Student Housing Italy compared with the Netherlands

Italy has almost two million students. And far too few beds.

This is the second article in TEN’s series Italy versus the Netherlands, comparing both housing markets across four parts: the housing market in general, student housing, senior housing and co-living. On this second topic, the Italian market may well be the most interesting one for the Netherlands.

The figures first. Italy counts around 1,9 million university students, of whom an estimated 764.000 study outside their home town. Against that group stand roughly 70.000 to 75.000 professional student beds. The PBSA coverage ratio therefore sits at around 10% of the students who actually need housing. That mismatch is enormous, and precisely for that reason something interesting is now happening.

Italy Puts 60.000 Beds on the Market in One Move

Through its PNRR programme, the Italian government has set an explicit target: 60.000 additional student beds, with an official deadline in 2026. Not in ten or twenty years, but now.

To achieve this, the government made a subsidy available of € 19.966,66 per realised bed, paid out only once the bed actually becomes available. That is not a subsidy for plans or studies, but a payment linked to the delivered product. Sixty thousand beds at around € 20.000 each amounts to a financial stimulus of roughly € 1,2 billion.

The Netherlands Wants the Same Number

Here the comparison sharpens. The Netherlands has a national target of its own: 60.000 additional student homes between 2022 and 2030. After the first three years, around 15.000 had been realised. Concrete construction plans existed for another 11.600 homes up to and including 2029, plus around 9.600 less concrete plans.

Italy and the Netherlands therefore have almost exactly the same target. But Italy has a population more than three times as large and a far bigger university student market. The Italian shortage is considerably more severe.

International Study Is Changing the Market

In the academic year 2024/25, more than 110.000 foreign students studied in Italy. In that same year, the Netherlands counted 131.004 international degree students at universities and universities of applied sciences, around 16,6% of all students in higher education.

Despite its much smaller population, the Netherlands therefore has more international degree students than Italy. That is remarkable, and it means the Netherlands is relatively far more dependent on good student housing to keep its knowledge economy functioning.

Italy Treats It as a Real-Estate Category

Milan, Rome, Bologna, Florence, Turin and Padua are attracting a growing number of international PBSA investors. Not because supply is sufficient, but precisely because the shortage is structural. Institutional investors are developing complexes of hundreds of beds there, with study spaces, sports, community, food and beverage, laundry, security and services.

Student housing thereby stops being a collection of rooms and becomes a professionally operated living product. It is the same movement that became visible earlier in Spain.

The Netherlands Has a More Mature Sector

The comparison must remain fair. The Netherlands has had specialised student-housing providers and housing associations for decades; the quality of its institutional infrastructure is higher as a result. But the stock is not growing fast enough. In 2024, around 5.000 student homes were added, while at the same time a considerable number of private rooms disappeared from the market. The government itself concluded in 2025 that the shortage remains large.

Italy starts from much further behind, but is now putting far more money behind scaling up.

Who Does It Better?

The Netherlands wins on professional operation, established student-housing providers, affordable supply and experience. Italy wins on the scale of its new incentive and the direct link between subsidy and realised beds.

There is something to learn from that. The Netherlands tends to subsidise housing through land, area development, unprofitable tops and complex programmes. Italy essentially says: here is around € 20.000 if you actually add a new student bed. That is remarkably simple.

The Real Lesson

The Netherlands could do the same for student housing. The question is therefore not whether we want 60.000 homes, but whether we are prepared to be judged on 60.000 beds that are actually available, with universities, municipalities, developers and operators at the table from day one.

Because one building with 500 student beds does not only solve the problem of 500 students. It also prevents 500 people from searching for rooms, studios and small apartments in the regular housing market.

Student housing is not a side issue of education. It is housing-market infrastructure. Italy discovered that late, but now appears willing to put serious money behind it.

This is the second article in the TEN series Italy versus the Netherlands. Part three follows shortly and covers senior housing.