Free guide · Queensland · checked 10 September 2026
How do I apply for a rental when I’m self-employed?
Strong business, messy paperwork. A leasing team isn’t going to reconstruct your income from tax returns, activity statements and transaction histories, and in our experience the self-employed applicants who miss out are rarely the ones who earn too little. They’re the ones who handed over a pile.
Try this now
Run the rent-to-income check →Add every income source and generate the one-page income summary for your pack.
The short answer: get your accountant to write one page: who you are and what the business is, your income net of business expenses with every stream added into a single weekly figure, and a plain statement that you can meet the rent. Signed, dated, with a number to call. Put one recent tax return and a few months of business statements behind it, not three years of everything. Say in two sentences of the cover letter what you do and that the letter is attached. Casual, contract and multiple-job applicants have the same problem and the same fix: give the reader the number first, then the evidence.
What the assessor is actually trying to find out
One number: what comes in, reliably, that the rent will come out of. For someone on a wage two payslips answer it in seconds. For someone running a business the honest answer is spread across tax returns, activity statements, distributions and transaction histories. The person reading applications is not an accountant, has not got time to be one, and will not reconstruct your finances from raw records. In our experience the self-employed applicants who miss out are rarely the ones who earn too little. They're the ones who handed over a pile.
There's a second reader too. In our experience an owner's landlord insurance generally wants evidence that the tenant's income was checked before they were approved, and insurer guidance names the accountant's letter and ABN details as the recognised form of that evidence for self-employed tenants. Your application file may one day be an insurance document. Give the agent something an insurer would recognise and you are not only easier to approve; you are safer to approve.
The one document that does the job
A letter from your accountant, on their letterhead, that says in plain words what you earn and that you can meet the rent. In our experience it is the single most effective thing a self-employed applicant can attach. What it should contain:
Who you are and what you run. Your name, the trading name and ABN, how long it has operated. If there are several entities (two businesses, a trust, a company), list them once, here.
Your income, net of business expenses. The figure that matters is what you actually draw, not the business's turnover. A business can gross a great deal and leave its owner with far less. State the take-home figure as a weekly or monthly amount.
All the streams, added up. Drawings, dividends, trust distributions, a part-time contract, rental income, super, or whatever applies, combined into one average weekly figure. This is the sentence that turns seven documents into one number.
A plain statement of capacity. “In my professional opinion [name] has the capacity to meet rent of $[X] per week consistently.” Some accountants will only confirm income rather than opine on capacity; either is useful. Ask for the stronger wording and take what they'll give.
Signed and dated, with a phone number. A reference that can be verified by a call is worth more than one that can't.
Give your accountant the rent figure and the property before you ask. A letter written for a specific application reads better than a generic one, and it lets them put the exact number in.
What to attach behind it
The letter is the front page. The records are the appendix. Behind it, in this order, attach what supports the letter's figure and nothing that doesn't:
Your most recent tax return or notice of assessment. One, not three.
Business bank statements for the last few months, showing the income arriving, with unrelated transactions redacted.
Personal savings, if you have a buffer. A balance answers the question irregular income raises.
ABN lookup printout, if the business is newer than two years. It shows the registration date without anybody having to search.
Leave out the BAS statements, the trust deed, the depreciation schedule and the second and third year of returns unless you're asked. They answer questions nobody is asking, and they make the pack longer to skim at the moment length is a cost.
If the business is new
Under a year of trading is the hard case, because there's no return to point at. The letter still works (it can state current monthly drawings and the contracts or clients behind them), but it needs company. In our experience what carries a new-business application is evidence from another direction: a strong rental ledger from where you are now, a savings balance that would cover several months of rent, a signed contract with a client showing committed income, or a co-applicant on a wage. Say plainly in the cover letter that the business is new and here is what stands behind it. Left unsaid, “new business” reads as “unknown”; said, it reads as a plan.
Casual, contract and multiple jobs
The same problem in a different shape: the income is real but it doesn't arrive as a neat fortnightly figure. In our experience the fix is the same: give the reader the number, then the evidence.
Casual on a roster: payslips for three months rather than two, so the average is visible, plus a one-line note of your average weekly hours. If your employer will write a short letter confirming ongoing engagement and typical hours, that's the accountant's letter equivalent.
Contract work: the current contract (start and end dates, rate), plus payslips or invoices paid. If the contract ends inside the lease term, say what follows it.
Two or three jobs: payslips from each, and a single line in the cover letter adding them up: “Combined, about $[X] a week.” Don't make the reader do the sum.
What not to do
Don't attach turnover as if it were income. A business bank statement showing large deposits and equally large outgoings reads as churn, not capacity. The net figure is the honest one and the useful one.
Don't send it all. Completeness means the four questions are answered, not that every document you own is attached.
Don't offer more rent to compensate for a complicated income story. Rent bidding is prohibited in Queensland, and it makes the affordability question worse, not better.
Don't leave the story to be guessed. Two sentences in the cover letter (what you do, roughly what it brings in, and that your accountant's letter is attached) do more than any document on its own.
Self-employed is exactly when a second read pays.
The free affordability check shows where your number lands. Application Assist reads the whole pack (the accountant’s letter, the income summary, the story the statements tell) and tells you what an agent will make of it, from $199.
Get my application reviewed (from $199) Run the affordability check