Finding a home in Switzerland is getting harder. For the fifth year in a row the share of vacant flats has fallen, slipping to 1%. In other words, 99% of the country’s housing stock is now occupied. The broad region with the most acute crunch is Vaud and Geneva, but shortages are country wide.
According to the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), the vacancy rate dropped by 0.08 percentage points in the year to June 1st 2025, from 1.08% to 1%. That leaves just over 48,000 homes empty nationwide—around 3,600 fewer than a year earlier. It marks the fifth consecutive annual decline.
The steepest fall came in Ticino, where the share of available housing, whether for rent or for sale, fell from 2.08% to 1.92%. The Lake Geneva region followed, with a decline from 0.96% to 0.83%.
Scarcity is no longer confined to city centres. In Vaud, many house-hunters are moving further afield, to places like the Veveyse district of neighbouring Fribourg. Châtel-Saint-Denis, a designated “pole city” in Switzerland’s planning jargon, is under particular strain. New developments are snapped up before the paint dries. Towns like this are now expected to absorb new residents in a way that smaller surrounding communes are not.
By convention, a vacancy rate below 2% signals shortage. All of French-speaking Switzerland now qualifies, bar Jura. Geneva is worst off, with a vacancy rate of just 0.34%, followed by Vaud (0.89%), Fribourg (1.11%), Valais (1.18%) and Neuchâtel (1.82%). Jura, with 3.03%, and Solothurn, with 2.05%, are the only cantons in Switzerland above the shortage threshold.
Nationally, Geneva remains the tightest market, followed by Zug (0.42%) and Zurich (0.48%). Basel-City (0.92%) is a little better. In total, 15 cantons now register vacancy rates below 1%, evidence of a nationwide squeeze. Families are bearing the brunt, since three- and four-room apartments are most in demand.
Many more rural cantons are feeling the squeeze too. Vacancy rates in Nidwalden (0.68%), Uri (0.64%), Glarus (0.61%), Graubunden (0.57%) and Obwalden (0.50%) are all well below 1%.
Net migration to Switzerland was around 142,000 in 2023, a number that fell to 83,000 in 2024 as the number of Ukrainian refugees fell. Set against the 48,000 available homes in June, Switzerland’s housing situation looks dire.
More on this:
FSO communiqué (in French) – Take a 5 minute French test now
For more stories like this on Switzerland follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
