The ICO mortgage guarantee in 2026: extended to December 2027, with new income limits by province
Spain's ICO guarantee for first homes restarted on 19 June 2026 after six months on hold: extension to 31-12-2027, income limits by province of up to €63,000 and a €150,000 wealth cap. Updated requirements.
By José Perales · Published 18 July 2026 · Methodology · Financial disclaimer
If you asked about the ICO guarantee this spring and your bank told you it was “on hold”, they weren’t lying: the programme spent half a year paused. The original deadline to sign guaranteed mortgages expired on 31 December 2025 and, until the Housing Ministry and the ICO signed the extension, banks could pre-approve loans but not formalise new guarantees. That’s history now — and what came back is more generous than what went away.
The essentials: valid until 31 December 2027
The addendum was signed on 27 May 2026, the new criteria have been operative since 19 June 2026, and the BOE publication followed on 2 July (BOE-A-2026-14404). The result:
- Deadline: you can sign your guaranteed mortgage until 31-12-2027 (or until the €2.5 billion line runs out — only around 10% had been used by the end of 2025).
- The guarantee itself is unchanged: the State covers up to 20% of the loan before your bank (25% if the home has an energy rating of D or better), free of charge, for 10 years. With that cover the bank can finance up to 100% of the lower of price and valuation.
The big change: income limits by province
Until June a single threshold applied nationwide: 4.5 times the IPREM index. The extension sets it by province, recognising that buying in Madrid is not the same as buying in Cuenca:
| Gross annual income limit (per buyer) | Provinces |
|---|---|
| €37,800 (4.5 × IPREM) | General rule |
| €46,200 (5.5 × IPREM) | Las Palmas, Navarre, Cantabria, Alicante, Cádiz, Pontevedra, Valencia, Zaragoza, Ceuta and Melilla |
| €54,600 (6.5 × IPREM) | Álava |
| €63,000 (7.5 × IPREM) | Madrid, Barcelona, Girona, Málaga, Balearic Islands, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa |
Add €2,520 per dependent minor (0.3 × IPREM), and single-parent families can raise their limit by 70%. If two of you buy, the limit applies to the sum: your joint income cannot exceed the sum of each buyer’s limit — in practice, double your province’s threshold.
The other change is the raised wealth cap: from €100,000 to €150,000 of net wealth per buyer, declared via a responsible statement. The idea is the same as always: the guarantee is for people who can afford a monthly payment but haven’t been able to save the deposit — not for those who already have the money.
The rest of the requirements, briefly
- Age: up to 35 (not having turned 36 at signing) — or being a family with dependent minors, with no age limit. Two buyers maximum.
- First home, habitual and permanent, in Spain; you can’t already own another home (with very limited exceptions).
- Legal residence in Spain for the 2 years before applying.
- No defaults in the Bank of Spain’s credit register (CIRBE).
- Price cap by region: €325,000 in Madrid; €300,000 in Catalonia, the Basque Country and Navarre; €275,000 in Aragon and the Balearics; €225,000 in Andalusia; €200,000 in Extremadura; €250,000 elsewhere (official ICO table).
- The loan must exceed 80% financing — 75% if the home has an energy rating of D or better — (that’s what the guarantee is for) and run for at least 5 years.
How to apply (and why it was loosened)
You don’t apply to the ICO: you apply at the bank. More than 50 lenders have joined — from Santander, BBVA, CaixaBank or Sabadell to online banks and dozens of rural savings banks; the live list is at ico.es. You request the mortgage, and the bank processes the guarantee within the operation.
Why so much generosity in the extension? Because take-up was slow: around 10,400 operations had been guaranteed by the end of 2025 according to ministry figures reported in the press — roughly 21% of the initial 50,000-home target. The single national income threshold excluded precisely the buyers in the most expensive provinces, who most need the 100%.
Don’t let the guarantee cloud the numbers
Three things the guarantee does not do: it gives you nothing for free (if you stop paying, the bank forecloses and the State will claim back whatever it pays on your behalf), it doesn’t remove the debt-to-income ceiling — the bank will still require the payment to stay under ~35% of your income, now on a bigger loan — and it doesn’t cover the taxes and costs of the purchase, that extra 8-14% you can quantify with the purchase costs calculator.
The full mechanics of the programme, young-buyer mortgages and the regional alternatives are in the ICO guarantee guide — and if the ICO doesn’t fit your case, there are more routes: every real path to a no-deposit mortgage in 2026.