Why cooperative flats are hard to find
A housing cooperative lets its flats at cost rent, without profit, and each cooperative lets them itself. It puts a notice on its own website, often only for a few days, and sometimes on a portal as well. So to see them all, you would have to open hundreds of websites every day.
What aptari checks, 9 November 2026
| Number | |
|---|---|
| Housing cooperatives in aptari's register | 1,348 |
| With a website | 842 |
| Without a website | 506 |
| Vacancy pages aptari checks every day | About 800 (782 in the last 48 hours), in 25 cantons |
| Cooperatives with a free flat online in the last 7 days | 57 |
| New cooperative flats in the last 30 days | 117, from 35 cooperatives |
| Days online, half of the flats | 4 or less |
On most days, most cooperatives have nothing free. That is why checking by hand rarely works, and why the few flats that appear go fast.
Where the cooperatives are
| Canton | In the register | Checked every day |
|---|---|---|
| Zurich | 336 | 215 |
| Bern | 186 | 117 |
| Basel-Stadt | 137 | 93 |
| Vaud | 99 | 47 |
| St. Gallen | 93 | 53 |
| Geneva | 68 | 29 |
| Aargau | 62 | 35 |
| Basel-Landschaft | 59 | 32 |
| Lucerne | 51 | 41 |
How to use it
- Open aptari and choose the source filter for cooperatives. Free, no login.
- Save the search and switch on alerts (Pro and Ultra, and in the 14-day trial), so a new cooperative flat reaches you the day it appears.
- Keep your dossier ready in the Tenant Passport. Cooperatives often ask for the same documents as agencies, and some have their own rules on household size or income.
- Apply on the cooperative's own website: a cooperative listing on aptari opens that page. Where the button shows, Apply with Aptari writes your message with a private link to your dossier, and you send it.
What aptari does not do
The cooperative decides who gets the flat. aptari does not check income limits, member priority, waiting lists or lotteries, and it cannot see flats that a cooperative lets only among its members or without a notice on its website.
For cooperatives
Housing cooperatives with their seat in Switzerland get aptari Enterprise free after a short check, without a credit card.