Student rent in big cities: Every second room in a shared apartment in Berlin costs more than 650 euros

dpa | In Berlin, every second room in a shared apartment was recently offered for more than 650 euros. This emerges from an evaluation by the Moses Mendelssohn Institute, which is available to the German Press Agency. Berlin was on a par with Hamburg, while in Cologne the so-called median was 640 euros.

Shared rooms in Munich are significantly more expensive: the median there was 850 euros. The median divides all collected values ​​into two equal groups. Half of the rooms on offer cost more and the other half cost less than this value.

Across Germany, the average price for rooms offered in shared apartments with two or three people hardly changed. According to the Moses Mendelssohn Institute, it was 510 euros after 512 euros before the start of the 2026 summer semester in the spring. “However, the largely stable German value conceals significant differences between the individual university locations,” said the institute.

In the four German cities of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne, rents for rooms in smaller shared apartments rose significantly. In the four cities, such rooms cost an average of 692 euros before the start of the upcoming winter semester - 23 euros more than six months earlier.

“For young people who move to another city to study, it makes a significant difference where they study,” said Stefan Brauckmann, Managing Director of the Moses Mendelssohn Institute, according to the statement. “Whether a room in a shared apartment costs 400, 500 or 650 euros can have a significant impact on which place to study is actually affordable.”

The Moses Mendelssohn Institute has been examining the housing markets for students and trainees since 2011. All university locations with more than 5,000 students were included in the current analysis. Publicly accessible housing offers on the wg-gesucht.de platform were evaluated. The sample included almost 3,900 advertisements for shared apartments with two or three people.

New shared apartments, exchange offers, temporary offers and offers for furnished shared rooms were not taken into account. The offered prices are usually rents including rent, and in some cases additional supply costs are also integrated.