How much home loan can I get on my salary?
Banks decide your home loan amount with a formula, not a guess. Understand FOIR and the tenure effect, and you can estimate your own eligibility before applying.
It is the first question every prospective borrower asks, and the answer is more formulaic than most people expect. Banks do not pull a number from the air — they run your income through two filters: a FOIR limit and a tenure assumption. Once you understand both, you can estimate your own eligibility before you ever walk into a branch.
The FOIR filter
FOIR — Fixed Obligation to Income Ratio — is the share of your monthly income a bank will let go toward all loan EMIs combined. Most lenders cap it around 50% of net (take-home) income, stretching to 60–65% for high earners. So if you take home ₹1,00,000 a month and have no other EMIs, the bank assumes you can afford up to about ₹50,000 as a home loan EMI.
Any existing EMIs — car loan, personal loan, even a large credit-card minimum — come straight off that budget. Two borrowers with identical salaries can qualify for very different loan amounts purely because one is already servicing debt.
From affordable EMI to loan amount
Once the bank knows your affordable EMI, it works the EMI formula backwards to find the largest loan that produces that EMI at the current rate over the chosen tenure:
A ₹50,000 affordable EMI at 8.5% over 20 years supports a loan of roughly ₹57,60,000. Stretch the tenure to 30 years and the same EMI supports about ₹65,00,000 — longer tenure, bigger eligible loan, but far more total interest. The affordability calculator does this calculation instantly.
A quick rule of thumb
As a rough guide, Indian banks sanction home loans of around 60 times your net monthly income, give or take depending on tenure, rate and existing obligations. On a ₹1,00,000 monthly take-home, that is roughly ₹60,00,000. Treat this as a ceiling estimate, not a target — borrowing the maximum leaves no margin for rate rises.
What raises or lowers your eligibility
Beyond income, several factors move the number: a co-applicant's income can be added to yours, often dramatically increasing eligibility (see joint home loans); a strong CIBIL score earns a lower rate, which raises the loan a given EMI can support; age caps the tenure (the loan must usually finish before retirement); and a larger down payment reduces how much you need to borrow in the first place.
The honest takeaway
Your eligibility is essentially your affordable EMI — set by FOIR against your income, minus existing debts — converted into a loan amount via the EMI formula. Before applying, clear small EMIs to free up FOIR headroom, and decide your tenure deliberately: a longer one unlocks a bigger loan but quietly multiplies the interest. Estimate your own number first with the affordability calculator so you negotiate from a position of knowledge.