23 Housing
The AYF program arranges housing, which is in university dormitories located a short streetcar, bus, or bike ride from the campus. Dormitory rooms will be assigned based on the information you provide on the Housing Preference Form. There is no guarantee, however, that you will receive your preferred assignment. Should your choices be oversubscribed, a lottery will be used to determine assignments.
In past years, students living in the university dormitories have indicated that they made many friends through extracurricular activities, such as music groups and sports, so be sure to bring along your musical instrument, sports equipment, etc. If you begin right away to take advantage of every opportunity to speak German, your language skills will improve rapidly – and you’ll enjoy everything much more, and much more quickly.
Each dorm resident occupies a single room (11–12.5 square meters, approximately 120–140 square feet) with basic furnishings (desk, desk chair, desk lamp, closet, bed, mattress, and bookshelf). Bedding, towels, and a washcloth can be pre-ordered by checking a box on the AYF Registration Form and will be in your room on Arrival Day. You are strongly encouraged to use this service to ensure that you have bedding available upon arrival (bringing a sleeping bag is, of course, another option for the short term).
All dorm units are co-ed. Depending on the configuration of the building, bathroom and kitchen facilities are shared by as few as three and as many as sixteen residents. All dorm units have showers.
In most dorm units, 30–40% of the residents are international (i.e., non-German) students. This is higher than the overall percentage of international students enrolled in the university (12%). Many international students are in Freiburg for only a year or two and find it more challenging than continuing students to find housing on the private rental market.
The dorms are subsidized by the government, and rents are therefore substantially lower than for comparable units on the private market. Rent prices, which range from €290 to €475, are based on two factors: room dimensions and the date of construction or renovation. Internet access is included as part of the rental contract for all units. The age of the building and its most recent renovation as well as the layout of the floors correlate directly with the rental cost as well as the flashiness factor (or lack thereof) that you can expect. In other words, you get what you pay for.
Please be aware that you will be signing a room lease with the Studierendenwerk (Freiburg dorm administration) for an entire year. Your lease will run from September 1, 2025, to August 31, 2026. Consequently, you are liable for twelve full months of rent.
You are not allowed to sublet or share your dorm room at any time during the program, and you do not have the option of moving out of the dorms and into private (rental) housing. Moving out of the assigned dorm room is only possible under exceptional circumstances. Once you are in Freiburg, please do not hesitate to contact the Academic Director or Program Director to discuss any problems with your housing situation.
If you wish to leave Freiburg soon after the summer semester ends in July, AYF can arrange on your behalf to sublet your room to a student enrolled in the university’s International Summer Language Course held in August. In late May or early June 2026, you will receive a letter from SWFR, the Studierendenwerk, asking whether you intend to keep your room through August or would prefer to sublet it. There will be an AYF group meeting at that time to explain the subletting procedures to you.
The first rent payment is scheduled to be withdrawn toward the end of September. In addition, a €25 processing fee and the €75 cost of the bedding starter pack are charged by the Studierendenwerk when you move in. In addition to paying rent, dorm residents are required to make a €400 security deposit (€500 if you opt for an efficiency apartment). The security deposit is due at the end of September as well and will be collected in a withdrawal from your Volksbank account. This will be followed a few days later by the withdrawal of your rent payment for the month of October. In other words, there will be several withdrawals within about two weeks totaling anywhere from €1080 to €1,540 for expenses related to your dorm room rental. Please keep this in mind when planning how and when to transfer funds into your Volksbank Freiburg account. When you move out, your security deposit will be returned to you, minus possible deductions for damages.
When you move in, you should immediately check the contents and condition of your room against the inventory list you will find on your desk. If there are any discrepancies or damages not listed, report them at once to the Hausmeister responsible for your dorm or an AYF Staff member. If you do not report missing furniture or other types of damage, you may be held responsible for them when you vacate the room, and charges may be deducted from your security deposit. Be sure to save the inventory list until you move out; there is a fine for losing it.
If you lock yourself out of your room, you should contact your Hausmeister during his office hours. (You will receive information on your Hausmeister’s – rather limited – office hours after your arrival in Freiburg.) At other times, you can call an emergency service to be let in. The charge for the emergency service is €50. There is no lock-out service after midnight. If you should lose or damage your room key, and a cylinder lock has to be replaced, the charge can be substantial (up to approximately €100 to €120). For a lost or damaged key without a lock change, the charge is approximately €30 to €50. In any case, it is wise to have room numbers and phone numbers of other AYF students or of your newly minted German friends at your disposal if you do lock yourself out of your room on a weekend or in the middle of the night.
All dorms are wired for Internet access, and plug-and-play Internet service is included in your rent. Freiburg dorms are served by the provider MyWire (www.my-wire.de). Internet access is available as a “plug-and-play” service; WiFi routers are provided in the dorm rooms. A connection link can be found using a QR code on the router. When in doubt about how to connect your device, ask your WG mates for help. The connection speed is generally sufficient for video calls. Eduroam can also be reached in some dorms, but do not rely solely on this.
A summary of housing options is provided as an addendum to this handbook. You can take a virtual tour of the dorms as part of the more detailed PowerPoint presentation introducing AYF and the various housing options made available through your home university. In each case, please note that the ground floor (Erdgeschoss) equals 0 in German parlance while it is called 1st floor in U.S. usage, the German floor 1 is the 2nd floor in the U.S., etc.
The Studierendenwerk and some of the individual dorms have websites as well.
- Studierendenwerk: www.swfr.de
- Studentensiedlung: www.studentensiedlung.de
- Studentendorf Vauban: https://stadtteil-vauban.de/en/quartier-vauban-2/ (about events and resources in Vauban, albeit not specifically about Studentendorf Vauban)