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I've got savings in cash at home. Do I need to bank it before I apply for a home loan?
Bayley Clarke · Mortgage broker on the road · Last checked 11 November 2026 · 2 min read
The short answer
Yes. The tax office and the banks don't like cash, because they can't verify it exists and they can't verify it's income you've paid tax on. For a bank to count your deposit, that money has to be sitting in a bank account.
And timing matters. If your balance goes from $1k to $51k in one day because you've deposited $50k of cash, that's going to raise questions. We may need to verify it another way, or wait one to three months depending on the lender before it counts as savings.
The 60 second version, filmed from the driver's seat. The rest of this page is the detail underneath it.
Why cash doesn't count until it's banked
Banks lend off evidence. Your deposit needs to show up on a statement in your name, so the bank can see it's really there and that it belongs to you. A shoebox in the wardrobe or a safe in the garage can't be checked by anyone, so as far as the bank's concerned, that money technically doesn't exist.
It's not about judging you for keeping cash. It's that the bank has to be able to prove where your deposit came from, and cash breaks that chain the moment it leaves an account.
The problem with a big lump sum
Most lenders want to see genuine savings, which generally means money you've held or built up over about three months. A large cash deposit appearing in one hit doesn't look like that. It looks like money from somewhere, and the bank's first question will be where.
So the earlier you bank it, the better. If it goes in now, the clock starts now, and by the time you apply it can simply be part of your savings history. Bank it the week before you apply and we may have to wait one to three months depending on the lender, or show its history some other way, which isn't always possible with cash. Some lenders don't require genuine savings at all once your deposit is big enough, which can help, but you don't want to be relying on that.
The honest bit: bank it now, not later
If you've been stacking cash as a nest egg, that's fine, but the day you start thinking about buying is the day it should go into an account. Every week it sits at home is a week it isn't counting toward your savings history.
Expect the bank to ask where it came from. Have the answer ready, keep any records you've got, and the conversation is easy.
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Can I use money sitting in my parents' account as savings?No. To the bank, money in mum and dad's account is their money.
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