HELOC for Gig Workers

Why a gig worker's tax return is the worst possible income document

Rideshare and delivery drivers take the standard mileage deduction, and at current rates a driver who logs 30,000 or 40,000 miles a year deducts more than most of what the apps paid. The Schedule C that results shows a small net — sometimes a loss — for a year in which real money arrived every week. A conventional lender qualifies you on that net. That is the whole reason a full-time driver with a paid-down house gets declined for a line the equity easily supports.

A deposit-based file does not look at the return. It looks at what Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, Amazon Flex, Grubhub, Spark, Rover or Turo actually deposited over 12 months. The mileage deduction is irrelevant to it, because it was never a cash expense in the first place.

How platform payouts are read

• Multiple apps are fine. Deposits from several platforms into the same account are added together. If they land in different accounts, connect the ones that matter; the connection is read-only and takes about two minutes per account.
• Instant-pay and daily cash-outs are fine. Dozens of small deposits a week are read the same as one weekly payout. Frequency does not count against you.
• Tips that were paid through the app count because they arrive as deposits. Cash tips that never hit the account cannot be counted by anyone, including us.
• Platform fees already came out. The deposit is the net payout after the app's cut, so the number being read is closer to what you actually cleared than a gross 1099-K figure would be.
• Deposits are not credited dollar-for-dollar. An expense factor is applied to arrive at qualifying income; it depends on the file, which is why the fast path to a real number is a soft-pull conversation rather than a formula on a web page.

Seasonality and the slow months

Delivery peaks in winter and on bad-weather weeks; rideshare peaks around events and holidays; Turo and Rover peak in summer. Twelve consecutive months of deposits show the pattern in context — a slow February is visible as a slow February, not as a reason to average your income down. The history runs right up to the week you apply, so your most recent months count in full.

What to have ready

• Login access to the bank account(s) your payouts land in — that is the entire income file.
• Your current mortgage statement and homeowners-insurance declaration page.
• A rough idea of your home's value; the calculator gives an estimate with no credit pull.

Common questions