For a student arriving in Groningen, the official advice is blunt: find accommodation before travelling. The University of Groningen warns that it does not provide housing and says students who arrive without a room may spend months in costly temporary accommodation.
That warning is sensible. It is not, however, a solution to the underlying shortage.
An agreement signed by the Municipality of Groningen, student-housing organisation SSH and tenant representatives places the current local shortage at 1,900 student homes. At the same time, Groningen lost an estimated 695 privately rented student rooms during 2024, while much of the replacement capacity remains on the drawing board.
The central question is therefore not how many units Groningen announces. It is whether the city is adding affordable, registrable rooms faster than existing rooms disappear.
At present, the public figures do not demonstrate that it is.
The number that should anchor the debate: 1,900
The shortage of 1,900 units appears in the official Groningen performance agreements for 2026–2030, based on the 2025 ABF Local Monitor. The same document shows that SSH rents out or manages approximately 2,020 rooms and homes in Groningen, but owns only 517 of them. The other 1,503 are managed for housing associations De Huismeesters, Lefier and Nijestee.
That distinction matters. A management portfolio is not automatically the same as permanent supply controlled by one organisation. Ownership, temporary agreements, redevelopment plans and the conditions imposed by property owners can all affect whether units remain available.
The agreements also acknowledge a specific problem for international students: many use short-stay contracts and some must find another room after one year. SSH, the educational institutions and property owners say they are reviewing that system. Until a replacement policy is published, however, a room offered at arrival may postpone the housing search rather than end it.
The 1,900-unit deficit should therefore be the baseline against which every new announcement is tested. Emergency beds, construction intentions and permanent homes cannot be added together as if they represent the same kind of capacity.
Read the official Groningen performance agreements for 2026–2030.
Proxima illustrates the difference between a room and a bed
Proxima, on the Zernike Campus, opened in August 2024 with 401 furnished rooms of approximately 18 to 20 square metres. It provides real accommodation and has given hundreds of international students a place to begin their studies.
During the arrival peak, however, those rooms can be temporarily shared. A folding bed allows two students to occupy one room for up to three months, raising the theoretical peak capacity from 401 to 802 people.
The second number sounds impressive, but it does not represent 802 homes. It represents 401 rooms at double occupancy.
In 2024, 175 students used this peak arrangement. For the 2025 intake, 301 folding beds were made available for peak housing, while another 100 rooms were reserved for exchange students staying six months. The scheme gives students additional time to search, but it does not remove them from the housing market.
This is not an argument against Proxima. In an emergency, a shared room is safer than a hostel bed, an expensive hotel or no accommodation at all. The problem arises when temporary occupancy is discussed alongside permanent construction without a clear label.
Groningen should report at least three separate figures:
- permanent or long-term homes;
- temporary rooms;
- additional peak beds created by double occupancy.
Without that separation, citizens cannot tell whether capacity has structurally increased or whether existing rooms are simply accommodating more people for part of the year.
Almost an entire planned project disappeared in one year
Research organisation Kences, using housing-market and land-registry data, estimates that Groningen lost 695 privately rented student rooms in 2024. These rooms were not necessarily demolished. In many cases, properties were sold and stopped functioning as student houses.
Nationally, Kences counted 17,800 fewer students living in privately rented rooms during the same period. It associates the decline with a combination of property sales, taxation, regulation and changing returns for landlords.
Some of those policies have legitimate purposes. Purchase protection can help first-time buyers, rent regulation can protect tenants, and conversion rules can reduce excessive pressure on residential streets. The housing debate should not pretend that every former student house was safe, affordable or good for its neighbours.
But the loss still has to appear in Groningen’s housing arithmetic.
The 695 rooms estimated to have disappeared in 2024 equal almost 93% of the 750 shared student units that SSH and Lefier say they intend to develop at Zernike. Put differently, a single year of private-market contraction was approximately 1.7 times the regular 401-room capacity of Proxima.
That comparison is not a forecast. It exposes the need to publish net figures. If 750 units are built while a similar number disappear elsewhere, the city has replaced supply rather than reduced the shortage.
The first 555 permanent homes will not help today’s intake
Groningen has obtained almost €5 million in national funding for student housing at Zernike. The broader ambition is to create between 1,500 and 2,000 student homes on the campus over several years.
The first phase consists of 555 permanent homes near the new sports centre. According to the published timetable, construction must begin no later than the fourth quarter of 2028, with completion planned for 2030.
That is important future capacity, but it offers no room to students beginning in 2026, 2027 or most of 2028.
There is also a transparency problem between the different public numbers. The performance agreements mention an intention by SSH and Lefier to build 750 shared units. Separate project announcements describe 555 homes as the first phase of a wider 1,500-to-2,000-home programme. Published information does not yet make sufficiently clear how these figures overlap, which units have final financing and planning approval, or when every phase becomes available.
The municipality and housing providers should publish one project table showing:
- the number of rooms in every phase;
- whether they are independent studios or shared units;
- the expected rent category;
- planning and financing status;
- construction and completion dates;
- whether the figure replaces existing accommodation;
- whether municipal registration will be possible.
An ambition is not the same as an approved project, and an approved project is not the same as an occupied room.
Students are already showing the pressure
A 2025 survey by Groningen’s municipal research office, OIS Groningen, offers a limited but useful picture of how young residents experience the market.
Among the respondents, the average inclusive housing cost was €699 per month. For respondents living in a student room, the average was €459. Almost half—47%—said they wanted to move within a year.
Finding new accommodation received an average score of only 3.5 on a scale where 1 meant very difficult and 10 meant very easy. International students gave the search an average of 2.5, compared with 3.7 among Dutch students.
Respondents said they would be willing to pay an average of €890 inclusive for a new home, up from €755 in the 2023 survey. That increase should not automatically be interpreted as growing affordability. It may also show how scarcity changes expectations: people become prepared to devote more income to housing because they see few alternatives.
These results require caution. Only 492 of the municipality’s approximately 75,000 residents aged 18 to 30 participated, including 98 international respondents. The survey was not a complete or necessarily representative measurement of all young residents.
It is evidence of experience, not a substitute for a full market inventory. Its value lies in the pattern it reveals: many respondents want to move, expect difficulty and believe they must offer substantially more money.
“Find a room before August” transfers the risk
The University of Groningen tells international students to begin searching around April and secure accommodation before 1 August. Its exchange information warns that approximately 10,000 students may be looking for rooms at the same time in Groningen and Leeuwarden.
The university is right to warn applicants. It cannot promise accommodation it does not possess, and hiding the shortage would expose students to even greater risk.
But the present system places the final consequence on the person with the least local knowledge. A student can be admitted, arrange tuition and travel, and still carry the full risk of an overheated private market. International students are particularly exposed because they cannot easily attend viewings, may not understand registration rules and are attractive targets for scammers.
Universities are not landlords, but they are not spectators either. RUG and Hanze participate in local housing cooperation and their admission patterns influence demand. That creates a responsibility to publish how intake relates to verified housing capacity—not merely to repeat that accommodation is the student’s responsibility.
The public should know:
- how many new students require accommodation each year;
- how many receive a confirmed SSH or partner room;
- how many use peak housing;
- how many still report having no long-term address after teaching begins;
- how many short-stay tenants must search again within twelve months.
The often-repeated figure of 10,000 people searching simultaneously covers two cities and may include different groups of applicants. It should not be treated as a precise count of Groningen’s shortage. It does, however, demonstrate the scale of predictable annual demand.
This is also a citizens’ issue
Student housing is often framed as a conflict between students who want rooms and residents who want liveable neighbourhoods. That framing misses the shared interest.
When the formal market cannot absorb demand, pressure moves elsewhere: overcrowded houses, temporary hotels, informal subletting, long commutes and offers without municipal registration. Residents face more unstable occupancy, while students accept poorer conditions because refusing a room may mean abandoning their studies.
Purpose-built housing near Zernike can reduce pressure on existing neighbourhoods, but only if it is sufficiently affordable and connected to the city. A room that exists statistically but is unaffordable to its intended tenant does little to solve the practical shortage.
The municipality therefore needs to measure price as well as volume. Reporting “2,000 new homes” without rent bands can conceal a shift from ordinary rooms to products that lower-income students cannot use.
Five questions Groningen should answer before the next intake
The available documents establish the shortage, describe temporary capacity and announce future construction. They do not yet provide one auditable account of what happens to the total supply.
Before the 2027 intake, the municipality, RUG, Hanze, SSH and participating housing associations should jointly answer five questions:
- Are the announced 750 units part of the first 555-home phase or separate from it?
- How many student rooms were added and lost in 2025 and 2026, producing what net change?
- How many students leave short-stay accommodation without securing a new address?
- How many announced homes have financing, planning approval and a binding completion date?
- At what inclusive rents will the new rooms actually be offered?
A quarterly public dashboard could answer most of these questions without exposing personal information. It should separate new construction, converted properties, demolished or withdrawn rooms, temporary units and peak beds. Waiting-list totals should be deduplicated and accompanied by clear definitions.
What students can verify now
No individual student can repair a 1,900-unit deficit, but they can reduce the chance that scarcity becomes fraud or an administrative problem.
Before paying, verify the address, the identity or authority of the person offering the room, the total monthly price and whether municipal registration is permitted. A video tour does not prove ownership. Neither does a copy of an identity document sent through a messaging app.
Students offered Proxima or another temporary solution should confirm in writing:
- whether the room is shared;
- how long the contract lasts;
- whether registration is possible;
- what happens after the peak period;
- whether another room is guaranteed or merely something they must search for themselves.
The most dangerous offer is often not the most expensive one. It is the offer that uses the shortage to prevent questions.
The measure of success is net, occupied and affordable
Groningen has acknowledged the problem, secured funding and created emergency capacity. Those are meaningful actions. They do not yet amount to proof that the shortage is shrinking.
The public discussion needs a stricter unit of measurement: the net number of additional, occupied, registrable and affordable student homes.
Not the maximum number of people who can temporarily sleep in existing rooms. Not the number included in an early ambition. Not the number due four years from now without subtracting what disappears in the meantime.
Until Groningen publishes that net figure consistently, students will continue receiving two messages at once: the city is working on thousands of homes, but anyone who cannot find one before August should reconsider coming.
Both statements may be true. Their coexistence is exactly what makes this a housing investigation rather than an accommodation tip.
