DTI limits cap borrowing as a multiple of gross income. The current thresholds for investors and owner-occupiers, and how they interact with LVR.
⚠️ This entry contains figures or rules that change with government policy or RBNZ settings. Check the current position at the source link below before relying on it.
DTI (debt-to-income ratio) is total debt expressed as a multiple of gross annual income. Since 1 July 2024, RBNZ has applied DTI restrictions to new residential mortgage lending in New Zealand, limiting how much high-DTI lending banks can write.
Banks may write up to 20% of new lending above each threshold — again, a speed limit rather than a hard cap.
The two rules address different risks. LVR limits the loss when a borrower defaults. DTI reduces the chance of default in the first place, by limiting how much debt sits against a given income.
A borrower must satisfy both. High-income borrowers with small deposits hit the LVR limit; borrowers with large deposits but modest income hit the DTI limit.
Exceeding the threshold is not an automatic decline. A DTI of 6.5 as an owner-occupier can still be approved if the bank has capacity in its high-DTI quota. Quotas vary between banks and across the year.
Consumer debt counts. Car loans, credit card limits and buy-now-pay-later commitments feed into the calculation. Clearing consumer debt often improves borrowing capacity faster than saving a larger deposit.
Last reviewed: 1 August 2026 · General information only, not financial advice.
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