Student blogs

Today’s blog is my contribution to our housing series: SSSB! No matter if you’re a student from Sweden, from another EU country or from outside the EU, it’s useful to understand how SSSB works. Signing up is easy, so even if you’re planning to get accommodation from somewhere else, I’d recommend doing it.

I’ve lived in Stockholm for a few years by now, and most of the time I’ve stayed with SSSB. I first had a corridor room, which meant my own room (17sqm) with bathroom, and a shared kitchen with about 10 other students. Now, since almost 2 years, I live in an SSSB apartment.

How it works and what you need to do

SSSB is a housing queue for students in Stockholm. From the moment that you sign up, you collect membership days. Then, when you find a room you’re interested in, you apply for it and compete with everyone else who wants it. Whoever has the most queue days gets the housing offer.

Being signed up to SSSB doesn’t cost anything, and you can already sign up now. After 90 days, SSSB will check if you fulfil their requirements, which are: you need to be a student in Stockholm (so you’ll fulfil this when the semester starts) and a member of a student union. This means that, for now, you who recently got admitted can collect a maximum of 90 days. Remember to park your queue before the 90 days have passed, so you don’t loose the days!

Time it took me

The big limitation of SSSB is time… I only moved into my corridor room after collecting several months of queue days, and for the apartment (where I live now) it even took years. But I also know people that managed to get a corridor room sooner than I did, so don’t give up yet! The best thing you can do is check for rooms regularly and be open to a broad range of locations.

Accommodation types and locations

SSSB has many locations in and around the city, and most of them have corridor rooms, studios and apartments. For your beginning here in Stockholm, the most realistic arrangement is a corridor room, since those generally need the lowest amount of queue days.

My first SSSB location was called Jerum and it was 30 minutes away from campus Solna. I really liked the location because it had a manageable distance to KI and was also close to the city. Nowadays, I live in a location called Kungshamra. Here, I love being so close to the sea and living in a place that feels like a student village. It’s a bit further out of the city, but still very well connected (about 30 minutes to KI and the city). Other SSSB locations that are popular among KI students are mainly Strix and Pax (close to campus Solna) and Flemingsberg (close to campus Flemingsberg).

Summary and final tips

SSSB has good deals, but because of the queue day system it’s not guaranteed that you’ll find something on time before the semester starts. I do definitely recommend signing up to SSSB, but to also to keep looking for other options. Maybe you can accept a less ideal arrangement for the first few months, until you’ve gained enough queue days to “afford” something from SSSB? For example, students that go on exchange sometimes want to sublet their room (you find those via e.g. different housing groups on Facebook), so don’t exclude these kinds of preliminary housing options for the first weeks or months. That all being said; good luck with your housing search!