Bridging Loan Calculator — Rate, Fees, LTV & Total Cost

A bridging loan is short-term, interest-only finance secured against property, used to cover a gap a mortgage can't close in time — an auction purchase with a 28-day deadline, a chain that would otherwise collapse, a property that won't qualify for a mortgage until refurbished, or buying the next place before the current one has sold. It is priced and underwritten differently from a mortgage: monthly, not annual, interest; a term measured in months; and an "exit" — a mortgage, a sale, or another facility — that has to be credible before most lenders proceed at all. This calculator works out the loan-to-value, the interest under each of the three ways bridging interest is charged, every fee, the total cost, and a monthly-equivalent figure.

Retained, serviced or rolled-up: three ways to pay the interest

Bridging is interest-only throughout — none of the loan amortises monthly — so the real choice is when the interest is settled:

• Retained. The lender works out the whole term's interest up front and deducts it from the loan at completion — nothing is paid monthly, the borrower simply receives a smaller net advance. Most BTL bridging defaults to this, since there's no rental income yet to service monthly interest.
• Serviced. Interest is paid monthly, like an interest-only mortgage, and the balance stays flat until redemption — needs an income to cover it, but keeps more of the gross loan as cash on day one.
• Rolled up (deferred). Nothing is paid monthly; interest compounds onto the balance each month, and principal plus accumulated interest are repaid together at the end — which costs more in total interest than the same rate charged simply over the same term.

The calculator always shows a "net advance if retained" figure alongside whichever method is selected, so a rolled-up or serviced quote can still be compared against what a retained structure on the same numbers would actually pay out.

What the fees actually add up to

The rate is rarely the whole cost. On top of it: an arrangement fee, typically 1–2% of the loan and usually added to the balance; an exit fee, historically 1–2% but increasingly waived by lenders competing on headline cost; a valuation fee, commonly £500–£1,500 depending on the property; and legal fees, often £2,000 or more once the borrower's own solicitor and the lender's solicitor (which the borrower typically pays for on a bridge) are both counted. None of these are optional extras — the calculator adds all four into "total cost" alongside the interest.

Regulated vs unregulated — and why most buy-to-let bridging is unregulated

A bridging loan is a regulated mortgage contract under the FCA Handbook when it is secured by a mortgage on UK land, at least 40% of which is used, or intended to be used, as a dwelling by the borrower or by someone related to them — and it isn't one of the specific products the FCA excludes by name, which includes second-charge bridging structured as a "limited payment second charge bridging loan" and investment-property loans. In plain terms: bridging against a home the borrower or a close family member lives in, or is about to live in, is usually regulated — FCA affordability and suitability checks, a documented recommendation, and a route to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Buy-to-let and other investment-property bridging is normally unregulated: the security is a rental or commercial asset, not anyone's home, so the borrower is treated as a business customer, underwriting is asset-led rather than income-based, and there is no MCOB test or Ombudsman route. That is faster and more flexible — unregulated bridges routinely complete in days — but the residential-mortgage protections a landlord may be used to simply do not apply here.

The 75% line

Most first-charge bridging lenders work to a loan-to-value ceiling of around 75%: below it, pricing sits in the mainstream bands most lenders quote; above it, the pool of lenders willing to proceed shrinks sharply, and what remains is priced as specialist or structured as a second charge behind an existing mortgage. This calculator flags the loan as soon as it crosses 75% LTV so the gap between "normal bridging pricing" and "this needs a specialist" is visible before an application goes in, rather than after.

Worked example

£200,000 borrowed against a £300,000 property (66.7% LTV) at 0.75% a month for 12 months, retained, with a 2% arrangement fee, no exit fee, a £750 valuation and £1,500 legal costs: retained interest is £200,000 × 0.75% × 12 = £18,000, fees add £6,250, for a total cost of £24,250 — a monthly-equivalent of about £2,021 — and a net advance, after the retained interest and the arrangement fee come off the loan at completion, of £178,000. That last figure, not the headline £200,000, is what actually lands in the borrower's account.

Rates, fee ranges and interest-method definitions: FD Commercial, "Bridging Loan Rates UK 2026: Monthly Rates" (rates reviewed 31 Aug 2026) and money.co.uk, "Best Bridging Loan Rates" (last updated 7 Aug 2026), both read 13 Sep 2026. Regulated/unregulated boundary: Commercial Trust, "Regulated vs unregulated bridging loans" (last updated 5 Jun 2026), and the underlying legal test, FCA Handbook glossary, "regulated mortgage contract" (G1321), both read 13 Sep 2026. Figures above are market ranges from lender-facing sources, not gov.uk — bridging pricing is not a statutory rate. The "annualised cost" is illustrative only, not a regulated APR/APRC. General information, not advice; get a bridging loan illustration from a lender or broker before relying on any figure here.