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Will my EV lease wreck my borrowing capacity?

Bayley Clarke · Mortgage broker on the road · Last checked 16 October 2026 · 3 min read

The 90 second version, filmed from the driver's seat. The rest of this page is the detail underneath it.

What the bank actually counts

A novated lease is a three-way deal between you, your employer and a leasing company. Your employer takes the payments out of your pay, some before tax and some after. On your payslip it can look like your income has dropped, and on the bank's calculator the lease shows up as a commitment.

Whatever the structure, the bank wants to know one thing: how much of your income is already spoken for each month. The lease repayment is spoken for. So it's treated much like a car loan repayment, and it comes straight off what's left over for a home loan. Being an EV doesn't change that. No lender's policy treats an EV lease any differently to any other novated lease.

The add-back, and why it helps

Most novated leases bundle more than the car. Fuel or charging, servicing, tyres, rego and insurance often all come out of your pay through the salary packaging provider. Those are costs you'd have anyway. They're your general living expenses, just paid pre-tax.

Because of that, a lot of lenders will add the pre-tax packaged amount back to your income, then count the lease repayment as the commitment, rather than letting it hit you twice. Anything paid post-tax generally stays in as a liability. The result is that a well-documented lease usually bites less than people fear, but it still bites. It's not a free lunch.

Where the banks actually split on this

Most of the panel that writes about it allows the pre-tax add-back, usually with a condition attached: the packaging has to be voluntary, or something you could take as cash instead, and the lease commitment has to be captured separately. At least one lender flatly refuses the add-back for novated leases, so at that bank your payslip income is what it is.

Running costs get handled differently too. Some lenders put them in your living expenses, a couple count the packaged amount as tax-free income, and one counts them in full under transport. On paperwork, expect a payslip showing the packaging plus a letter or schedule from your employer or the packaging provider. At least one lender wants that letter under 60 days old, and a couple won't accept your ATO income statement in its place.

Two more things. The residual at the end of the lease isn't addressed in most lenders' policy, so that's a question for the lender. And a couple of the big banks won't let you clear or refinance a novated lease into the home loan, so don't plan on rolling it in.