Geneva & Lausanne Subletting Guide: Legal Sous-Location Rules & ASLOCA Standards

Vacancy rates around the Lake Geneva arc have been hovering near or below 1% for years; in the city of Geneva the figure has repeatedly come in around 0.5%, which is about as close to zero as a rental market gets. The result is a permanent shortage that pushes newcomers into sublets:

• UN, WTO, ICRC and NGO staff and interns arriving for 3–12 month assignments who cannot compete for a standard lease.
• EPFL and UNIL students and doctoral researchers cycling in and out each semester, plus exchange students who need a room for four months.
• Corporate newcomers whose start date beats their apartment search — a dossier without a Swiss employer history rarely wins a viewing.
• Tenants leaving temporarily — sabbaticals, secondments, parental leave — who will not give up a rent-controlled flat they could never replace.

That desperation is exactly what the law on abusive sublet rents exists to contain. If you are on the demand side, read our Swiss apartment dossier guide and the apartment hunting guide in parallel — a sublet should be your bridge, not your plan.

Article 262 of the Code of Obligations is short and it is the whole framework. A tenant may sublet all or part of the apartment with the landlord's consent, and the landlord may only refuse consent in three cases:

1. The tenant refuses to disclose the conditions of the sublet. You must state who is moving in, for how long, and at what rent and charges.
2. The sublet rent is abusive compared with the rent you pay, taking any furniture and services into account.
3. The sublet causes the landlord a serious disadvantage — typically overcrowding, a change of use (short-term tourist letting), or a sublet that is really a disguised, permanent handover of the lease.

ASLOCA, the French-speaking tenants' association, applies the same three tests and publishes model documents in French. Its practical guidance is what conciliation authorities in Geneva and Vaud see every week: ask early, ask in writing, keep the answer, and keep the rent honest. Membership costs a modest annual fee and includes contract review — cheap insurance on a CHF 2,000-a-month apartment.

One more Geneva specific: short-term furnished letting through platforms is separately restricted by cantonal housing law and by many building regulations. A sublet contract does not convert a residential apartment into a legal holiday rental.

There is no fixed percentage written into federal law. What exists is the standard of the non-abusive rent: your rent, plus charges, plus a supplement that reflects what you actually provide. In practice, tribunals accept a supplement built from real numbers.

Build the supplement from an inventory: a CHF 6,000 furnishing amortised over eight years is CHF 62 a month, not CHF 400. That single calculation is the difference between a sublet that survives a challenge and one that costs you your lease.

Note the deposit rules too. A subtenant deposit is a private arrangement between you and them — it is not a blocked bank guarantee account, so hold it separately, state it in the contract, and return it against a signed exit inventory. Our relocation cash calculator shows how much cash you actually need up front for a Geneva move once deposit, first rent and insurance are counted.

Two documents, in this order. First the request for consent to the landlord or régie. Second the sublet contract with your subtenant, signed only once consent is in hand. Send the request by registered post or through the régie's portal so you have a dated trace, and give a deadline for the reply — silence is not consent.

The consent request should name the subtenant, the exact period, whether the flat is furnished, the rent you pay and the rent you will charge, and confirm that you remain liable. The sublet contract then repeats those terms and adds the deposit, the inventory and an automatic-termination clause tied to your main lease.

The template is a starting point in English so you understand every clause; have the final French version checked by ASLOCA or the Tribunal des baux before signing.

Do not forget the housekeeping that follows a sublet: the subtenant must register with the commune (see the registration guide), needs their own Swiss health insurance within three months, and should take out personal liability insurance. If quiet-hours complaints start, the main tenant is the one the régie writes to — our quiet hours and tenant rights post explains the house-rules regime.

• Swiss Code of Obligations, Art. 262 (sous-location) — fedlex.admin.ch.
• ASLOCA Genève and ASLOCA Vaud — model sublet documents and advice service (asloca.ch).
• Federal Statistical Office (OFS/BFS) — annual vacancy-rate statistics by canton.
• Canton of Geneva, Office cantonal du logement — rules on change of use and furnished letting.