UNIL-EPFL housing portal

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The UNIL-EPFL housing portal gathers all the ads coming from private landlords as well as students offering rooms or wishing to find someone to take over their lease in order to find a new tenant for the flat.

There are two types of offers:

Apartment listings

  • Most of the housing listings on the UNIL-EPFL classifieds portal are managed by real estate agencies, even if the listing is posted by a student. These are often lease transfers: the current tenant arranges the viewings and must submit a few applications from financially reliable candidates to the agency.
  • As a result, these housing offers are still subject to the rules and requirements set by the real estate agencies. You will therefore need to meet their administrative requirements, such as providing a Swiss guarantor, proof of financial means, a residence permit, and other documents.

Room listings (shared apartments, sublets)

Room listings, on the other hand, are most often:

  • managed by private individuals or other students,
  • more flexible,
  • and not subject to the typical requirements of real estate agencies.

We strongly recommend that international students focus primarily on room ads, which generally offer much better chances of success.

We advise all students and PhD students not to look for apartments or studios but only for rooms (or flatsharings). Flat hunting is long and fairly complicated in the region.

Do not look for accommodation by location because you may miss out on an interesting announcement, which ultimately is not too far from the EPFL campus. Use the CFF webpage to help you in your calculation of commuting times. In the region, the average travel time between home and EPFL is currently around 30 minutes.

The best search order is as follows :

  1. Sort by “latest published”.
  2. Look at the availability dates.
  3. Look at the rent compared to your budget.
  4. Open the ad (before watching the locality) regardless of the words “dependent, independent, roommate”.
  5. If the ad suits you, look at the address and create your itinerary with the CFF webpage knowing that the walking time mentioned on this site is always longer than the reality.
  6. If the commuting time suits you, and the announcer mentioned a phone number, it is recommended to call in order for contact to be made more quickly.

Do not be too restrictive in your search criteria.

As soon as you visit a place that suits you, tell the landlord you’re interested as soon as possible.

Sign a lease/sub-lease contract for the room with your landlord. If he/she doesn’t have any, we have some lease examples available on our website. These templates are only given as examples and have no legal value. They can be adapted to each person’s needs.

It is recommended to contract a household insurance and a third party liability insurance. These insurances cover some damages.

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You have already been admitted to EPFL and have received your personal EPFL login access?

Access the UNIL-EPFL housing portal (access restricted to Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Ph.D. students)

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You have not been admitted to EPFL yet, have not your personal access yet, or have another status ?

See the instructions for obtaining access to the UNIL-EPFL housing portal

If you are have applied or are admitted to EPFL and do not have your personal accesses yet, we will gladly send you a temporary link to consult all the housing offers extracted from our UNIL-EPFL advertisement portal (PDF lists). To do so, please send us an email with the following information:

  • Name / Surname
  • Birth date
  • Start date of your studies at EPFL
  • Planned curriculum (Bachelor, Master, échange, etc.)

If you are have applied or are admitted to EPFL and do not have your personal accesses yet, we will gladly send you a temporary link to consult all the housing offers extracted from our UNIL-EPFL advertisement portal (PDF lists). To do so, please send us an email with the following information:

  • Name / Surname
  • Birth date
  • Start date of your studies at EPFL
  • The name of the Lab and of the secretary whom you are in contact with
  • Your EPFL working contract or EPFL work offer

Depending on your date of arrival in Switzerland, we can gladly send you a temporary link to consult all the housing offers extracted from our UNIL-EPFL advertisement portal (PDF lists). To do so, please send us an email with the following information:

  • Name / Surname
  • Birth date
  • The exact dates of your internship
  • The name of the Lab and of the secretary whom you are in contact with
  • Your EPFL working contract or EPFL work offer

In order to receive information as well as useful links to your accommodation search, please send us an email with the following information :

  • Name / Surname
  • Birth date
  • Start date at EPFL
  • The name of the Lab and of the secretary whom you are in contact with
  • Your EPFL working contract or EPFL work offer

General information

Geographical situation, Insurance for housing, rental guarantee and swiss guarantor, swiss customs, contract templates, advice for flatshare, furniture sale and rental, legal questions, residence taxes, scam attempts-warning, FAQ

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