Islamic mortgages when you work for yourself
Being self-employed does not put a home purchase plan out of reach. The headline answer, that you need two years of accounts, is roughly right and too simple: Gatehouse Bank's own sources do not line up, StrideUp will consider a shorter history on an income condition, and Offa publishes nothing we can use. Trading history is one criterion among several; the comparison shows the rest and current rates show what you would pay.
- Gatehouse Bank
- Published general rule is two years self-employed. Its up-to-80% guide does not repeat that rule, and we do not read the omission as a shorter route.
- StrideUp
- Two years is the normal position, and one year can be considered. Under two years, earnings of at least £50,000 apply.
- Offa
- Publishes no self-employed criteria for the home purchase plan that we could find, so we state no rule for it.
How to read this page
- It covers the three mainstream providers' home purchase plans, read from their own criteria documents on 9 October 2026. Offa publishes a self-employed rule for buy-to-let only, which is not borrowed here.
- Where a provider's documents disagree, both figures are shown and neither is treated as governing. A document that omits a rule has not waived it, however much deposit you bring.
- Published criteria say which rules you must satisfy. The application still turns on affordability, the property and the provider's full assessment.
You are not an exception
Gatehouse Bank titles both of its home purchase plan criteria guides for employed, self-employed and contractor applicants: self-employment is one of the three income types the product is written for. What changes is the evidence, and how far back it has to go.
Three providers, three positions on self-employment
Publishes self-employed criteria
Three published sources on trading history. Two state a two-year minimum; one does not repeat it.
Publishes self-employed criteria
A normal position of two years with shorter histories explicitly contemplated, subject to an income condition, plus one genuine contradiction in the evidence requirements.
Publishes none
No self-employed criteria are published for the home purchase plan in the material we read.
Gatehouse publishes three relevant sources, and one omits the two-year rule
Two state a two-year minimum with no deposit condition attached. The third, the detailed guide for finance up to 80% finance-to-value, does not repeat that rule.
| Source | Minimum trading history | What it says |
|---|---|---|
| General HPP eligibilityNo finance-to-value qualification attached | two years | Employed for a minimum of 3 months with your current employer, or self-employed for a minimum of 2 years. |
| Criteria guide, finance up to 80% finance-to-valueFinance up to 80% finance-to-value | Not stated | No general minimum trading period is stated in this guide. Income is calculated on the latest year's income, unless it differs significantly from the previous year, when underwriters require more detail. Special consideration may be given to medical professionals with less than 12 months of self-employed income history. |
| Criteria guide, finance above 80% finance-to-valueFinance above 80% finance-to-value | two years | Self-employed applicants need a minimum of two years of self-employment in the same business, and suitable proof of income. The latest year's net profit is used for affordability, unless there is more than a 25% difference, in which case an average of the last two years is used. |
The absence is not the answer
A bigger deposit does not remove the two-year rule on anything Gatehouse Bank publishes. Two of its three sources state two years with no deposit condition, and the third does not contradict them. It does not repeat them.
Whether that omission is deliberate, or the guide simply does not restate the general rule, is not established. Anyone quoting the silence as a route should be asked which page they are reading.
Your deposit does change something, just not this
The finance-to-value difference in Gatehouse Bank's self-employed criteria is the income floor: minimum income of the main applicant is £15,000 in the guide covering up to 80% finance-to-value and £20,000 covering above 80% finance-to-value, published on both sides.
The three documents
Home Purchase Plan eligibility, consumer channel · HPP criteria guide, finance up to 80% finance-to-value (HPPCG040926V1, effective 4 September 2026) · HPP criteria guide, finance above 80% finance-to-value (HPPCG120826V2, effective 12 August 2026), read . The income split also appears in the provider's intermediary brochure V6, dated 3 September 2026, a separate document reaching the same figures.
Test the published criteria against your situation
How Gatehouse classifies self-employment
An applicant is classed as self-employed if they are a sole trader, a partner in a firm, a member of an LLP, or any director with 25% or more shareholding in a business. A director with less than 25% shareholding is assessed under the employed-income rules rather than on accounts. Two people running the same company can be assessed under different regimes because of a shareholding percentage, and the one holding less is asked for payslips rather than accounts. Find out which side of the line you are on before you gather documents: it changes the evidence, the income calculation and, above 80%, whether a minimum trading period applies to you at all.
Where the directors' evidence package is published
The specific evidence for those directors, three recent salary slips, an average of the last two years of dividends and three months of personal bank statements, is set out in the guide for finance above 80% finance-to-value. The up-to-80% guide places sub-25% directors in the employed category without restating that same package, so we do not read the package across.
What you have to produce
two of the three mainstream providers publish self-employed evidence requirements for the home purchase plan.
- Gatehouse Bank, above 80%
- Either the last two years of SA302s, or an accountant's certificate from a suitably qualified accountant detailing the accounts. Where the applicant has traded for only two years, a minimum of one year's SA302 with a suitable accountant's reference is required. Also three months of the most recent personal bank statements and three months of business bank statements.
- StrideUp
- SA302 for the last two years together with the tax year overview, or one year where trading for less than two years, plus business bank statements as above. Where two years of SA302s and tax year overviews cannot be provided, other sources evidencing stability of income can be considered, subject to underwriter discretion.
- StrideUp, on minimum income
- No restriction on minimum income is stated on the criteria page. Where a self-employed applicant has under two years of trading history, annual earnings should be at least £50,000, measured as net profit for a sole trader and as salary plus dividends for a limited company. A general no-minimum statement rendered without this condition would tell a one-year trader the opposite of what applies to them.
- Contractors, Gatehouse Bank
- A signed copy of the contract is required. Where more than six months remain on it, the above-80% guide asks for no further evidence; where fewer than six months remain, it asks for 12 months of evidence of the same work.
- Contractors, StrideUp
- A separate framework from the self-employed one. Contractors can be accepted with at least three months of contracting history, 12 months within the same line of work, and three months remaining on the contract or confirmation of renewal. On a first contract with under six months to run, the applicant must have been employed for at least 24 months in the same line of work. If you call yourself self-employed but work on contracts, check which set of rules a provider will read you under before gathering documents: they are not the same rules, and the two providers do not draw the line in the same place.
Why the lower Gatehouse tier is not a lighter evidence pack, and the documents
The up-to-80% guide publishes how self-employed income is calculated, but does not set out the two-year SA302 and accountant's certificate package shown above. We do not read the higher-tier package down to it, and we do not treat its absence as a lighter requirement.
StrideUp Home Purchase Plan eligibility, consumer channel · StrideUp HPP Criteria Guide, intermediary channel · Help centre, minimum trading period for self-employed applicants, read .
Where StrideUp's published evidence does not line up
One genuine contradiction, and one thing that looks like one and is not.
- A real contradiction: business bank statements
- The same live criteria page sets out the self-employed evidence twice. One statement asks for six months of business bank statements; the other asks for three. Both appear on the current page. We hold 3 and 6 months rather than choosing. Both statements sit on the same page, so it is not a channel difference. Ask which applies before you start pulling statements.
- Not a contradiction: one year against two
- The help centre states that a two-year trading history is typically required, and that where self-employment is under two years, annual earnings should be at least £50,000. The criteria page accepts the most recent year's income where trading has run more than two years, and names one year of SA302 where it has not. These are consistent rather than contradictory: two years is the normal position and a shorter history is contemplated on conditions. Presenting it as a source conflict would manufacture a disagreement. Where a self-employed applicant has under two years of trading history, annual earnings should be at least £50,000, measured as net profit for a sole trader and as salary plus dividends for a limited company.
Work types named as not considered
Gatehouse Bank states these directly. Seasonally based work, piece work and zero-hours contracts are stated as not considered. That is its rule, not the market's: StrideUp publishes something materially different, zero-hours income can be accepted where it is not the primary income source and the applicant has been on a zero-hours contract in the same industry for at least 12 months. So zero-hours income is closed out at one provider and conditionally considered at the other, which is worth knowing before a valuation fee rather than after.
What we could not verify
Four things the published documents leave open, with what we read and did not find.
The open questions, including the retained-profit trail
- Offa's position. No self-employed criteria are published for the home purchase plan in the material we read. Offa publishes a self-employed rule for its buy-to-let range: at least one year's tax return, and applicants self-employed for under two years considered where they can show a similar job for at least two years beforehand. That is a buy-to-let criterion. The register already carries an open question on this provider's published underwriting detail, with a standing decision not to infer self-employed acceptance for the home purchase plan.
- Which business bank statement requirement governs. Three months and six months both appear on StrideUp's current criteria page. Only the provider can say which is intended.
- Which Gatehouse trading-history position governs. Two sources say two years, one is silent, and none of them explains the relationship. We have not established whether the up-to-80% guide is intended to relax the general rule or simply does not repeat it.
- How Gatehouse treats retained profit under the current criteria. There is a
trail rather than a silence:
- 10 November 2020Announced the acceptance of retained profits for self-employed income, as a criteria change applying to both the HPP and buy-to-let products.
- 22 August 2025An intermediary brochure states "Retained profits considered" within its home purchase plan section. That section covers UK residents, UK expats and international residents, and its criteria table distinguishes them: 95% maximum finance-to-value for UK residents against 80% for the other two. That brochure is no longer online.
- 3 September 2026Its successor, the intermediary brochure dated 3 September 2026, still states "Retained profits may be considered" in its home purchase plan section, whose criteria highlights cover UK residents, UK expats and international residents and give the same split: 95% maximum finance-to-value for UK residents against 80% for the other two.
- 4 September 2026Neither current criteria guide, finance up to 80% finance-to-value effective 4 September 2026 or above 80% effective 12 August 2026, restates the treatment or sets out its mechanics.
Where to start
Four facts do most of the work: how the provider classifies your income, how long the business has traded, what evidence you can actually produce, and the finance-to-value you need. Those tell you which published rules you have to satisfy. They do not decide the application, which still turns on affordability, the property and the provider's full assessment.
Check the published criteria What each tier costs Ask an adviser your question
Tell us what the published data could not answer
Everything above comes from what providers publish. Whether a provider will actually take you depends on affordability, credit history and the property itself, and on criteria nobody prints. Tell us what you are stuck on and we will come back to you.
Self-employed criteria are published thinly, and how your accounts are read is decided case by case, not by anything on a criteria page.
Common questions
- Can you get an Islamic mortgage if you are self-employed?
- Yes. Gatehouse Bank names employed, self-employed and contractor applicants in the title of both its home purchase plan criteria guides, and StrideUp publishes self-employed evidence requirements. What varies is how long you must have been trading, how that is evidenced, and whether a shorter history is considered at all.
- How many years of accounts do you need for a halal mortgage?
- Two years is the published rule at Gatehouse, stated in its general eligibility material and its above-80% guide with no deposit condition attached; its up-to-80% guide does not repeat it, and we do not read that silence as a shorter route. StrideUp typically requires two years and will consider a shorter history where annual earnings are at least 50,000 pounds.
- Are you self-employed if you own a limited company?
- It depends on your shareholding, and Gatehouse publishes the line. A director with 25% or more shareholding is classed as self-employed and assessed on accounts. A director below 25% falls under the employed-income rules. The specific evidence for those directors, three salary slips plus an average of the last two years of dividends, is set out in the guide for finance above 80% finance-to-value, so we do not state it as a rule at every tier.
- Can you get a halal mortgage with one year of accounts?
- Not ruled out, not guaranteed. StrideUp names one year of SA302 where you have traded under two years, with a condition from its help centre: annual earnings of at least 50,000 pounds. Gatehouse publishes a narrow exception for some medical professionals with under 12 months of history. A larger deposit does not remove Gatehouse’s two-year rule on anything it publishes.