Student Residence or Shared Flat? Choosing Where You'll Live in Italy
If you're planning to study in Italy, the ads for brand-new student residences will find you before you find them. The buildings are real: investors put 520 million euros into Italian student housing in 2025 alone, and around 28,000 new beds are on the way by 2029, most of them in Milan, Bologna, Padua and Rome. The photos are glossy too. Whether one of those beds is the right choice for you is a separate question, and it deserves five minutes of honest arithmetic.
What a private residence actually gives you Friction-free booking, mainly. You reserve from abroad with a card, the contract is in English, there's a gym downstairs and nobody's uncle to negotiate with. That convenience has a price tag: a single room in a private residence runs between 800 and 1,200 euros a month in the main university cities. Milan's Olympic Village, the largest of the new wave, charges 1,065 euros for a single.
Compare that with the room market. A single room in a shared flat averages 613 euros across Italy: 732 in Milan, 632 in Bologna, around 575 in Rome, 502 in Padua. The residence premium is real money, every month, for years.
The part the brochure skips A purpose-built residence is designed in series. The room you get in Bologna is the room you'd get in Lisbon, and the life it contains, gym, study room, lobby, happens mostly indoors. The city stays outside the door. Plenty of students only notice this after they land, when the Italy they came for turns out to be a fifteen-minute walk away rather than downstairs.
There's a cultural split here, and it's worth knowing which side you're on. North American study-abroad programmes usually house their students as part of the package, so the campus format feels familiar if you're coming from the US. European students tend to travel on their own and to want the city itself: among exchange students across Europe, 43% live in a shared flat with other students, against 21% in private residences. The flat is the single most common way to live, by a wide margin.
How students in Italy actually live In Italy the pattern is even sharper. Of roughly 824,000 students living away from home, fewer than 5% get a place in any kind of residence. Everyone else rents a room, almost always in a shared apartment. It's cheaper, the flatmates come with it, and so does the neighbourhood: the bar where they know your order by November is not a residence amenity.
The one real risk with flats, and how to remove it Booking a room from abroad, sight unseen, is where things go wrong. More than 38% of exchange students heading to Italy have run into a scam attempt, the highest rate in Europe, and four in ten say the listing didn't tell them what the place was really like. The fix is simple to state: only book a room that someone has verified. Real photos, a checked landlord, a written contract you can read before paying, a deposit that stays within one month's rent. That is exactly the filter Acadomus applies with Students First, including a hard price cap of 950 euros for a room, so a verified listing is also a fairly priced one.
A quick way to decide Coming for one semester on a programme that includes housing? Take what they give you and spend your energy on classes. Coming for a full degree, on your own budget, and you actually want to live in an Italian city rather than next to one? The room in a shared flat wins on price and on the life around it. Just don't book it from a social media group.
How much does a private student residence cost in Italy? Between 800 and 1,200 euros a month for a single room in the main university cities (Savills, 2026). A single room in a shared flat averages 613 euros nationally, 732 in Milan (Immobiliare.it Insights, 2025).
Do most students in Italy live in residences or shared flats? Shared flats. Fewer than 5% of Italy's roughly 824,000 out-of-town students find a residence place; nearly everyone else rents a room on the private market (CGIL, UDU and SUNIA data).
Is it safe to book a room in Italy from abroad? Only through verified listings: over 38% of exchange students heading to Italy reported a scam attempt, the highest rate in Europe (ESN and ESU housing report). Book where the landlord, the photos and the contract have been checked.
Which do exchange students choose, residence or shared flat? Across Europe, 43% of exchange students live in shared flats and 21% in private residences (ESN and ESU, 2023). Price and city life drive the choice.