In Stockholm, the report found, the average waiting time for a student apartment is now 4.7 years, while in Gothenburg, the queue time for a room is 14 to 15 months and only 2,000 of the 7,000 promised student housing units have been built in the last decade.
Several other student cities have seen improvements, however, with the cities housing Sweden's two historic universities, Uppsala and Lund, both moving from "red" – the worst of the report's categories – to "yellow" in this year's report, thanks to the completion of major building projects.
"Several of the larger student cities are going from 'red' to 'yellow' this year. It is pleasing to see and means that the housing situation has improved for many students," Hampus Haugland, chair of the Swedish National Union of Students (SFS), said in a press statement. "But there is still a lot of work to be done. Our hope is that these cities will continue the work and now strive to become green."
Both Lund and Uppsala were rated "red" between 2022 and 2025.
The report groups towns and cities into three categories: green, where students can find housing within a month, yellow, where students can expect to get a first-hand rental contract valid for their whole period of study "at some point in the autumn term", and red, where students cannot get accommodation in the autumn term.
Alnarp, Gothenburg, Kiruna, Stockholm, and Visby are all rated "red".
Haugland said that there were two types of "yellow" cities: cities where students get their own housing by the start of the semester, but where the rents are too high, and cities where students have to wait well into the fall semester before they get their own housing.
"What is common to almost all yellow cities is that the rent is higher than what SFS considers to be a reasonable rent level for students," he said.
The "yellow" cities include Arvika, Borås, Gävle, Halmstad, Helsingborg, Jönköping, Karlskrona, Linköping, Luleå, Lund, Malmö, Norrköping, Piteå, Skellefteå, Skövde, Trollhättan, Umeå, Uppsala, Örebro, and Östersund.
Green university towns include Borlänge, Eskilstuna, Falun, Kalmar, Karlstad, Kristianstad, Sundsvall, Västerås, and Växjö.