Housing
We would like to point out that enrolment at JLU does not include a room reservation. If you want to apply for a room in a student hostel, you should do so as soon as you have received admission to a degree programme. As many students are looking for an accomodation before the start of the semester, you need to calculate some extra time for finding an accomodation. International students are well-advised to consider the alternative of staying in a hotel for a few days.
Finding an Accomodation
In order to be able to commence your course of study at Giessen without undue tensions and distractions, we recommend to arrange your accommodations as early as possible. There are several types of accommodation in Giessen: apartments/rooms in a student hostel, flatting with roommates, or private apartments. The majority of international students decides to live in one of the several students’ residences during the initial phase of their studies at Giessen and decides to move on to private accommodations later.
Further Information housing is given on the official JLU website:
Students' Residences
This type of accommodation is offered solely to students and includes individual apartments, double apartments or single rooms in an apartment with roommates. All rooms/apartments are fully furnished and equipped with TV, phone, and Internet connections.
- Individual apartment: in this accommodation, you will live in an apartment with fully equipet kitchen and bathroom. Costs: 230-290 Euro / month.
- Double apartment: in this accommodation, you will live in an apartment together with another person and share kitchen and bathroom. Your flat mates may be of the opposite sex. Costs: 180-230 Euro/month.
- Single room in a flat with flat-mates: You will live in a flat together with other students and have your own room for sleeping and studying, but you share kitchen and bathroom. In this form of accommodation, your flat mates may be of the opposite sex. Costs: 170-210 Euro/ month.
You find further information on the website of the Association of Student Affairs (Studentenwerk): https://www.studentenwerk-giessen.de/wohnen/
As many courses take place at Research Centre for BioSystems, Land Use and Nutrition (Heinrich-Buff-Ring) we recommend the students' residences "Leihgesterner Weg", "Unterhof", "Mildred-Harnack-Fish-Haus", "Gaffkystraße" or "Landgraf-Ludwig-Haus".
Depending on what kind of accommodation you are applying for, different student dormitories come into consideration. Here is an overview of the student dormitories:
https://www.studentenwerk-giessen.de/wohnen/unsere-wohnheime.html
Application for an Accomodation
You will be directly linked to the Application for Accommodation form. Make sure you choose Giessen in the selection field Location of University. Furthermore, you need to decide whether you want to live in a double apartment, family flat, single apartment or single room. You may apply just for one of accommodation type or for several by ticking the respective boxes.
In order to apply for an accomodation, the process of enrolment at university does not have to be completed. All you need to do is to fill in your personal data, the room or rooms that you are applying for and upload your permission of study or certificate of enrolment in case you have already received it. Later submission of the certificate of enrolment is also possible, once a rental contract is offered to you. The upload is optional and not necessary to complete the housing application form. Only the information marked with (*) is mandatory for your housing application.
Rooms in students' residences are highly demanded, as this type of accommodation is comparatively cheap. If you intend to live in a student hostel, we advise you to apply for a room as soon as you have received admission to a degree programme.
The application is not binding. Applying for a room via this website only means that you will be informed when there is a room available suitable to your request. Then, at this point, you finally decide to accept the offer or not. You will receive an email every 14 days asking whether you are still interested in an accommodation. If the applicant does not confirm his/her interest, the application will be automatically deactivated.
As soon as a room suitable for you is available, an offer with all important information as well as the corresponding rental contract documents will be sent to you by e-mail.
For acceptance you confirm the offer by replying to the mail of the Association of Student Affairs (Studentenwerk). Then, you print out the lease agreement in duplicate and sign both copies. Please print out the SEPA direct debit mandate once and sign it after filling in all data. Please submit these documents to the Association of Student Affairs (Studentenwerk) either in person or by mail no later than the stated deadline.
If you do not accept the offer for the dormitory place, please cancel by e-mail so that the place can be assigned to someone else.
Keys are currently issued by the housekeepers in the dormitory. You will be informed about the key collection procedure by e-mail by the corresponding administrators before the start of your lease.If you do not have the possibility to collect the keys personally during opening hours, you can authorize someone to do this for you. However, a written power of attorney is required for this
Shared flats and private accommodation
In addition to the residence halls there are other possibilities of housing. You can also search for a private accommodation or shared flats known as Wohngemeinschaften, abbr. WG. You find accomodation adverts in Giessen‘s newspapers every Friday as well as online (for example www.wg-gesucht.de). You may as well search for an accommodation in the commuter belt of Giessen. Many smaller towns can be easily reached by train or bus, such as Lollar, Linden, Kleinlinden, Butzbach etc.
Flatting with flat-mates
The majority of students in Germany live in shared flats. These usually consist of two to six persons sharing an apartment. Each flat-mate generally has his/her own room, which is usually unfurnished, and all flat-mates share kitchen and bathroom. In this form of accommodation, your flat mates can be of the opposite sex. The rent ranges from 200 to 400 Euro / month depending on the size and location of flat.
Private Apartments
Living in your own apartment is also an option. It is, however, rather difficult to find an affordable apartment in Giessen. The cost of renting such an apartment starts at about 350 Euro per month.The Friday issue of the local newspapers contains an up-to-date list of flats on offer.
The following Webpages contain up-to-date flatting offers:
German language
Last but not least, we recommend to start learning German. Basic knowledge of the German language can be very helpful when trying to find suitable accommodation and coping with day-to-day life. German-language learning courses are offered at JLU for international students link.