Listings and homes are two different numbers
| Measure | Number |
|---|---|
| Rental listings | 67,323 |
| Different homes behind them | 35,546 |
| Homes advertised on two or more portals | 60% |
| Homes with a rent shown | 33,685 |
| Of these, up to CHF 1,500 | 10,253 (30%) |
| Of these, up to CHF 2,000 | 19,730 (59%) |
Source: aptari feed, 9 November 2026. The feed covers Homegate, ImmoScout24, Flatfox and about 800 housing cooperative websites. Homes advertised elsewhere are not counted.
A listing is one advert on one portal. A home is the flat itself. An agency often places the same flat on several portals, so counting adverts makes the market look almost twice as large as it is.
How much the portals overlap
- 20,603 homes are on both Homegate and ImmoScout24. That is 88% of the homes on Homegate and 89% of those on ImmoScout24.
- Of 19,179 homes on Flatfox, 9,513 are on neither of the two, about half.
Homes for rent by city and canton
| City | Homes | Canton | Homes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zurich | 3,382 | Zurich | 6,603 |
| Basel | 1,184 | Bern | 4,006 |
| Bern | 693 | Ticino | 3,067 |
| Lausanne | 688 | Vaud | 2,937 |
| Geneva | 654 | Aargau | 2,159 |
| St. Gallen | 509 | St. Gallen | 1,817 |
| Lugano | 499 | ||
| Winterthur | 394 | ||
| Lucerne | 385 | ||
| Fribourg | 323 | ||
| Biel | 281 | ||
| Neuchâtel | 281 |
Source: aptari feed, 9 November 2026, different homes.
Why the official vacancy rate looks so different
The BFS counts dwellings that stand empty and are on offer on one day of the year. On 1 June 2026 that was 45,493 dwellings, for rent or for sale, or 0.93% of the whole housing stock (BFS, 2026). In the city of Zurich the rate was 0.11%. An advert is not the same thing: many advertised flats are still lived in, because the tenant has given notice and the next one is being sought. That is how a city with very few empty flats can still show thousands of adverts.
Seeing the number yourself
The aptari feed is free and needs no login, and it shows the current count for any city, rent limit or size you filter by. Every advert is its own card, so the same flat can appear once per portal. If you want to hear about new adverts without checking daily, save the search: alerts are part of Pro, Ultra and the 14-day free trial. With a Tenant Passport, the Apply with Aptari button, wherever it shows, prepares your message and dossier link for you to send on the portal.