Guides

What we get asked most, answered with the figures rather than around them. Written by people who house students in Lausanne, not by people summarising other websites.

Getting a rental guarantor in Switzerland

Almost every rejection we see has the same cause, and it is not the rent. It is that the agency wanted a guarantor and the student did not have one.

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Proving your funds for a Swiss student permit

The figure most cantons ask for is CHF 21,000 per academic year. The number is the easy part; the form it has to take is where applications fail.

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How the Swiss rental deposit works

Article 257e of the Code of Obligations caps a residential deposit at three months' net rent, and requires it to sit in a blocked account in your name. Both halves of that matter.

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Why your application keeps getting rejected

Students assume they were outbid. Usually they were not even compared — the file was incomplete and went on the wrong pile.

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The timeline, counted backwards from your arrival

Almost every step has a fixed lead time, so the dates are not a matter of opinion. Here they are, counted back from a mid-September start.

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What a month actually costs

The number students budget for is the rent on the advert. The number that leaves the account is considerably larger, and the gap is predictable.

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