Exchange students at Hoas
Each academic year, Hoas provides over 950 exchange students with a furnished room or apartment. The service has been developed in close cooperation with universities and universities of applied sciences in the Helsinki metropolitan area, and each school has a certain quota reserved for their students. Hoas rents the apartments based on information provided by the schools.
Application for Spring term 2024 is now open.
How to apply?
You can submit your application right after the application period start date:
Autumn 29st of March and for spring 29th of September (12:00 at noon).
You can apply for a furnished apartment even before your studies in Finland are confirmed.
- For example if you need an apartment starting from 1st of September, the earliest you can submit your application is 1st of April of the same year.
You can apply for an apartment by filling in the application on our website after we start accepting applications. If you have problems sending your application, check that you have entered all the required information correctly.
Who can apply for a Hoas furnished apartment for exchange students?
You may apply for a furnished exchange student apartment if you are attending one of the following schools as an exchange student:
- Aalto University
- Arcada
- Diak
- Haaga-Helia
- Hanken
- University of Helsinki
- Laurea
- Metropolia
- University of the Arts Helsinki – The Academy of Fine Arts, Sibelius Academy, and Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki
And your study campus is in the metropolitan area (Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa).
If your school is not listed in the application form, you are not entitled to apply for an exchange student apartment at Hoas.
Apartments and rooms for exchange students are furnished. Exchange students may also apply unfurnished housing for degree students. With furnished exchange student apartments, exchange students come first. With unfurnished apartments, degree students have priority over exchange students.
On what basis are the apartments rented?
We always try to find a housing solution that supports the studies. Hoas aims to offer the housing based on the order of the application submitting date. However, the main criteria for Hoas when providing furnished apartments is the information received from the schools in Finland. Meaning that the person who has been waiting the longest is not always automatically the first applicant receiving the housing offer.
We try to offer the applicant an apartment that is located within a reasonable distance from your school or has good public transport connections.
- Hoas classifies public transport connections as good if a one-way travel takes maximum of 45 minutes to your destination.
Hoas aims to offer the apartments according to the chosen housing types on the application. In case the preffered housing types are not available any longer, or the distance is too long, applicants can be offered another housing type. Due to a large amount of applicants Hoas can not guarantee a specific location or type of accommodation.
How many applications can I have pending at the same time?
An applicant can only have one active application for a furnished apartment.
You may choose and apply for several apartment types with your furnished apartment application. If you wish to apply for several different apartment types, please enter the chosen housing types in the field reserved for additional information, listing them in order of priority. Applicants are primarily offered the apartment type they have applied for.
If you submit a new application, with an existing application already pending, it will automatically be rejected.
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