VA home loan requirements: what the VA actually publishes

The government does not lend you the money on a VA loan: the VA guarantees part of it and an approved lender puts up the money. Here are the rules as the VA publishes them, kept separate from what each lender adds.

Before it looks at your credit or your savings, the VA looks at your service. The proof is the Certificate of Eligibility (COE): it says you meet the minimum service requirement and how much entitlement you have. No COE, no VA loan — and with a COE, a lender still has to approve you.

• There are written exceptions. If you were discharged before the minimum for a service-connected disability, hardship, or other causes the VA lists, you can still qualify: the VA reviews your record if you apply.
• You can request the COE without leaving home. Online at va.gov, through your lender (most pull it instantly), or by mail with Form 26-1880.
• Entitlement can be restored. Sell the home and pay the earlier loan in full, and your entitlement is restored so you can use a VA loan again.

With full entitlement (your COE shows the full basic entitlement), the program asks for $0 down and the VA sets no loan limit: the limit comes from your lender, based on your credit, income and debts. The loan does have one practical ceiling: it cannot exceed the lower of the purchase price and the value in the VA-ordered appraisal.

• If the appraisal comes in below the price, the loan does not finance the difference: it comes out of your pocket, the price gets renegotiated, or the deal falls apart. That is where a VA buyer needs cash even with zero down.
• With remaining entitlement (you already used part of it on another home), the county loan limit math does apply, and your lender may ask for a down payment so your entitlement plus your cash cover the 25% of the loan the VA usually guarantees.
• Closing costs are separate. Zero down is not zero to close: the appraisal, insurance, taxes and lender charges remain, minus whatever you negotiate with the seller.

A VA loan carries no monthly mortgage insurance: no PMI or anything like it, ever. In exchange it charges a one-time funding fee, a percentage of the loan that goes to the VA. This is the table in effect since April 7, 2023 for purchase and construction loans:

• It can be financed. The funding fee is paid at closing or rolled into the loan and paid with your monthly payment; it is the only cost a VA purchase loan lets you roll in.
• Some borrowers do not pay it. You are exempt if you receive VA compensation for a service-connected disability, if you are a surviving spouse receiving DIC, or in the cases the VA lists (including active-duty members with a Purple Heart).
• If your disability is recognized later, with an effective date retroactive to before closing, you can ask for the fee back.

The table belongs to the VA; your interest rate does not. The VA does not set your rate: your lender does, and two lenders can quote you different rates on the same day with the same COE.

The VA says it plainly: it requires no minimum credit score. The number a lender asks you for — many work with 620 — is that lender's rule, not the program's. If one lender turns you down over your score, another can approve the same file.

• The VA does look at what is left over. Beyond your debts, your lender must check your residual income: the money left each month after the house payment, your debts and living costs. It is the VA's own test, and it depends on how many people live on your income and which region of the country you are in.
• The home has to be your home. A VA loan is for your primary residence: you must live in it. It does not work for an investment property or a second home.
• The property gets checked too. The VA orders its own appraisal and requires the home to meet its minimum property requirements before it guarantees the loan.

For the score lenders ask for in practice, see the credit score you actually need. And if you did not serve, the similar program is a different one: FHA minimum requirements.

The VA separates two things that get mixed up. Credits toward closing costs (the seller paying the appraisal, the title, the lender's charges) have no cap in VA rules: they are negotiated. Seller concessions — everything else of value the seller gives you, like paying your funding fee or debts — do have a cap: 4% of the home's reasonable value, the figure in the Notice of Value from the VA appraisal.

Some down payment assistance can be combined with a VA loan, but not every program allows the combination and this page guarantees none of it: the lender and the program confirm it with both sets of documents. The local ones are in down payment assistance in Miami-Dade. Every closing line item is broken down in closing costs in Florida.

Meeting the rules in this guide approves no loan: the decision belongs to a VA-approved lender, case by case, with your COE, your credit and your income in front of them.

• Department of Veterans Affairs, eligibility and minimum service by era, Guard and Reserve, survivors and the COE: va.gov
• Department of Veterans Affairs, the funding fee (chart effective April 7, 2023), the exemptions and seller concessions up to 4%: va.gov
• Department of Veterans Affairs, full entitlement with no loan limit, remaining entitlement, and the verbatim statement that the VA requires no minimum credit score: va.gov