There is a shortage of housing in Germany which means that accommodation is expensive. You often have to spend 40% of your monthly salary on rent. This is particularly true for furnished or at least partly furnished accommodation that is readily available and on a short lease. Particularly in Cologne with a large number of students, the relationship between supply and demand changes radically in the course of the year. At the beginning of the semester the demand for accommodation is particularly high. Generally rents are about 500 - 700 Euro for a furnished one-room apartment / studio; 700 - 1200 Euro for a two-room apartment; 400 - 450 Euro for a furnished room in a flat-sharing community.

We urgently recommend you to start looking for accommodation as soon as possible, preferably several months before you begin your stay.

There are two guesthouses of the University available for scholars and their families. As there is a huge demand for accommodation, you should make enquires at the earliest opportunity. In general it is necessary to apply approximately up to 10 months before the start of your stay in Cologne in order to reserve a guesthouse apartment. In order to make reservation in a guesthouse please refer to your host institute or the Welcome Center. If there is no apartment available in the guesthouse you will have to find an apartment on the private housing market. The Welcome Centre is in touch with some owners and housing agencies and would help you to contact potential parties.

Please notice that we do not dispose of apartments that we can simply assign. We have to do extensive research for every single offer that we send you. This is why we ask you to seriously consider our offers. Very often we can only provide one offer!