Costs
How Much Deposit Do I Need to Buy a House? The Real Number
Everyone fixates on the deposit. It's the one number you can plan for — and the smallest source of nasty surprises. Here's how low you can really go, what a bigger deposit actually buys, and the cash that has nothing to do with the down payment at all.
David C. · · 7 min
How much deposit do you need to buy a house? In most markets, less than the 20% everyone quotes — a realistic minimum is 5–10%, and US first-time buyers put down a median of just 10% in 2025, per the National Association of Realtors. Twenty percent is the threshold that unlocks the best rates and skips mortgage insurance — it's an optimisation, not a legal floor. The number that actually catches buyers out is the 8–15% in closing costs that no lender will finance.
The short version:
- The practical minimum deposit is 3–10% in most markets. Twenty percent is a target that buys you a better rate and no mortgage insurance, not a requirement.
- Your country's loan-to-value (LTV) cap sets your real floor: the Netherlands still allows 100%, Germany and Spain effectively want 20% or more in cash.
- Closing costs add another 8–15% on top of the deposit — transfer tax, notary, fees — and most of it can't be borrowed.
- A bigger deposit buys three things: a smaller loan, a lower rate, and no mortgage insurance. Weigh that against draining your savings to zero.
- Don't put down your last euro. An empty house plus an empty bank account is how year-one costs turn into credit-card debt.
What a "deposit" actually is — and what it isn't
The word "deposit" gets used for three different things, and conflating them is where budgets go wrong.
The down payment (the deposit, in British and continental usage) is the slice of the purchase price you pay from your own money. The bank lends the rest. This is the number people mean when they ask how much deposit they need to buy a house.
The earnest money or holding deposit is a smaller sum — typically 1–5% of the price — paid at offer stage to take the property off the market. In Spain it's the arras; in much of the US it's escrowed. It counts toward your down payment if the sale completes, but you can lose it if you walk away without a valid contingency.
Closing costs are a third thing entirely: taxes and fees paid to people who aren't the seller. They sit on top of the deposit, and we'll get to why they matter more than the deposit itself.
How much deposit do I need for a €300,000 house?
For a €300,000 home, plan on €30,000 as a workable minimum deposit (10%) and €60,000 to reach the 20% that unlocks the best mortgage terms — but in cash terms you'll need roughly €63,000–€93,000 once closing costs are added.
Here's the gap that surprises people:
| Minimum-deposit buyer | 20%-down buyer | |
|---|---|---|
| Deposit | €30,000 (10%) | €60,000 (20%) |
| Mortgage insurance | Likely required | None |
| Closing costs (~11%) | €33,000 | €33,000 |
| Total cash to close | ~€63,000 | ~€93,000 |
The 10%-down buyer hasn't escaped with €30,000. They still need €63,000 in the bank, because the taxes and fees are identical regardless of how much they put down. The deposit is the flexible part of the equation. The closing costs are not.
Why your country sets the real minimum
There is no universal deposit rule, because the ceiling is set by national lending regulation, not by your bank's preference. The relevant number is the maximum loan-to-value ratio — how much of the property's value a lender is allowed to finance.
| Country | Max financing (primary home) | Deposit needed in practice |
|---|---|---|
| Netherlands | 100% of value (DNB) | 0% of price — but ~5–6% closing costs in cash |
| United States | 96.5–97% (FHA / conventional) | 3–3.5% |
| Portugal | 90% (Banco de Portugal) | ~10% + costs |
| France | No legal cap; banks want ~10% apport | ~10% (covers the frais de notaire) |
| Spain | ~80% of price or valuation | ~20% + 10–12% costs |
| Germany | No legal cap; banks want costs covered | Nebenkosten (10–15%), best rates at 20% |
The Dutch case is the outlier worth understanding. De Nederlandsche Bank lets first-time buyers borrow 100% of the home's value — so the "deposit" can technically be zero. But the buyer still pays transfer tax, notary and valuation from their own pocket, because the 100% is measured against the home's value, not the total cost of buying it. A Dutch buyer with no deposit still needs several thousand euros in cash.
What's the minimum deposit for a first-time buyer?
For a first-time buyer the minimum deposit ranges from effectively 0% (Netherlands, or US VA/USDA loans) to 3.5% (US FHA) to 10% (much of southern Europe) — but the lowest-deposit routes almost always come with mortgage insurance or a higher rate. The floor your bank quotes and the floor that's financially sensible are rarely the same number.
Is a 20% deposit always better?
No. A 20% deposit is better for your mortgage but not always better for you, because the money you sink into the deposit is money you no longer have for closing costs, renovations, or an emergency fund.
A larger deposit does three concrete things:
- Shrinks the loan, so you borrow less and pay less interest over the term.
- Lowers your interest rate. In Germany, covering the Nebenkosten plus 20% of the price is what unlocks lenders' Bestzins tier. In France, each point of apport above 10% can shave 0.05–0.10 points off your rate.
- Avoids mortgage insurance. Below 20% down, US conventional loans charge PMI, Canada requires CMHC default insurance, and Australia adds LMI — premiums that buy the lender protection, not you.
But there's a real cost to over-funding the deposit. Drain your savings to hit 20% and you arrive on handover day with a mortgaged house and no buffer for the boiler that fails in month two. For most buyers the right answer is the deposit that secures a decent rate while leaving a cash cushion intact — not the maximum you can scrape together.
The cash that has nothing to do with the deposit
This is the part the deposit calculators leave out. On top of whatever you put down, you owe a stack of one-time costs that most countries won't let you borrow:
- Transfer tax or stamp duty — 1% to 13% of the price depending on country and region. This single line is usually larger than people's entire "miscellaneous" budget.
- Notary, registry and legal fees — typically 0.5–2%.
- Mortgage arrangement and valuation fees — another 1–2% of the loan.
- Moving, insurance, and immediate repairs — small individually, painful together.
In the Netherlands the rule is explicit: the 100% mortgage covers the home's value, so transfer tax and notary fees must come from savings. Across the eurozone the pattern holds — the deposit is negotiable, the closing costs are not. We broke every one of these line items down in our guide to the true cost of buying a house, and the spending doesn't stop at the keys: the hidden costs of year one add another €8,000–€16,000 most first-time buyers never budgeted for.
If you're still working out what the bank will actually lend you — which sets the deposit from the other direction — start with how much you can borrow before you fall for a house your stress-tested income can't finance.
How people who get this right actually do it
The buyers who don't get blindsided do one unglamorous thing: they track the deposit and the closing costs as two separate pots from the very first viewing, and they keep a third pot — a cash buffer — that they refuse to spend on the deposit.
That sounds obvious until you're three weeks from completion, the transfer tax invoice lands, the bank's arrangement fee is higher than quoted, and you realise the "deposit" you'd saved was quietly funding all of it. The fix isn't a spreadsheet you abandon by week two — it's logging each real cost as it lands, against the category it belongs to, so the running total is always honest. That's exactly what CasaTab was built for: one place for the deposit, every closing cost, and the post-move spending, shared with whoever you're buying with.
The bottom line
You almost certainly need less deposit than you think — and more total cash than you've planned for. The 20% figure isn't a gate you have to clear; it's a dial that trades your savings for a better rate. The numbers that genuinely decide whether you can afford the house are your country's LTV cap and the 8–15% in closing costs sitting just behind the deposit.
Work out both before you make an offer. The buyers who do it sleep through the final fortnight. The ones who only saved "the deposit" spend it refreshing their bank balance.