How much down payment does a DSCR loan need?

20% to 25% down is the common range on a DSCR purchase, and 15% is the published floor at the lenders that go lowest. Cash-out refinances need more equity than purchases, typically 25% and sometimes 30%. There is no agency minimum, because no agency buys these loans: each lender sets its own, and six lenders read on 21 September 2026 published six different answers.

BEDRWay is not a lender and does not set any of the figures below. Each one is the lender's own published claim, attributed by name, read on 21 September 2026. Programs change without notice and a published floor is the best case rather than the offer.

What six lenders publish

Lender	Purchase	Cash-out refinance
Griffin Funding	From 15% down with a 740 credit score, 20% typical	Up to 75% of value on its no-ratio program with a 700 score
Defy Mortgage	Up to 85% of value on a single-family purchase, so 15% down	Up to 80% of value
Kiavi	Up to 80% of value, so 20% down	Not published on the product page
Lima One Capital	Up to 80% of value, so 20% down	Up to 75% of value
Easy Street Capital	Minimum 20% down, and 35% on a rural property	Up to 75% of value
CoreVest	Up to 80% of value, so 20% down	Up to 70% on its portfolio and short-term rental products

The spread is the useful finding, not a midpoint. Averaging six sheets would produce a number no lender offers. What the table shows is that the floor is 15% and reached only with strong credit, that 20% is where most of the market sits, and that a rural or short-term-rental property is priced as a different asset entirely.

Why cash-out asks for more equity

A cash-out refinance is the busiest use of the product and it is tighter than a purchase at every lender in the table that publishes both. Five points is the usual step, sometimes ten. Two reasons: the lender is taking on an appraisal it did not see an arm's length sale price for, and the borrower is removing skin rather than adding it.

Budget for it before counting the proceeds. The equity a purchase leaves behind is rarely the equity a later cash-out can reach. Seasoning matters too, which is on the DSCR loans hub.

Can you get a DSCR loan with no down payment?

Not as a program. No lender in the table publishes a 100% loan-to-value purchase, and no lender found on this SERP does either, however the headline is phrased. The pages ranking on that question describe workarounds rather than a zero-down product, and it is worth being precise about what each one actually is:

Seller financing behind the first loan. Some lenders permit a second lien from the seller. Permission is specific, it is often capped, and a combined loan-to-value ceiling applies. Ask before writing the offer, not after.
Buy with cash, then refinance. A delayed financing or cash-out refinance can return most of the purchase money, at the cash-out ceiling rather than the purchase one, and usually after a seasoning period. The cash still has to exist first.
Cross-collateralisation. Some lenders will lend against equity in a property already owned so the new purchase needs no fresh cash. That is not a zero-down loan. It is a second property carrying the down payment.

None of these removes the equity requirement. They move where it comes from. A page promising zero down on a rental purchase is describing one of the three above, or it is describing something that does not exist.

The down payment is also a coverage lever

This is the part specific to DSCR and the reason the question is not purely about savings. More money down means a smaller loan, a smaller principal and interest component, a smaller PITIA and therefore a higher ratio. On a marginal property, moving from 20% to 25% down is often the cheapest way to lift coverage from below 1.00 into the standard band, and it can be cheaper than the pricing premium the thin ratio would have cost.

That trade is worth modelling before choosing a number. The DSCR calculator shows the ratio and the break-even rent as the loan size changes. Where the ratio bands sit is covered on what a DSCR loan is.

What else has to be in the bank

The down payment is not the whole cash requirement, and reserves are the line discovered late more often than any other.

Reserves. Months of PITIA held after closing. Defy Mortgage publishes a minimum of three months, read 21 September 2026. The requirement climbs for coverage below 1.00, for short-term rentals, and as the property count grows.
Closing costs. Paid on top of the down payment, and on a business-purpose loan they can include an origination point more often than a consumer mortgage would.
Sourcing and seasoning of the funds. Most lenders want to see where the money came from, even where they want nothing about income.

How this compares with a conventional investment loan

Conventional is cheaper to get into, and it is the comparison most DSCR articles avoid. Fannie Mae's Eligibility Matrix, dated 5 August 2026 and read 21 September 2026, caps a one-unit investment purchase at 85% of value, so 15% down, with two to four units at 75%. Its cash-out ceilings are 75% on one unit and 70% on two to four.

So on a one-unit purchase the conventional floor matches the lowest DSCR floor in the table above, and beats most of it, for a borrower who can document income and stay inside the financed-property cap. The DSCR premium buys the things conventional will not do rather than a smaller cheque. The full contrast is on DSCR versus conventional.

Sources

Lender product pages, each read 21 September 2026 and attributed above by name: Griffin Funding, Defy Mortgage, Kiavi, Lima One Capital, Easy Street Capital and CoreVest. Each figure is that lender's own published claim, not a verified underwriting outcome, and none of them is a BEDRWay partner quote.
Fannie Mae, Eligibility Matrix, document dated 5 August 2026, investment property loan-to-value ratios, read 21 September 2026.

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Last updated: September 21, 2026