An executive order directs financial regulators to consider changes meant to widen access to mortgage credit, especially through community banks. The order, published in the Federal Register on March 18, 2026, was signed March 13, 2026, and is numbered 14393.
The order says every American seeking to buy a home should be able to get a mortgage from a reliable lender at a rate matching that person’s creditworthiness. It says statutory and regulatory changes over the past two decades, including rules adopted under the Dodd-Frank Act and later rulemakings, raised compliance costs for making and servicing mortgages and distorted the market. Those burdens, the order says, helped bring a sharp drop in how much banks take part in home lending.
Community banks, which the order describes as generally institutions with fewer than $30 billion in assets, have been especially affected, the order says. It says the changes undermined those banks’ businesses, concentrated credit and liquidity risk outside the banking system, and reduced credit for some borrowers who can repay, including rural households and low- and moderate-income households. The order states that the administration will reduce those burdens so those borrowers can obtain capital to buy a home.
It is United States policy, the order says, to improve the availability and affordability of mortgage credit and to tailor rules for community banks and smaller banks, defined as banks with assets fewer than $100 billion. The stated policy also covers cutting the regulatory burden on community banks, fostering innovation and consumer choice, modernizing origination and closing standards, subjecting similar credit and liquidity risks to similar regulation, promoting competition among mortgage lenders, and strengthening housing-finance liquidity.
Most directives tell officials to consider steps as appropriate and consistent with applicable law. They do not themselves rewrite the rules.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau shall consider proposing amendments to Regulation Z that tailor ability-to-repay and qualified-mortgage requirements for smaller banks, including potentially a broader safe harbor for loans a bank keeps. The bureau shall also consider changes tied to the Truth in Lending Act, the Real Estate Settlement Procedure Act, and the combined disclosure rules known as TRID. Those steps include replacing disclosure timing rules with a standard based on whether a change is material, exempting small-mortgage loans from caps on qualified-mortgage points and fees or modifying those caps, updating compliance rules, modernizing the right to cancel a mortgage, streamlining rate-and-term refinancing rules, and exempting that refinancing, including cash-out refinancing, from rescission rights.
The Federal Reserve’s vice chairman for supervision, the bureau’s director, the chairman of the National Credit Union Administration Board, the chairperson of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s board, and the Comptroller of the Currency shall consider revising supervisory guidance. The order says examiners should judge mortgage lending by the effectiveness of a lender’s policies on a consumer’s ability to repay and by prudent underwriting, rather than by process and technical compliance. It says good-faith technical errors should receive correction-first treatment, with enforcement reserved for borrower harm or repeated misconduct.
On data collection, the bureau shall consider proposing changes to Regulation C that raise the asset threshold for exempting smaller banks from Home Mortgage Disclosure Act reporting, exclude inquiries from that law’s scope, and protect privacy while reducing reporting burdens.
On capital and liquidity, the Federal Reserve’s vice chairman for supervision, the credit union board’s chairman, the deposit insurance board’s chairperson, the Comptroller of the Currency, and the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency shall consider tailoring risk weights for portfolio mortgages, servicing rights, and warehouse lines of credit to the material credit risk of the exposure. They shall also consider modernizing collateral systems between the Federal Reserve and Federal Home Loan Banks, expanding longer-dated advances tied to residential mortgage assets, creating targeted liquidity programs for entry-level housing, owner-occupied purchase loans, and small residential builders, speeding collateral processing, and refocusing the banks’ Affordable Housing Program on faster execution and greater financial leverage for small-scale and owner-occupied projects.
The housing finance agency’s director and the Federal Reserve’s vice chairman for supervision shall consider authorizing Federal Home Loan Banks’ intermediate access to the Federal Reserve’s discount window for member depository institutions, under standardized protocols. Within 120 days of the order, the agency’s director, consulting heads of other relevant departments and agencies, shall send a report to the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and the Office of Management and Budget’s director on the efficiency of national housing finance markets. That report shall identify recommendations for regulatory or legislative changes needed to address oversight gaps.
The same banking officials named for the supervisory-guidance review shall consider revising guidance so one- to four-family residential development and construction lending is excluded from commercial real estate concentration guidance, and so expectations support responsible construction lending by community banks.
Those officials and the housing finance agency’s director shall consider expanding alternative valuation models, desktop and hybrid appraisals, and artificial intelligence valuation tools; simplifying appraiser qualifications; reducing appraisal requirements for lower-risk deals, including low loan-to-value refinancing and small-balance loans; and setting clear appraisal timelines. The secretaries of Housing and Urban Development and of Veterans Affairs shall consider aligning appraisal standards between the Federal Housing Administration and the VA Home Loan Program where risk is comparable, distinguishing safety and habitability concerns from cosmetic ones, and expanding flexibility for repairs after closing.
The Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and Veterans Affairs secretaries, and the housing finance agency’s director, shall consider dropping unnecessary wet-signature requirements, standardizing electronic signatures, electronic notes, and remote online notarization, and promoting digital mortgage standards.
On servicing, Housing and Urban Development’s secretary and the banking officials named for the supervisory-guidance review shall consider treating portfolio mortgage servicing as a core community banking function, extending cure-first standards to good-faith servicing errors, simplifying loss mitigation, and issuing a proposed rule that would exempt smaller banks from complex mortgage servicing requirements. They shall also consider keeping reviews of performing, prudently underwritten portfolio loans from focusing on technical defects or shifting interpretations.
On enforcement, those banking officials shall consider a policy that discourages civil monetary penalties except where violations are willful, knowing, or reckless; weighs good corporate conduct, including correction of good-faith technical errors; and gives institutions a reasonable chance to identify and fix appropriate compliance matters. They shall also consider eliminating duplicative or unnecessary licensing or registration requirements for mortgage loan officers of any smaller bank.
The order says it does not impair lawful agency authority or the budget office director’s functions on budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals. It shall be carried out consistent with applicable law and subject to available appropriations, and it does not create any right or benefit enforceable against the United States or its officers. The order does not revoke or amend an earlier order.