State guarantee (valtiontakaus)

The state guarantee (valtiontakaus) is collateral provided by the state for your home loan, and it is free for you. With it, the bank can grant 85% of the home’s acquisition price with an ordinary loan and 90% with an ASP loan, so you need less of your own money or other collateral. The state’s liability is at most 25% of the guaranteed loan principal, but no more than 60,000 euros.

In practice, the guarantee reduces the need for a deposit (käsiraha), meaning your own cash. If you buy as an ASP saver, you reach 90% of the acquisition price, so 10% is left to finance yourself. This is useful together with the loan cap (lainakatto): the loan cap limits how large a share of the purchase price you can borrow, and the state guarantee is one way to meet the required collateral without an extra pledge.

The guarantee is additional collateral for the bank, and it does not reduce the loan itself or the interest. You pay the loan and the interest yourself as normal. If your ability to pay fails and the guarantee has to be realised, the state compensates the bank for its share and recovers the paid sum back from you. Check your bank’s loan offer to see whether the guarantee has been taken into account and whether other collateral is needed alongside it.