London commercial mortgage rates in 2026: what the eight products actually price at

Borrowers usually arrive with one question: what is the rate. It is the right question, but the honest answer is a band rather than a number, because commercial mortgage pricing is set case by case rather than off a published rate card. What we can do is tell you exactly which band your deal sits in before anyone spends money on a valuer.

The eight products and where they price

These are the mid-2026 bands we quote from across a 90+ lender panel.

Product	Rate band (pa)	Typical LTV
Owner-occupier	6.0 to 7.5%	up to 75%
Commercial investment	6.5 to 8.5%	65 to 75%
Semi-commercial	6.5 to 8.5%	up to 75%
Portfolio refinance	6.5 to 8.0%	60 to 70%
Trading business	7.0 to 9.0%	60 to 70%
Commercial remortgage	6.0 to 8.0%	65 to 75%
Commercial bridging	8.5 to 11.0% (0.70 to 0.95% pm)	65 to 70%
Second-charge commercial	8.5 to 11.0%	combined to 75%

Owner-occupier prices best because the lender is underwriting a trading business it can read in filed accounts, secured on premises that business needs to operate from. Trading business prices worst of the standard products because the security is an operating concern as much as a building, and a care home or a pub with a bad year is a very different asset from a care home or a pub with a good one.

What actually moves your number inside the band

Five things, roughly in order of weight.

Cover. EBITDA cover of 1.3 to 1.5 times on owner-occupier, ICR of 140 to 160% stressed above the pay rate on investment. A case that clears cover with room to spare gets the bottom of the band. A case that clears at exactly the floor gets the top, if it gets terms at all.

Leverage. The step from 65% to 75% LTV is usually worth 25 to 75 basis points, and on some desks it moves you to a different product entirely.

Unexpired term. On an investment case this is the single most underrated driver. A building with ten years left on its main lease and a tenant with filed accounts prices very differently from the same building with two years left and a break clause in eighteen months.

Sector. Office, industrial and Class E retail are mainstream. Care, licensed trade, forecourt, nursery and hotel are specialist, which means a smaller pool of desks and wider pricing.

Who you take it to. High-street commercial desks (NatWest, Lloyds, Barclays, Santander) price keenest on prime and decline anything their credit policy reads as unusual. Challengers (Allica, Shawbrook, Hampshire Trust Bank, Cambridge and Counties, YBS Commercial, Aldermore) price 25 to 75 basis points wider on prime and materially better on everything the high street turns down. Specialists (InterBay Commercial, LendInvest, Cynergy Bank, Together) sit further out and fund cases nobody else will.

Fixed or variable

Most London commercial mortgages are written on a five-year fix inside a 15 to 25 year amortisation. Two-year fixes exist, but the differential is narrow and you will be back in the market in 24 months paying fees again.

The test for a tracker is not whether you think rates will fall. It is whether your cover can absorb a 200 basis point upward move without breaching a covenant. If it can, a tracker is defensible. If it cannot, fix and stop thinking about it.

Why the floor is 6.0%

Because that is where the market actually is. Commercial mortgage pricing sits above residential for three structural reasons: residential lending is standardised and fiercely competitive, residential collateral is easier to value and resell, and commercial underwriting is written per asset from a smaller lender pool. Anyone quoting a London commercial mortgage below 6.0% pa in mid-2026 is either quoting a headline that will not survive credit committee or quoting a different product.

What to do with this

Take your existing quote and check three things against it: which band it sits in, what cover ratio it was priced on, and whether the desk that quoted it is the right category of lender for the case. If your bank quoted you and your case is anything other than prime, there is usually a better answer, and it is generally not another high-street desk.

Send us the property, the leverage you are aiming for and a short trading or rental note. Indicative terms from three to five lenders come back within 48 hours of a complete enquiry.