Salary certificate for a bank loan or a visa: what Nepali banks and embassies ask for

A salary certificate is your employer’s word. Nobody approving a loan or a visa takes it alone. They set it beside two papers that come from someone else — the bank statement your salary lands in, and the tax office’s record — and check that all three tell one story.

A bank wants to know how much you can repay each month, and for how long. The salary sets the size of the instalment. The joining date and the type of job — permanent or contract — set how far ahead the bank trusts that income.

An embassy wants to know two things: that you can pay for the trip, and that you have a job to come back to. That is why visitor checklists ask how long you have worked there and, for Schengen countries, whether your leave is approved.

Behind the bank’s questions is a Nepal Rastra Bank rule. In December 2019, as ShareSansar reported it, the central bank told banks to class as ‘watchlist’ any personal term, home or hire-purchase loan whose repayments took more than 50% of the borrower’s gross income — and to fix that income only after checking its source and the tax clearance certificate. Later reports say the home-loan ratio was relaxed. Ask your bank which figure it uses now.

These are the lists on each bank’s own site, read on 28 October 2026. They do not agree, so read the list for the exact loan you want, not a general one.

No bank page we read prescribes a wording, and we know of no official form for private employers. What is checked is the content. Put it in this order:

• Letterhead, a reference number and the date of issue. NMB will not take a certificate older than three months, and the UK says not to use a letter issued more than a year before you apply. Get it issued in the month you submit.
• Who it is for, and why. “To whom it may concern” is normal. A line naming the purpose — “for a personal loan application to …”, “for a UK visit visa” — shows it was issued for this file.
• Your full name exactly as on your citizenship and passport, your designation and your department.
• Your joining date and the type of employment — permanent, contract or probation. Nabil’s home loan asks for permanent service, Global IME’s professional loan a year’s experience, Standard Chartered’s card two years’ service.
• Gross monthly salary, broken down: basic salary and each allowance, with the total in figures and in words.
• Every deduction: the Social Security Fund or provident fund, the Citizen Investment Trust if you pay into it, and income tax deducted at source (TDS).
• Net salary, and the account it is paid into. This is the line the bank checks against your statement.
• The employer’s PAN, and a sentence that tax is deducted at source and deposited.
• For a visa only: the leave approved, with dates, and that your post is held for you until you return.
• The signer’s signature, name, designation and phone number, and the company seal.

Every name, number and account below is invented. The salary figures are real arithmetic: a basic of Rs 70,000 and allowances of Rs 30,000, in the Social Security Fund, under the 2083/84 tax slabs.

The certificate is one sheet in a file. This is what the banks above list beside it:

• Bank statements, usually for six months — Nabil, NMB and Global IME all say six. They should show the salary arriving every month; Global IME says the statement should reflect the salary credited.
• Recent salary slips. NMB asks for the latest two, if you have them. The salary slip maker shows what a complete one carries.
• Your appointment letter or contract. Nepal Bank names it. It proves the joining date and the type of job the certificate claims.
• A tax record: a tax-paid receipt or a tax clearance certificate — Nabil, NMB and Nepal Bank all list one. If one employer’s salary is your only income, you can get the clearance online, with a QR code.
• Your PAN for larger loans: Nabil asks for it above Rs 25 lakh, Nepal Bank from Rs 25 lakh. Global IME asks for it for its professional loan.
• Citizenship and photographs, yours and any guarantor’s.

For a visit visa the letter does a different job: it shows you have a job to return to. These are three official lists, read on 28 October 2026. Each Schengen country sets its own, so read the one for the country you apply to.

• United Kingdom, visit visa. The Home Office’s guide to supporting documents (updated 8 October 2026) asks for a letter from your employer on headed paper, giving your role, your salary and how long you have worked there. It says not to use bank statements or letters issued more than a year before you apply.
• Sweden, Schengen visit visa. The embassy’s tourist checklist for Nepal asks employees for a letter stating monthly salary, length of employment and approval of leave. It wants six months of bank statements, stamped and signed by the bank, and names property papers (lalpurja) and tax clearance as further proof. It also says it will not treat an affidavit as evidence.
• Netherlands, Schengen visit visa. The VFS checklist for Nepal (a 2022 file) asks employees for the same three things: monthly salary, length of employment and approval of leave.
• Australia, student visa. The next section. It is the one where a salary certificate is not enough.

When a parent pays for study abroad, the salary certificate is in the parent’s name, from the parent’s employer. Everything above still applies. The file must also show who the sponsor is to you, and that the money is really theirs and really earned.

Australia is where people get caught. Home Affairs lets you show financial capacity in one of two ways. The first is funds: deposits, loans or scholarships. The second is income: your parents or partner earned at least AUD 87,856 in the 12 months before you apply, or AUD 102,500 if family members come with you. Both parents’ incomes can be added together. Whether you must attach this evidence depends on the Document Checklist Tool for your passport and your provider, and Home Affairs can ask for it later even when the tool does not. For the income route it wants official government documents, such as tax assessments less than 12 months old — and it says it will not accept bank statements or direct evidence from an employer. A salary certificate cannot carry that route; the tax record has to.

On the funds route the salary certificate earns its place. Home Affairs asks you to explain how the money in the account was built up, and names regular payments such as salary income as the history it wants. It says a bank balance certificate for a single day does not show that.

• The parent’s tax clearance certificate, in the parent’s PAN, one for each fiscal year the file covers. In Nepal, this is the government’s own record of tax paid: see how to get one online.
• The parent’s recent bank statements, showing the salary arriving month by month.
• A relationship certificate linking you to the parent. Home Affairs asks for evidence of the relationship and the sponsor’s identity documents. The relationship certificate tool prepares the English version.
• A sponsor affidavit, if the university or agent asks for one — the sponsor affidavit maker writes it. It is a promise, not proof, so it never replaces the papers above.
• The NOC from the Ministry of Education, which the bank needs before it will send the fees abroad.
• Your statement of purpose, which must name the same sponsor and the same figures.

• The figure does not match the deposits. The certificate gives gross salary, the statement shows net, and nothing explains the gap. State both, with every deduction between them.
• A round salary the statement does not show. Rs 1,00,000 on paper and Rs 91,403 arriving each month is fine when the certificate shows the deductions. Rs 1,00,000 on paper and irregular credits — or none, because the salary is paid in cash — is not. A salary paid in cash is very hard to prove.
• A pay rise just before the application, with no payslip or letter behind it.
• No tax on a salary that should be taxed. Not every salary is taxed: under the 2083/84 slabs a Social Security Fund member pays nothing on the first Rs 10 lakh of taxable income a year. Above that, a certificate showing no TDS — or a tax clearance that disagrees with it — contradicts itself. Check with the income tax calculator.
• Unsigned, unsealed, or signed by the wrong person — a photocopied signature, no seal, or the applicant signing their own.
• Too old. NMB’s limit is three months. Issue it in the month you submit.
• Names and dates that disagree. A name spelt differently from the passport, or a joining date that differs from the appointment letter or the experience certificate.
• The wrong kind of job for the loan. Contract or probation staff where the bank asks for permanent service, as Nabil’s home loan does, or less than a year’s experience for Global IME’s professional loan.
• An employer nobody can reach. Banks and embassies can ring the number on the letterhead. A personal mobile that is never answered, or a company with no PAN, costs the letter its value.
• Altered after signing. Hand corrections, correction fluid, or one figure in a different font.