Housing queues in Sweden 2026: how they work in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö

Published October 10, 2026 14 min read Rashmoni Dey

Short answer

You join the queue at Bostadsförmedlingen in Stockholm, Boplats Väst in Gothenburg or Boplats Syd in Malmö, and usually pay a fee every year. Your queue time counts from the day you register or pay. You look for vacant apartments yourself, and an apartment usually goes to the person with the longest queue time who meets the landlord's requirements. If you miss a payment, you risk losing all your queue time.

Do you want to rent an apartment with a contract in your own name, a first-hand contract (förstahandskontrakt)? In Stockholm, Gothenburg (Göteborg) and Malmö, many rental apartments (hyresrätter) are let through a housing queue (bostadskö) run by the municipality. The apartments usually go to the person who has queued longest and meets the landlord’s requirements. So it pays to join early, even if you are not moving yet, and not to lose your place. Here is how the three big queues work, what they cost, what applies without a personnummer, and what to do in other towns.

The municipality’s housing agency (bostadsförmedling) runs the queue, and the landlord sets the requirements for each apartment. We checked the details on the queues’ and the police’s pages and in the law on 10 October 2026, except for Boplats Syd’s pages, which we checked on 9 October 2026.

How a housing queue works

You register with the housing agency and usually pay a fee every year. That way you collect queue time (kötid), the time you have been in the queue.
Vacant apartments are advertised on the agency’s website. You search yourself by making an expression of interest (intresseanmälan) for the apartments you want.
Each apartment gets its own queue of the people who registered interest. The apartment usually goes to the person with the longest queue time who meets the landlord’s requirements. These are often about income, payment remarks (betalningsanmärkningar) and debts, and how many people will live in the apartment.
Your queue time is personal. It can’t be given to anyone else, not even to your children.
When you sign an ordinary contract that runs until further notice, your queue time starts again from zero. With a short-term contract (korttidskontrakt), where you may only live there for a limited time, or with student housing, you usually keep it.

The three queues at a glance

	Stockholm	Gothenburg	Malmö
Queue	Bostadsförmedlingen i Stockholm	Boplats Väst	Boplats Syd
Area	the whole Stockholm region	Gothenburg and many municipalities in western Sweden	large parts of Skåne
Age	from 18	account from 17, apply from 18	queue from the calendar year you turn 16, apply from 18
Fee	SEK 200 a year	SEK 200 a year from age 22, free for ages 17 to 21	SEK 300 a year
Queue time counts from	the day you register	the day you have created the account and paid	the day your payment arrives
Without a personnummer	coordination number works	coordination number works, but an e-ID is required	date of birth instead
If you don’t pay	queue time lost five months after the due date	account becomes inactive and is deleted after 24 months	queue time lost after 60 days

Stockholm: Bostadsförmedlingen

Bostadsförmedlingen i Stockholm (the Stockholm Rental Agency) is a company within Stockholms stad (the City of Stockholm). It allocates rental apartments across the whole Stockholm region.

Register on the website if you are 18 or older and have a Swedish personnummer or coordination number. It doesn’t matter where you live or whether you already have a home. Your queue time starts counting straight away.
The fee is SEK 200 a year. The first time, you pay by Swish or card when you register. After that, you get an email every year when it’s time, and have 30 days to pay by Swish or card on Mina sidor (My Pages), your account on the website. Otherwise you get a payment slip (betalningsavi) or e-invoice with a last date, the due date (förfallodag).
Paying from a foreign account? The IBAN and BIC are on Bostadsförmedlingen’s page about the queue fee.
After the due date your file becomes dormant (vilande): your expressions of interest are removed, and you can’t make new ones. Pay within five months of the due date and you keep your queue time. Otherwise you are deregistered, and the queue time can’t be restored.
It’s your responsibility. Bostadsförmedlingen doesn’t chase the fee, and a payment slip that doesn’t reach you is no reason to get your queue time back.
Search yourself. Bostadsförmedlingen doesn’t send out offers of homes. At most three expressions of interest may be active at a time, except for new builds and senior housing.
If you move abroad, you stay in the queue as long as you pay on time. Keep your address up to date on Mina sidor.

Customer service: 08-785 88 30.

Gothenburg: Boplats Väst

Boplats Väst, the housing agency for the Gothenburg region, was called Boplats Göteborg until it changed its name on 12 September 2024. It is owned by Göteborgs Stad (the City of Gothenburg) and allocates rental apartments in Gothenburg and in many municipalities in western Sweden, on boplats.se.

Create an account from the day you turn 17. You may apply for apartments from 18. The account is personal and linked to your personnummer or coordination number, and you may only have one account.
An e-ID (e-legitimation) is required, such as BankID or Freja Plus. Without an account confirmed with an e-ID, you collect no queue days and can’t apply for apartments.
The fee is SEK 200 a year, including VAT, from age 22. For ages 17 to 21 it has been free since 1 January 2026. Queue days count from the day you have created the account and paid.
Your payment day is the date you created the account. If you were under 22 when you registered, it is your birthday instead. The payment slip is on Mina sidor at the latest 30 days before.
No letters. Boplats sends no payment slips or reminders by post. Reminders come to the inbox on Mina sidor, and by text message and email if you have verified your mobile number and email address.
If you don’t pay in time, the account becomes inactive. You collect no new queue days and can’t apply for apartments, but the days you have are kept. After 24 months inactive, the account is deleted with all its queue days.
At most five expressions of interest at a time. If more than 50 people are ahead of you in the ad, the chance of being invited to a viewing is small.

How long it takes depends a lot on what you are looking for. In 2025, people who got a one-room apartment had on average 4.9 years of queue time, and people who got a four-room apartment 9.7 years. The same year, 402 apartments went to people with up to one year of queue time.

Customer service: 031-100 250.

Malmö and Skåne: Boplats Syd

Boplats Syd, the municipal housing agency for Malmö and much of Skåne, is owned by Malmö stad (the City of Malmö). It allocates rental apartments from over 90 private and municipal landlords in large parts of Skåne, on boplatssyd.se.

Join the queue from the calendar year you turn 16. You may register interest in apartments from 18.
When you register, you give your personnummer, name, phone number and email address. If you have no Swedish personnummer, you give your date of birth instead.
The fee is SEK 300 a year. It is set by kommunfullmäktige (the municipal council) in Malmö, and it has been the same since 2009. Your queue time counts from the day the payment has arrived in Boplats Syd’s bank account.
The first time, you have 60 days to pay. Otherwise the account is deactivated.
Every year after that, you have 60 days from the day your paid period ends. While the fee is unpaid you can’t apply for apartments, and if you don’t pay within 60 days you lose your queue time.
The reminder shows on Mina sidor, and a payment slip is sent to your email or your registered address (folkbokföringsadress). You are responsible for paying on time, even if the payment slip doesn’t reach you. With Autopay, the fee is taken from your card 30 days before the period ends.
Update your details at least every six months, for example your income, workplace and how many people will live in the apartment. Otherwise you may not register interest.

In 2025 the average queue time to a contract was 3.2 years and the median 2.1 years. A third of the apartments went to someone with less than one year of queue time. In Malmö and the surrounding municipalities, queue times are generally longer than in other parts of Skåne.

Customer service: 010-20 22 500.

Without a personnummer

If you don’t have a personnummer yet, it is often still possible to join a queue, for example with a coordination number (samordningsnummer). It is a number that Skatteverket (the Swedish Tax Agency) in some cases gives to people who have no personnummer. The rules differ:

Stockholm: a coordination number is enough to register. Bostadsförmedlingen recommends an e-ID, but to get an e-ID you need a Swedish personnummer or a verified coordination number (styrkt samordningsnummer). If you have no e-ID, customer service will help you register. To log in, Stockholms stad offers a free password account (lösenordskonto).
Gothenburg: Boplats Väst accepts coordination numbers, but you need an e-ID to confirm the account. Without it, you collect no queue days.
Malmö: at Boplats Syd you give your date of birth if you have no Swedish personnummer.

Being in the queue is not the same as getting a contract. Before you get an apartment, the agency checks your details and runs a credit check (kreditupplysning), a check of your finances. At Uppsala Bostadsförmedling (Uppsala’s municipal housing agency) it is possible to join the queue with a coordination number or your date of birth, but the credit check needs a Swedish personnummer. Students don’t need a Swedish personnummer to sign a contract for student housing. Ask your queue what applies to you.

Waiting for your personnummer? Read how long it takes to get a personnummer.

How to keep your place

Each queue has its own rules. This is how you avoid losing your place:

Choose the queue where you want to live. In Stockholm it is Bostadsförmedlingen, in Gothenburg Boplats Väst and in Malmö Boplats Syd. Elsewhere, search your municipality’s website for “bostadskö” (housing queue) or “bostadsförmedling” (housing agency).
Join as early as possible. Your queue time counts from the day you register or pay. Don’t wait until you are about to move.
Pay the fee on time every year. Put a reminder in your calendar that repeats every year. If you miss the payment, you risk losing all your queue time.
Keep your details up to date. Make sure your email, phone and address are right, and log in often. At Boplats Syd you must update your details at least every six months to be allowed to register interest.
Search for apartments and answer in time. Register your interest in vacant apartments yourself, and answer viewing invitations and offers within the deadline. Only say yes if you want the apartment, because a yes can be binding. If you back out after a yes, you may be blocked from applying for a while.

Remember that your queue time starts again from zero when you sign an ordinary contract. Our Housing queues tool goes through each queue step by step.

Living somewhere else?

By law, the municipality must arrange a housing agency if it is needed given the housing market, sometimes together with neighbouring municipalities.

Search your municipality’s website for “bostadskö” or “bostadsförmedling”. Several queues cover a whole region. For example, there are municipal housing agencies in Uppsala, covering the whole Uppsala region, and in Kungsbacka, Sigtuna and Växjö (Boplats Växjö).
Check the big landlords. Both private landlords and municipal housing companies sometimes let their homes, fully or partly, through queues of their own.
Join several queues. If you have few queue days, it can help to look for a home through several of them.
Read each queue’s rules. A municipal queue may charge a queue fee for at most one year at a time, and the municipality decides the amount. So the fees differ.

Never pay for a contract

Someone offers you a first-hand contract for money? Say no. Selling a rental contract is a crime, and so is buying one.

Selling: anyone who asks for or accepts a special payment (särskild ersättning), meaning payment for the contract itself, for letting an apartment or handing over a rental contract can be sentenced to prison for at most two years. If the crime is minor, the penalty is a fine or prison for at most six months.
Buying: anyone who makes such a payment to rent an apartment or take over a rental contract can be sentenced to a fine or prison for at most two years.
Serious crimes can in both cases lead to prison for up to four years.
Your queue time is personal and can’t be passed on to anyone else. Boplats Väst can block anyone who tries to sell or transfer their account, for at least six months.

Give the police a tip via polisen.se. If you can’t use the tip forms, call 114 14 and say “tips”. Call 112 if a crime is happening now or if the police are needed on site quickly.

Subletting while you wait?

One option while you wait is to sublet (hyra i andra hand). Then the first-hand tenant is your landlord.

The landlord must approve the sublet, and the sublet rent must not be too high.
Check with the property owner that the person rents the apartment and has permission to sublet it. Demand ID and a rental contract.
Never pay in advance before you have seen the apartment and the contract is signed. Unfortunately, fraud attempts are common.

Use our Rent check to check the ad and whether the rent is too high.

Summary

Join a queue early. Your queue time counts from the day you register or pay.
The fee is SEK 200 a year in Stockholm and at Boplats Väst from age 22 (free for ages 17 to 21), and SEK 300 at Boplats Syd.
Pay on time every year, even if no reminder reaches you. If you miss the payment, you risk losing all your queue time.
Without a personnummer it is often possible to be in a queue: with a coordination number in Stockholm and Gothenburg, where Boplats Väst also requires an e-ID, and with your date of birth at Boplats Syd.
Buying or selling a rental contract is a crime. Say no.

Sources

The app for SFI and Swedish

Frequently asked questions

How does the housing queue work in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö?

Is it possible to join a housing queue without a personnummer?

At Bostadsförmedlingen in Stockholm and at Boplats Väst a coordination number (samordningsnummer) is enough, but Boplats Väst only counts queue days once the account is confirmed with an e-ID. At Boplats Syd you give your date of birth if you have no Swedish personnummer. A contract may need more, such as a credit check.

What happens if I don't pay the queue fee in time?

It depends on the queue. In Stockholm your file becomes dormant after the due date, and if you haven't paid within five months of it, you lose your queue time. At Boplats Väst the account becomes inactive and is deleted after 24 months, with all its queue days. At Boplats Syd you lose your queue time if you haven't paid within 60 days of the end of your paid period.

Is it illegal to buy a rental contract?

Yes. Buying a rental contract is a crime, and so is selling one. The penalty can be a fine or prison, in serious cases up to four years. Say no, and consider giving the police a tip.