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?

Gatehouse published sources do not give one clean answer. Its general eligibility material says self-employed for a minimum of two years, with no deposit condition attached, and its guide for finance above 80% finance-to-value also requires two years in the same business. Its detailed guide for finance up to 80% states no general minimum and publishes a narrow exception for some medical professionals. We do not infer from that silence that a bigger deposit removes the two-year requirement. 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?

It is not ruled out, and it is not guaranteed. StrideUp names one year of SA302 where you have traded less than two years, and its help centre attaches a condition: annual earnings of at least 50,000 pounds, measured as net profit for a sole trader or salary plus dividends for a limited company. Gatehouse publishes a narrow exception for some medical professionals with under 12 months of history. What we cannot tell you is that a larger deposit makes a shorter history work at Gatehouse: two of its three published positions require two years with no deposit condition attached.

Islamic mortgages when you work for yourself

Being self-employed does not put a home purchase plan out of reach. What it does is put you into the part of the rulebook where the published criteria are least tidy. 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 with each other, StrideUp will consider a shorter history but attaches an income condition to it and contradicts itself on the documents, and Offa does not publish enough for us to say anything at all. Trading history is one criterion among several: the side-by-side comparison shows what each provider publishes across all of them, and current rates show what you would pay once one of them says yes.

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.

By the Islamic Mortgage Guide research team. Published 10 August 2026. Criteria read 10 August 2026.

You are not an exception

It is worth saying plainly, because the assumption runs the other way. Gatehouse Bank titles both of its home purchase plan criteria guides for employed, self-employed and contractor applicants. Self-employment is not an edge case being tolerated; it 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. That is where the providers differ from each other, and where Gatehouse Bank differs from itself.

Gatehouse publishes three relevant sources, and one omits the two-year rule

The published sources do not fully align in what they state, and the gap between them is where a lot of bad advice gets made. 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

It would be easy to read the silence at finance up to 80% finance-to-value as a shorter route in, and say that a bigger deposit removes the two-year rule. We are not going to tell you that. Two of Gatehouse Bank's three sources state two years with no deposit condition, and the third does not contradict them. It simply does not repeat them.

A document that does not mention a limit has not granted you one. What we have not established is whether that omission is deliberate, or whether the guide just does not restate the general eligibility rule. Either way, anyone quoting the silence at you as a route should be asked which page they are reading.

Home Purchase Plan eligibility, consumer channel · Home Purchase Plan Criteria, finance up to 80% finance-to-value, effective 5 August 2026 · Home Purchase Plan Criteria, finance above 80% finance-to-value, effective 5 August 2026, read 10 August 2026.

Your deposit does change something, just not this

There is a real finance-to-value difference in Gatehouse Bank's self-employed criteria, and it is the income floor rather than the trading history. Minimum income of the main applicant is £15,000 in the guide covering up to 80% finance-to-value, and £20,000 in the guide covering above 80% finance-to-value. That one is published on both sides rather than inferred from a silence, and the same split appears again in the provider's August 2025 intermediary brochure, which is a separate document reaching the same figures.

Test the published criteria against your situation

How Gatehouse classifies self-employment

This decides which set of rules you are read under, and people routinely guess it wrong. 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. So two people running the same company can be assessed under different regimes because of a shareholding percentage, and the one holding less is the one asked for payslips rather than accounts.

The evidence for those directors is published at one tier, not both. 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.

Why this is worth checking first

If you are a director near the 25% line, find out which side 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.

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.

Gatehouse Bank's lower tier is not a lighter evidence pack. 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 10 August 2026.

Where StrideUp's published evidence does not line up

There is one genuine contradiction here and one thing that looks like a contradiction and is not. They deserve different treatment, because manufacturing a disagreement is as much a failure as hiding one.

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, and this is not a channel difference: both statements sit on the same page, so neither can be explained as written for a different audience. 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.

What "one year can be considered" actually costs. 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 page that told you there is no minimum income, and stopped there, would be telling a one-year trader the opposite of the rule that applies to them.

Work types named as not considered

Gatehouse Bank states these directly rather than leaving them to underwriting. Seasonally based work, piece work and zero-hours contracts are stated as not considered.

That is Gatehouse Bank's rule, not a market-wide exclusion. 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 an applicant with zero-hours income is closed out at one provider and conditionally considered at the other. That is worth knowing before an application rather than after a valuation fee, and it is the sort of difference that disappears entirely from any article written about "Islamic mortgages" as a single thing.

What we could not verify

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.
- 5 August 2026Neither current criteria guide restates the treatment or sets out its mechanics.
The bullet is not assigned to a customer type or a finance-to-value band. It sits in a section that covers all three customer types, so it supports continued acceptance of retained profits within the home purchase plan offering, and does not establish which ranges or conditions it applied to. Strong evidence the policy persisted into 2025. Not enough to state its exact application under the current 2026 criteria, which do not restate it. So it is worth asking about rather than assuming, in either direction. StrideUp's current public material does not establish an equivalent treatment.

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?: Gatehouse published sources do not give one clean answer. Its general eligibility material says self-employed for a minimum of two years, with no deposit condition attached, and its guide for finance above 80% finance-to-value also requires two years in the same business. Its detailed guide for finance up to 80% states no general minimum and publishes a narrow exception for some medical professionals. We do not infer from that silence that a bigger deposit removes the two-year requirement. 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?: It is not ruled out, and it is not guaranteed. StrideUp names one year of SA302 where you have traded less than two years, and its help centre attaches a condition: annual earnings of at least 50,000 pounds, measured as net profit for a sole trader or salary plus dividends for a limited company. Gatehouse publishes a narrow exception for some medical professionals with under 12 months of history. What we cannot tell you is that a larger deposit makes a shorter history work at Gatehouse: two of its three published positions require two years with no deposit condition attached.