Student housing

Finding housing

Gothenburg is Sweden’s second largest city and is hugely popular not only with students, but also companies. Many people are moving to study and work in Gothenburg, causing a housing shortage. For this reason, we encourage you to begin looking for accommodation as soon as possible.

Although there is student housing in the city, it is near impossible to find accommodation in a student room in time for the start of the semester. In fact, it can take a year or longer before you receive an offer for student housing. Fortunately, there are other alternatives, such as renting a room in an apartment or home. Although many students would prefer private student housing, renting a room from a Swedish family can have advantages in terms of learning Swedish quicker and becoming familiar with Swedish culture and customs.

To maximize your chances of finding accommodation quickly, we recommend that you not limit your search to the city centre where the competition is the stiffest. Widen your search to include areas outside of the city centre as well. Public transportation in the city is effective and offers wide coverage, so staying outside the city centre is not a problem. You could always move closer to where your classes are later. The important thing is that you find somewhere to stay initially.

An alternative to a student room or apartment is to stay in a hostel or hotel. There are many hostels and hotels offering long-stay in Gothenburg. Contact the Gothenburg Visitor Centre for a list of all of them.

Gothenburg Visitor Centre
 

Exchange students within Erasmus, Linneaus Palme programme, and bilateral agreements

The University of Gothenburg offers student rooms and apartments to exchange students within the Erasmus and Linnaeus Palme programmes, as well as to exchange students that come as part of a bilateral agreement.

Please note that you have to be nominated by your home university before applying. As an exchange student, you apply for housing as part of your application for exchange studies at the University of Gothenburg. In the application, just state that you would like to apply for student housing, and we will get back to you about the outcome.

If you are assigned a student accommodation, we will provide instructions on how to proceed with the registration process at SGS/UGOT.

It's important to note that you can register with SGS in advance, and this won't impact your chances in the UGOT queue. When the allocation process begins, SGS will simply transfer your profile to the UGOT queue.

Register with SGS

Fee-paying students

Through agreements with local housing companies, the University administers a limited number of student flats and rooms. Current legislation allows us to rent this out to fee-paying students and exchange students. In the end of May, we will contact fee-paying students with more information about our University-administered housing and how to apply for it.

Please understand that the the number of flats and rooms is very limited.

All international students

All international students (non fee-paying, fee-paying, exchange, and doctoral students) can apply for accommodation through SGS, which is a foundation managing Gothenburg’s largest range of student accommodation. You can register as soon as you are considering applying to the University of Gothenburg to maximize your time in the queue. This will increase your chance of getting an apartment or room.

Even though the waiting time is normally about one and a half years, it is not impossible to be offered an accommodation through SGS faster. Accordingly, it can pay off to keep a close eye on SGS and to check in frequently.

Apply for housing at SGS

More ways of finding housing

Move to Gothenburg web portal

The Move to Gothenburg web portal provides a lot of helpful information about finding a home in, and around, Gothenburg. Regardless of whether you are coming to the city to study or to work, you will find useful tips about where to look, how to expand your search, and what to keep in mind. You can read about tenancy rights, different aspects of renting first hand and second hand, what to think about if you are contemplating buying a home, and much more.

Tips on finding housing on movetogothenburg.com

Student Stories

Adelric Wong's housing story 

In my first year in Gothenburg, securing a place was rather difficult, so I signed up with several housing queues in the meantime to secure queue time, but realistically, I knew I had to find a place to stay there and then. So, with minimal availability or alternatives otherwise, I turned to booking places via Airbnb, moved from one place to another every few months. Then, I found a room in a shared apartment through private rentals via Boplats, and stayed there for some months. Following that, I obtained long-term accommodation through SBS and stayed at the Lindholmen container apartments. I stayed there pretty long, before I was eligible in my second year of studies with sufficient student housing queue time with SGS and applied for an apartment near Lindholmen near one of my friends so we could become neighbours. It was definitely a wild journey in my first year, constantly changing neighbourhoods and adjusting to new housing environments. 

Any advice to future students regarding this?

My suggestion to new students is that you should be willing to make an initial compromise and stay out of your comfort zone while upgrading your living situation over time whenever opportunity and availability presents itself, but it is best to not be too picky for the first few accommodations you get, especially if you lack any significant queue time as there are more pressing matters to focus on, such as university studies.