RELOVA JOURNAL

Blog/Published April 10, 2026 · Updated September 19, 2026

How to Rent an Apartment as a Foreigner: What Landlords Actually Want in 2026

By Anna Moore

What landlords in Germany, Portugal, the UAE, and Thailand want from foreign tenants: deposits, guarantors, and the platforms that work.

Renting as a foreigner is, in practice, a credit interview without a credit score. A landlord anywhere in the world is trying to answer one question — will this person pay reliably and not trash the place — and a local tenant answers it implicitly through a credit history, local references, and social proof a landlord half-recognizes. A foreign applicant has none of that built in, so the entire negotiation becomes about substituting other forms of proof: documentation, larger deposits, and sometimes a guarantor who can vouch for you in the local language and legal system.

Germany: the most paperwork-heavy market

German landlords are famous, even among Germans, for wanting exhaustive documentation before handing over keys. Expect to provide a SCHUFA credit report — Germany's dominant credit bureau — alongside proof of steady income, and be prepared for a security deposit (Kaution) of up to three months' rent, held in a dedicated, interest-bearing account as required by German tenancy law. The structural problem for new arrivals is that SCHUFA scores are built from German financial history, so anyone without a German bank account, phone contract, or prior German rental history effectively starts with a blank or thin file that reads as risky even if their actual finances are strong. The workaround most foreign tenants use is to lean hard on proof of foreign income stability — employment contracts, payslips, bank statements showing consistent inflows — and, where landlords legally permit it, offer additional months of rent upfront in place of a credit history they can't yet build.

Portugal: fast markets, straightforward math

Portuguese landlords, particularly in the competitive Lisbon market, typically ask for two to three months' deposit plus proof of income around three times the monthly rent — a simple, widely applied affordability ratio rather than Germany's credit-bureau-driven approach. The upside for foreigners is that this system is more legible: if your income clears the 3x threshold and you can document it, Portuguese landlords are generally comfortable renting to non-residents, especially with a signed lease serving double duty as housing proof for D7 or D8 visa applications. The trade-off is speed — good apartments in Lisbon and increasingly Porto move fast, and hesitation over a viewing can cost you the unit to a same-day competing offer.

The UAE: a corporate-style process built around cheques

Dubai and the wider UAE run on a distinctly different mechanism: post-dated cheques, commonly covering one to three months of rent per cheque, deposited with the landlord or agent as scheduled payment guarantees rather than a single upfront cash deposit in the Western sense. This system assumes you have a UAE bank account capable of issuing cheques that will clear on the scheduled date, which in turn generally requires either an active employment visa or another form of UAE residency already in hand — meaning the rental process and the visa process are often intertwined rather than sequential. Confirm banking compatibility and cheque mechanics with your agent early, since this is one of the more unfamiliar systems for tenants coming from cheque-light markets like much of Europe or Asia.

Thailand: lighter paperwork, less formal credit infrastructure

Thailand's rental market runs with comparatively minimal bureaucracy — a one to two months' deposit is standard in most cities, and formal credit checks are rare to nonexistent for foreign tenants, since Thailand's credit infrastructure doesn't extend meaningfully to non-residents anyway. The trade-off for that lighter paperwork is that landlords sometimes compensate for the lack of a credit check by asking for longer prepaid rent upfront, particularly for shorter lease terms or condo units marketed toward the expat and tourist-adjacent market.

Building your document file before you view anything

Across every market above, the practical preparation is the same: assemble employment contracts, recent tax returns, bank statements showing steady inflows, and prior landlord references translated where useful, before you start viewing apartments rather than after a landlord asks. Use the discipline outlined in finding housing before arrival — live video tours, timestamped photos, and verified owner identification — to filter out scam listings before you wire any money, and budget realistically using relocation cost planning rather than the lowest number an influencer mentioned. Platforms worth prioritizing because they carry either escrow protection or verified-listing policies include Idealista (dominant across Iberia), HousingAnywhere, Spotahome, and Uniplaces — all of which appear repeatedly in expat rental workflows precisely because they reduce scam exposure compared to open classifieds. If a year-long lease feels premature given your visa or income status, a furnished two-to-three-month arrangement can buy time to house-hunt properly from inside the country rather than sight-unseen from abroad — worth the modest premium over a full annual lease. For country-specific housing mechanics, Germany move basics covers the Kaution and Schufa system in more depth.

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