CPA Letter for Mortgage: What to Sign and a Safe Template

A CPA letter for a mortgage is a short letter from the borrower's accountant that a lender uses to confirm facts about a self-employed borrower: that the business exists, who owns it, and which tax returns the CPA prepared. A CPA can safely confirm facts from work already done. They should refuse to vouch for future income, solvency, or whether a withdrawal will hurt the business — that last one is the lender's own job under Fannie Mae's rules.

Searches for "cpa letter for mortgage" are up 319% year over year.¹ The pattern behind that spike is almost always the same: a loan officer asks a self-employed borrower for "a CPA letter," the borrower forwards the request to the preparer who did their return, and that preparer has minutes, not days, to judge what they can put their license behind.

Run a tax or bookkeeping practice? Send the consent form, the lender's exact wording, and the K-1 as one DokuTrak request instead of three separate emails.

What lenders actually need from a CPA letter

Lenders mostly need three facts: the business exists, the borrower owns at least 25%, and the returns are real. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac let the lender get those from the returns, transcripts, a licensing body, or the preparer. The judgment on business cash flow stays with the lender, not the CPA. (The letter is separate from the rest of the borrower's file — see the mortgage documents checklist, or send the free mortgage application checklist tool, for the income, asset, and ID paperwork a lender asks for directly.)

Fannie Mae treats anyone with "a 25% or greater ownership interest in a business" as self-employed.² When a borrower plans to pull money from that business for a down payment, closing costs, or reserves, Fannie Mae's rule puts the analysis on the lender's side of the table: "the lender must perform a business cash flow analysis to confirm that the withdrawal of funds for this transaction will not have a negative impact on the business."² Nothing in that rule asks the CPA to sign off on it.

Fannie Mae separately requires the lender to verify a self-employed borrower's business exists within 120 days of the note date, "from a third party, such as a CPA, regulatory agency, or the applicable licensing bureau, if possible."³ A CPA is one option among several, not the only one — a phone listing and address can do the same job.

Freddie Mac's rule reads the same way. Ownership percentage comes from the business returns, K-1s, or Form 1125-E; "if these documents do not provide this information, the ownership interest percentage must be verified with a letter from the accountant for the business or similar documents."⁴ For confirming the business exists at all, Freddie Mac lists the "preparer of the tax returns for the business (e.g., accountant), provided the preparer has an arm's length relationship with the borrower" as one alternative source among several — not a requirement.⁴ And on the down-payment withdrawal, Freddie Mac puts the call where Fannie Mae does: the lender "must determine that the withdrawal of the funds will not have a detrimental effect on the business."⁴

That last row is the one nobody on the first page of search results says plainly: the CPA is not supposed to bless the withdrawal. The lender is.

What a CPA can confirm, and what to refuse

Confirm facts you know from your own engagement. Refuse anything that is a forecast, an opinion on solvency, or someone else's analysis.

The clearest guidance on this split comes from CPAI, the AICPA's professional-liability insurance program underwritten by CNA, which reviews exactly this kind of request from member firms. Its position is blunt: "The best response, from a risk control perspective, is no response."⁵ Short of declining outright, CPAI lays out what a CPA can confirm safely, and what crosses into assurance a tax engagement never covered.

The solvency line isn't a judgment call CPAI is making up. AICPA attestation standards flatly prohibit it: a CPA "may not provide any level of assurance that an entity is, or will continue to be, solvent," under AT-C Section 105, Interpretation No. 1.⁶ And before confirming anything drawn from a tax return, the consent has to be real consent — IRC §7216 "imposes criminal penalties and fines on any return preparer who discloses taxpayer information without specific written consent from the client."⁷

CPA letter template (safe language)

A safe letter states facts only, requires written consent up front, and disclaims any assurance beyond what the engagement covered. Adapt the bracketed fields and keep the disclaimer sentence intact — it is the line that keeps the letter inside what a tax engagement, not an attestation engagement, can support.

[Firm letterhead]
[Date]

[Client name]
[Client address]

At your request and with your written consent dated [date], we confirm the following:

- We prepared the federal income tax returns for [client/business name] for tax
  years [YYYY] and [YYYY], filed [date] and [date].
- The business name and EIN shown on those returns are [business name], EIN [XX-XXXXXXX].
- Ownership percentage, as reported on Schedule K-1, is [XX]%.
- We have prepared this client's returns since [year].

We have not audited, reviewed, or compiled any financial statements of [business
name] and express no opinion or other assurance on them, on [business name]'s
ability to continue operating, or on the effect of any withdrawal of funds.

The information above is taken from returns prepared from information you
furnished; we did not audit or otherwise verify it. Our work is not intended to
benefit or influence any third party, either to obtain credit or for any other
purpose.[^5]

[Signature]
[Name, CPA license number, state]

This letter is addressed to the client, not the lender — CPAI's preferred structure, since it keeps the firm's obligation to the client, not to a lender the firm has no relationship with. If the lender insists on confirming the letter by phone, the rule is the same one that governs the letter itself: confirm only what's written in it, nothing more.

Before you sign: what to get from the client

Collect these before you draft anything:

1. Written consent that complies with IRC §7216, naming the lender and exactly which information you're allowed to disclose.
2. The lender's exact wording request, in writing — not a verbal summary from the borrower.
3. Which tax years and which entity the letter covers.
4. The ownership percentage source — pull it from the K-1, not from memory.
5. The closing date, so you know how much time you actually have.
6. Your fee for the letter, agreed with the client in advance, since it's work outside the original tax-preparation engagement.

"Comfort letter" is the wrong word

Clients and loan officers often ask for a "comfort letter." The term is borrowed from securities work — it refers to the letters auditors give underwriters in a securities offering, governed by PCAOB auditing standard AS 6101.⁸ That is a different kind of engagement, with different standards, than anything a tax-return preparer signs for a mortgage file. Using "verification letter" or "letter confirming return preparation" with the client avoids the confusion — and avoids implying a level of assurance the engagement never provided.

If your CPA won't sign (for borrowers)

Ask the lender which fact they need. Most can be shown another way.

• IRS transcripts. A signed Form 4506-C routes through the IRS Income Verification Express Service (IVES), which "lets you authorize banks and lenders to access your tax records when you apply for a mortgage."⁹ This sidesteps the CPA entirely for income and filing status.
• EIN confirmation letter. An IRS-issued EIN confirmation letter is one of the documents Fannie Mae accepts to show how long a business has existed.
• Business license or articles of incorporation. Both appear on Fannie Mae's list of acceptable ownership-history documents.
• Recent business bank statements. Freddie Mac lists these among its alternative sources for confirming a business exists.
• A separate engagement. If the lender genuinely needs assurance beyond facts — on solvency or future cash flow — that is an attest engagement, not a quick letter, and it should be priced and scoped as one.

If you're the loan officer, ask for the consent, the CPA's details, and the business bank statements in the same request — see DokuTrak for mortgage brokers. And if you're the borrower: forward this page to your CPA before the call where they ask what they're signing.

LO → CPA request email: "We need three things to document [borrower]'s self-employment: (1) confirmation that you prepared the [YYYY]/[YYYY] returns, (2) the business name and EIN as shown on those returns, and (3) the ownership percentage as reported on the K-1. We've attached [borrower]'s signed consent authorizing this disclosure. We are not asking for an opinion on income continuity or business solvency."

For more wording like this, see the document request email templates.

How long it takes and what it costs

There's no standard fee for a CPA letter — firms typically bill it as separate work, often at an hourly rate, since it sits outside the original tax-preparation engagement. Ask before the closing date is set. Timing follows the same logic: a letter takes as long as the consent and the lender's exact wording take to arrive, not as long as the drafting itself.

That's also where the request usually breaks down. A letter request is a document request in reverse: before you sign anything, you need the signed consent, the lender's exact wording, and the K-1 — three separate items from two different people, usually chased over email. Send those as one DokuTrak request: the client uploads from one link, reminders go out until it's complete, and you accept each file yourself.

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Sources

Footnotes

1. DataForSEO Labs, keyword_overview, US/en (pulled October 1, 2026). "cpa letter for mortgage": 480 average monthly searches, +319% year over year. ↩

2. Fannie Mae, Selling Guide B3-3.5-01, Underwriting Factors and Documentation for a Self-Employed Borrower (12/13/2023). https://selling-guide.fanniemae.com/sel/b3-3.5-01/underwriting-factors-and-documentation-self-employed-borrower ↩ ↩²

3. Fannie Mae, Selling Guide B3-3.1-04, Verbal Verification of Employment (03/04/2026, as displayed on the page). https://selling-guide.fanniemae.com/sel/b3-3.1-07/verbal-verification-employment ↩

4. Freddie Mac, Single-Family Seller/Servicer Guide, Section 5304.1 (effective 06/03/2026, as shown on the page). https://guide.freddiemac.com/app/guide/section/5304.1 ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. CPAI (AICPA Member Insurance Programs, underwritten by CNA), "CPA Third Party Verification Letters" (updated May 2021). https://www.cpai.com/Education-Resources/my-firm/Tax-Services/Third-Party-Verification-Letters ↩

6. Dave McClain, "Third-party verification requests," The Tax Adviser (AICPA), September 1, 2018. The standard is cited in the article as AT-C Section 105, Interpretation No. 1. https://www.thetaxadviser.com/issues/2018/sep/third-party-verification-requests/ ↩

7. Dave McClain, "Third-party verification requests," The Tax Adviser (AICPA), September 1, 2018 (same source, on IRC §7216). https://www.thetaxadviser.com/issues/2018/sep/third-party-verification-requests/ ↩

8. PCAOB, auditing standard AS 6101 (returns HTTP 403 to automated retrieval; cited by standard number only — title not independently confirmed). https://pcaobus.org/oversight/standards/auditing-standards/details/AS6101 ↩

9. Internal Revenue Service, "Income Verification Express Service (IVES)" (last reviewed September 11, 2026). https://www.irs.gov/individuals/income-verification-express-service ↩