Student room management in Antwerp

Studying and living in Antwerp

Antwerp draws tens of thousands of students to the University of Antwerp, AP University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Karel de Grote University of Applied Sciences and Arts and other institutions. The University of Antwerp alone has almost 25,000 students. The student housing market is varied: from rooms in townhouses to studios in new student residences, often in buildings where non-students live too.

Students mainly search on Kotweb, the student housing platform the city runs together with Antwerp's higher education institutions. For landlords, Kotweb is more than a listings site: it also plays a role in the registration duty.

Registration duty and planning permit

In Antwerp, every landlord must register their student housing, and must do so before the first letting. You can do this by listing your room on Kotweb or through the city's registration form. A listing on Kotweb is enough to meet the registration duty.

If you want to create one or more student rooms in a building, house or apartment, you need a planning permit (stedenbouwkundige vergunning). It is only granted if your project complies with the Flemish Spatial Planning Code and the Antwerp Building Code. Ask the city's planning permit department for advice beforehand, especially if you plan to subdivide a house or buy a student building as an investment.

The Flemish kotlabel in Antwerp

Since 2025, the city no longer issues its own Antwerp kotlabels and has adopted the Flemish kotlabel instead. The label is not mandatory in Antwerp. You apply through the Flemish government, after which the city checks three criteria:

• Housing quality: a conformity certificate no more than ten years old, or a quality inspection after your application. That inspection has been chargeable since 1 January 2026.
• Fire safety under Antwerp's Code of Police Regulations, for the entire building, even if non-students also live there. A fee applies here too.
• The correct planning permit for the number of rooms.

In practice: documents, lead time and leases

With your application you add inspection certificates, such as those for the electrical installation, emergency lighting, gas installation, heating, flues, any lift and the firefighting equipment. Expect a lead time of six to twelve months, depending on the size of the building and the number of defects found. So start well before the academic year and keep track of every certificate and its expiry date.

The lease falls under the Flemish Residential Tenancy Decree: a deposit of at most two months' rent, no tacit renewal, a mandatory inspection report and registration within two months via MyRent. Read more in our guides on the student room lease and registering a lease via MyRent.

Advice from the city and wheelchair-accessible rooms

Planning to let to students, or having problems with your student housing? The City of Antwerp offers advice through its housing and energy desk (loket wonen en energie). You get information on all the rules and advice on adjustments and works, possibly on site. For technical questions you can also consult an architect. That is well worth it before you buy or renovate a building, because fixing a permit afterwards costs more than planning properly beforehand.

You can also mark student housing on Kotweb as wheelchair accessible. The city refers to a practical checklist from Inter Vlaanderen for this. Your property does not need to meet every point, but the main basic conditions must be in place. That way you reach a group of students who often struggle to find a suitable room.

How Kotmaster helps Antwerp landlords and investors

Landlords in Antwerp often combine student rooms with apartments, commercial units or garages. Kotmaster manages all of it in one platform. You create digital leases from templates, have them signed with itsme® and register them together with the inspection report in one click via MyRent.

Your inspection certificates, conformity certificate and permits are stored centrally, so you have everything at hand when you apply for a kotlabel. Payments are followed up automatically, rent is indexed by the health index and repair requests arrive in a structured way. Integrations with your bank, accounting software and Google Drive or OneDrive keep everything in sync. Explore all features or request a demo.