Halifax pioneered contractor day rate mortgages by assessing your contract income instead of relying solely on company accounts or lengthy trading history. Understanding the lender’s criteria is key to a successful application, and our specialist brokers help you determine whether Halifax is the right fit before you apply.
Halifax annualises contractor income as day rate × 5 days × 46 weeks — the standard week-count across the contractor-friendly market. A contractor on £500 per day is assessed on £115,000 of annual income, with standard multiples applied on top.
The assessment uses the gross contract rate, with no reference to your limited company accounts, salary or dividends. For tax-efficient contractors, this is precisely the structure that makes Halifax so frequently the right answer: the mortgage is sized on what the contract pays, not on what you draw.
The headline requirements: a minimum day rate of £312.50 (equivalent to £75,000 annualised) for most sectors, with IT contractors historically treated more flexibly; two years in the same profession or line of work — crucially, employment counts, so a developer with ten employed years and one month of contracting can qualify; and a current contract with gaps between contracts not exceeding six weeks in the recent history.
Halifax accepts limited company, umbrella and agency contractors under the policy, inside and outside IR35, with the day rate calculation applied to the gross contract value. Fixed-term contractors and those paid hourly are converted to an equivalent day rate.
Brokers who do not specialise in contractors routinely tell newly contracting professionals they must wait two years before approaching Halifax. They are wrong. The requirement is two years in the same profession — and your employed career counts toward it. An engineer who spent eight years employed and signed her first contract last month satisfies the rule on day one of contracting.
This single distinction makes Halifax one of the most accessible mainstream lenders for the employment-to-contracting transition, and it is one of the most common corrections we make for clients who have been misadvised elsewhere.
The core pack: the current contract showing the day rate and duration; a CV or work history evidencing the two years in profession; the latest month’s bank statement (personal, and business where the contract pays a limited company); and standard identity and deposit evidence. Halifax does not require company accounts or SA302s for day rate assessment.
Presentation matters — the contract must clearly show the rate, and where it shows a weekly or hourly figure, the day rate equivalence should be set out for the underwriter rather than left to interpretation. Packaging the case in Halifax’s own terms is the quiet work that keeps applications out of referral queues
Halifax offers contractors far more than an income calculation that works. Eligible applicants can access the same competitive mortgage products available to standard borrowers, including high-LTV options, remortgages, product transfers, and selected new-build deals. Combined with fast processing for straightforward applications, it creates a strong all-round mortgage proposition for contractors.
Borrow up to 95% LTV on qualifying contractor mortgage applications.
Access the same standard range including remortgages, product transfers and selected new-build deals.
Automated underwriting helps straightforward applications move quickly.
Halifax fits the mainstream contractor case superbly: a solid day rate above the minimum, two years in the profession, clean credit, gaps inside six weeks. The clean day rate calculation and mainstream pricing make it hard to beat for that profile.
It is the wrong answer for day rates below £312.50, contracting histories with longer gaps, adverse credit, or income structures needing manual interpretation — for which Saffron, Aldermore, Hodge and the building society manual underwriters exist. Our job is knowing which side of that line your case sits before any application is made.
£312.50 per day for most sectors — equivalent to £75,000 annualised on the 46-week calculation — with IT contractors historically treated more flexibly. Below the minimum, the contractor policy does not apply and other lenders are the right route. We confirm the current threshold at the point of application, as criteria are periodically revised.