Applying for a mortgage loan online: step by step

Today you can complete your entire application for a mortgage loan (realkreditlån) online, and in most cases without any face-to-face meetings. With MitID (the Danish digital ID) and an automatic credit assessment, you often get a provisional answer within minutes.

Denmark has four main mortgage credit institutions: Realkredit Danmark, Nykredit/Totalkredit, Nordea Kredit and Jyske Realkredit. As a customer, you usually go through a bank, which arranges the loan for you.

The application itself takes place online. You fill in a form with your personal details and documents such as payslips and your annual tax statement. The lender then assesses your creditworthiness and the value of the property before making you an offer. The digital credit assessment runs via MitID and services such as Monthio, which automatically retrieve your bank data so you don’t have to gather your account details yourself.

Many banks let you apply online around the clock through online banking and their websites. However, approval and payout can be quicker on weekdays during office hours, when caseworkers can manually complete the more complex cases.

In this article, you’ll find a step-by-step guide to how to apply, what documentation needs to be in place and how to compare the lenders, so you can choose the loan that best suits your situation.

Apply for a mortgage loan online: the four main steps

Applying for a mortgage loan online follows a set process with four main steps. The order matters, because each step builds on the one before, and you save time by taking them in the right order.

1. Start by assessing your borrowing options and your needs. Work out how big a loan you actually need and which loan term suits your finances, so you don’t apply for more or less than you can manage.

2. Get offers and compare them. Ask for offers from more than one bank so you can compare interest rates, contribution rates (bidragssatser) and APR (ÅOP) side by side.

3. Prepare your documentation. Your payslips, purchase agreement and annual tax statement must be ready before you send anything off, so your application doesn’t stall along the way.

4. Submit your application and follow up on how it is being processed. You can often track its status online and get a notification when the bank needs something from you.

Applying for a mortgage loan with MitID: how the digital credit assessment works

The digital credit assessment is what gets you an answer so quickly. Instead of waiting for a caseworker to go through your papers by hand, the system gathers your information itself and runs the numbers on your finances straight away. This is how applying for a mortgage loan via MitID works, in four steps.

1. You fill in your income, your expenses and the purpose of the loan directly in the bank’s application form.

2. You approve access via MitID. This confirms your identity and gives your consent for the bank to retrieve your bank data.

3. An account information service such as Monthio, which is approved by Finanstilsynet (the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority), retrieves transaction data directly from your bank accounts. The legal basis is the PSD2 directive.

4. The system categorises your expenses and calculates your disposable income, which cuts processing time significantly. Once the data is available, the answer often comes within minutes.

Documentation for an online mortgage loan application: what to upload

Your documentation determines how quickly your application goes through. If you have your papers ready in advance, you avoid stalling halfway through and can let the digital credit assessment run as soon as you have approved with MitID.

• For identification, you need a valid passport or driving licence, plus your CPR number (Danish personal ID number) and your address history.

• The financial documentation consists of payslips from the last 3-6 months, annual tax statements from Skattestyrelsen (the Danish Tax Agency) for the last 2-3 years, bank statements and an up-to-date overview of your debts to other creditors.

• Property documentation covers the purchase agreement, the property valuation, the land register certificate (tingbogsattest) and, where relevant, building drawings or the condition report.

• If you are self-employed or a freelancer, you also need to upload your annual accounts for the last 2-3 years, annual tax statements from Skattestyrelsen and an interim balance sheet if you are partway through the financial year.

You usually upload the documents as PDF files via the bank’s secure portal as soon as the application has been created.

The digital mortgage loan process: requirements, credit assessment and response times

Once your application has been sent, the fixed requirements of the bank and the mortgage credit institution decide whether you get any further. The digital mortgage loan process doesn’t change the underlying limits, but it makes them quicker to check. That’s why it pays to know the figures before you start filling anything in.

• The maximum loan-to-value ratio is 80% of the property’s value, and you must put down at least 5% of the purchase price yourself as a down payment.

• If your debt factor (gældsfaktor) is above 4 and your loan-to-value ratio is above 60%, you can generally only get a fixed-rate loan or an adjustable-rate loan with the interest rate fixed for at least 5 years and with repayments.

• A listing in RKI (Denmark’s register of bad payers) for undisputed, defaulted debt of over 1.000 kr. is visible to the bank and normally disqualifies the applicant. Debts between 200 and 1.000 kr. are kept in a closed register that other companies cannot see. If you pay off what you owe, you are usually removed from the register within 5 working days.

Besides these three limits, the bank also looks at your payment history and may obtain information from credit reference agencies. Even a single serious late payment can weigh heavily in the assessment, so check your own history before you submit anything.

Response times depend above all on how complete your documentation is. With complete documentation and MitID, processing typically takes 5-10 working days, but the whole process from submission to payout normally stretches over 4-8 weeks, including the property valuation and tinglysning (registration of title). So an online mortgage loan application can move quickly through the assessment stage itself, while the final weeks are often spent on valuing the home and the practicalities of registration.

Apply for a mortgage loan online: compare lenders and complete your application

If you get offers from several banks, you can compare interest rates, contribution rates and APR side by side. That lets you see what the difference between two offers really means for your monthly payment, rather than just looking at the interest rate.

At Totalkredit, for example, the contribution rate on F5 loans ranges from 0,50% to 1,45% a year depending on the loan-to-value ratio, and on top of that Totalkredit gives a KundeKroner discount of 0,25 percentage points up to and including 2029 (price list of 1 July 2026). Factor this in when you compare the offers, because the contribution rate is paid year after year and therefore weighs more heavily than a single low interest rate at the start.

How to complete your application

1. When you receive a loan offer, it includes an ESIS form (European Standardised Information Sheet), which by law must show all costs and the APR.

The credit assessment and the valuation of the property must be in place before the offer is final.

Once you have accepted the offer, you sign the loan documents and the mortgage deed (pantebrev) with MitID.

Finally, the mortgage deed is registered and the loan is paid out. When you are buying a home, the money goes towards paying the purchase price.

Afterwards, you can manage the loan via online banking or the bank’s app with your MitID login. There you can see your interest rate history, monthly payment and repayment schedule, and you can pay off the loan whenever it suits you.