No deposit means one very specific thing: you finance the full price of the vehicle instead of putting part of it in at the start. You drive away without touching your savings. It is an ordinary transaction and it is assessed as one.
It also has an arithmetic consequence worth stating out loud before anything else, because it is the part almost nobody writes in an advert.
The only sum you need to understand
If you put nothing down, you finance more money. And financing more money always means one of two things: a higher monthly payment, or a longer term with a higher total cost. There is no third option, however good an offer sounds.
That does not make it a bad choice. For plenty of people it makes complete sense: if your current car is finished, or you need one for work, waiting six months to save a deposit costs you more than financing it. The sensible question is not deposit or no deposit — it is which monthly payment genuinely fits your month.
A small deposit already moves the number
It is not a choice between a full deposit and nothing. Any amount you can put in lowers the payment, and your current car counts as a deposit if you hand it over. That is the only reason we will ever suggest it.
How a finance case is assessed, step by step
The order matters, because trying to get approved before there is a specific car goes nowhere.
- You choose the vehicle. Finance is always assessed against a specific car: the amount, the car's age and the term all affect what each lender can offer.
- You describe your situation. Income, type of contract or self-employment, whether you are putting anything in, and what payment is genuinely comfortable. The clearer you are, the fewer rounds it takes.
- The file is prepared and submitted to the lenders. A response normally comes back quickly.
- You get the terms in writing: payment, term, interest and total cost. You read them at your own pace and decide. If it does not convince you, nothing happens.
What documents you will be asked for
Every lender has its own list, but in practice it is nearly always this:
- Valid DNI or NIE.
- Proof of income: payslips if you are employed, quarterly returns and your annual tax return if you are self-employed.
- A recent bank statement.
- Your pension certificate, if you are retired.
You need none of this to ask for a rough idea. It comes in once a car has been chosen and you want the case assessed properly.
No payslip is not the same as no income
This is the most common confusion, and the one that makes people rule themselves out unnecessarily. Self-employed people, pensioners and anyone paid another way can finance a car by evidencing that income: quarterly returns, the annual tax return, a pension certificate, or bank movements showing money arriving regularly.
What no lender will accept is income that cannot be documented at all. There is no clever lender for that case: no paper, no file.
And if you are on a credit register
This is where the most smoke gets sold, so we will be blunt. Being listed on a defaulters' register such as ASNEF makes the transaction considerably harder and, in plenty of cases, impossible. Some lenders will look at small or already-settled debts, and some situations will not go through by any route.
What can be done is to submit it and give you an answer quickly. If it is a no, it is far better to know in days than after three weeks of silence. All of this is set out case by case on the no-deposit finance page.
What you will not read here, and why
You will not find a monthly payment, an interest rate or an APR anywhere in this guide. Not for lack of willingness: they depend on the vehicle, the amount, the term and your profile, and a figure put here as bait would not be the one you ended up signing. We would rather the first number you see is the real one.
Anyone who guarantees you an approval in advance, without having seen a single document of yours, either does not know what they are talking about or is counting on you for something else.
The decision always belongs to the lender, not to the dealer. What does depend on us is presenting the case properly and telling you quickly whether it works.
The deposit already parked outside your house
If you have a car, you already have a potential deposit. We value it free and with no obligation, and its value comes off the price of whatever you take: you finance less and the payment drops. How that value is worked out is in the guide on part-exchanging your car.
One more thing worth knowing when you compare: financed or not, the transfer and the warranty are included in the published price. The price does not change with how you pay.
