a genuine full-term fixed rate above roughly that amount, and moved to mixed-rate products instead: fixed for an initial period, commonly three years, then variable. Ask clearly which one is on the table, because a mixed product behaves very differently after the fixed period ends.
Why does my apostille and translation status matter more than my income?: It does not matter more. It is simply the step that is unfamiliar rather than difficult, and unfamiliar steps are what quietly add weeks. A strong income documented in an unrecognised format still has to clear the apostille and sworn-translation step before a Spanish underwriter can act on it at all.
Do these figures tell me what I will be offered?: No, and they are not trying to. They describe the market and the law. What you will be offered depends on your own income, commitments, age, currency and the specific bank. That is exactly what Arevont's mortgage service and its feasibility check are for.

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