How to Get a Letter of Employment for a Mortgage

A letter of employment helps mortgage lenders verify your job and current income. Providing this letter is a common requirement when applying for a mortgage.

When applying for a mortgage, lenders will ask you to verify various aspects of your financial profile. One of the most essential documents to show your lender is a letter of employment.

A letter of employment, also sometimes called a job letter or income verification letter, proves your employment status, shows what kind of work you do, and helps the lender confirm that you have reliable income to pay off your mortgage.

Requirements of a Letter of Employment

Put your company's letterhead at the top of the letter. The reason is to confirm the authenticity of the letter. That is, to ensure it's coming from your company.
Just below the company's letterhead, include only relevant company information such as:

Just below the company's letterhead, include only relevant company information such as:

Company's name
Company's address
Verifier's name
City, state, zip code

If you have access to the name and address of the third party requesting it, include it just before the salutation.
The body of the employment verification letter depends on what the third party wants to know. However, there is some general information in the body of the letter you need to include, such as:

Employment start date
Employee name
Job Title
Salary
Annual bonus amount

The last paragraph of an employment verification letter should include the contact information of the person in charge of checking the employee's information.

How to request an employment verification letter

If you're an employee looking to obtain your employment verification letter, start by:

Contacting your company's HR department to find out the process for requesting from them.
Follow the process in detail to ensure you're able to get the letter in time and in the correct format.

Here is a sample letter of employment

The need for a letter of employment is well known to employers, so most companies have an outline already on file and ready to use. If you work for a large company, the Human Resources department will be the ones to help you. If you work for a smaller company, you can go to your boss or supervisor.

While getting a letter of employment is pretty easy, you shouldn’t leave it to the last minute. However, you don’t want to have it too early either as they do have an expiry date with lenders. Th timeline will vary by lender but, generally speaking, you want your letter of employment to be no more than 60 days old to ensure the information is current.