Can I get a home loan if I am on probation at my new job in Australia?

Yes, it’s possible — being on probation doesn’t disqualify you from a home loan. Whether a particular lender will approve your application while you’re still in a probationary period comes down to that lender’s own policy, not a rule set by a regulator. There’s no minimum length of employment that applies across the industry; each lender decides how it wants to treat a new job for itself.

Probation is a trial period at the start of employment, usually set out in the offer letter or employment contract, during which either party can typically end the employment on shorter notice than applies afterwards. It doesn’t change your legal entitlement to the job’s pay while it lasts — but it is a period during which a lender may see slightly more uncertainty about whether the income will continue.

How does a lender actually look at a probation period?

Under responsible lending rules (ASIC RG 209), a lender has to make reasonable inquiries into your income and reasonably verify it, then form a view on whether you could meet the repayments without substantial hardship. RG 209 directs lenders to think about reasonably foreseeable changes to a consumer’s income, and one of the guide’s own worked examples deals with this exact situation: a new employee two pays into a three-month probation period applying for a loan. ASIC’s view is that the probation review itself is a reasonably foreseeable event, so the lender is expected to make additional inquiries — such as seeking confirmation from the employer, or checking whether the applicant’s employment history shows a pattern of holding jobs beyond probation — before forming a view on whether the income is likely to continue. Exactly what a lender asks for — a minimum time in the role, a letter from your employer, extra payslips — is set by that lender’s own policy and varies between institutions.

That means probation is one input into a broader assessment, not a standalone pass-or-fail test. A lender weighing your application is looking at the same underlying question it asks of any applicant: is this income reliable and likely to continue at a similar level.

Does being on probation disqualify you automatically?

No. Nothing in the regulatory framework treats probation as an automatic bar to a home loan, and no industry-wide minimum employment period is set in law. Whether completing probation, or getting a confirmed permanent offer, changes how a particular lender treats the same income is a matter of that lender’s own policy, and it varies between institutions.

Some applicants in probation periods are approved; others aren’t — the difference comes down to the whole picture a specific lender is assessing, including the rest of this section.

What else matters besides the probation status itself?

A lender’s assessment doesn’t stop at your employment status. It also factors in things like your industry and role history, whether the new role is a continuation of similar work elsewhere, the terms of your offer letter, your other income and expenses, your existing debts, and the standard interest rate buffer applied to every applicant regardless of employment type. Two people on probation with otherwise identical pay can look quite different to the same lender once the rest of the picture is taken into account.

Is it better to wait until probation ends?

That’s a decision this article won’t make for you, and there’s no verified basis for a general rule either way — waiting changes your circumstances at the time you apply, but it also delays a purchase, and neither outcome is “correct” in the abstract. As at July 2026, RG 209 remains the current responsible lending framework governing how any lender must approach this kind of assessment, but the weight a specific lender gives to a probation period is set by that lender, not by the regulation itself.

Who can tell you how a specific lender will view your situation?

A licensed mortgage broker who tracks current lender policies is better placed than a general guide to say how a probation period, a new job, or an unconfirmed permanent offer is likely to be viewed by lenders competing for your kind of application. For how banks build a borrowing capacity figure once income is accepted, see our guide to how banks calculate borrowing capacity — this post doesn’t rebuild that one. Employment history sits alongside other inputs a lender weighs, including your credit score and any default on your credit file. For the deposit side of the equation, see our guide to how much deposit you need for a first home in Australia.