Danilo · Updated 2026-09-12 · Sources: Swiss Code of Obligations Art. 262 (fedlex, subletting/Untermiete); Swiss Code of Obligations Art. 266a-266f (fedlex, termination of fixed-term and open-ended leases); ch.ch (tenancy law)
Sublets, flat swaps, shared rooms – when a listing isn't comparable to your home
You found a listing that looks affordable, but something in the description doesn't quite fit: "sublet until end of year", "swap for a 3-room flat in Zurich", or "room in existing shared flat available". Before you compare that rent with your current home, it's worth a second look. The listing is not wrong. It simply offers something different from what it first appears to be.
Four special cases: sublets, swaps, shared rooms, furnished flats
A temporary sublet (Zwischenmiete). The main tenant re-lets their flat for a limited period, usually because they're away themselves (a stint abroad, a sabbatical). Legally this is subletting, and under Art. 262 of the Code of Obligations the main tenant needs their own landlord's consent to do it. The landlord may refuse only if the tenant refuses to disclose the sublet's terms, if those terms are abusive compared with the main lease, or if the sublet would cause the landlord a substantial disadvantage. As a subtenant it's worth asking whether that consent actually exists. Without it the sublet isn't enforceable, and the main tenant is liable for the subtenant using the flat no differently than they themselves are allowed to.
A flat swap (Wohnungstausch). Two households swap leases, usually to sidestep notice periods or a higher re-letting rent. A simple move into a vacant flat is not enough: both landlords have to agree to the change of tenant, and a swap doesn't happen just because the two tenants agree between themselves.
A room in an existing shared flat. The listing can still carry "apartment" as its property type, because that field describes the kind of building and not how much of it is being offered. A landlord letting one room of a shared flat correctly fills that field in as "apartment". The clue, if it's there at all, sits in the running text: "looking for a flatmate", "room in a WG", "shared flat, one room free".
Furnished flats. A furnished flat is often more expensive per month than an unfurnished one of the same size, because the price folds in furniture, kitchenware and sometimes a shorter lease term. The figure is accurate; the basis for comparison differs. Comparing a furnished sublet against your own unfurnished, open-ended lease overstates the real cost difference.
Why the rent figure alone is misleading here
Zügle's comparison prices the net or gross rent of the whole flat against your current total costs. That's the right calculation for a regular flat you're renting in full. For a room in a shared flat it doesn't hold: you're paying only your share of the rent. A comparison that puts the full flat rent against your current home shows a wildly inflated figure and makes the shared room look worse than it is. For a sublet or a swap the distortion is different: the figures may well be accurate, but the comparison assumes a permanent arrangement, while in reality you'd have to move again once the term ends. A cost comparison that leaves that second move out is incomplete.
How Zügle shows this: a caveat above the figures
When Flatfox declares a listing as temporary, a swap, or furnished through its own structured fields, that's a confirmed fact as far as Zügle is concerned. Homegate and pasted listings carry no such fields. There, Zügle can only pick this up from wording in the text ("Zwischenmiete", "WG", "looking for a flatmate"), and that stays a hint, never a confirmed fact. A fact the portal itself denies (say, "furnished: no") outweighs a text hint pointing the other way. A hint of a shared room, though, is never simply discarded just because the portal enters "apartment" as the property type, since that field answers a different question from "how much of it is being let".
Either way, Zügle shows the matching caveat above the figures in the comparison, before you even read the difference. A footnote afterwards would come too late. The listing isn't removed from the comparison or from a ranking because of it: the numbers are real, and a caveat says "this one isn't directly comparable", not "ignore this listing". You keep seeing the rent and the tax difference, along with the information that the basis is different from a regular, open-ended lease.
Settings: hiding shared rooms, sublets, swaps and furnished flats
If you'd rather not see temporary lets, swaps, shared rooms or furnished flats at all, you can set that in Settings, separately for each of the four properties. Set one to "not acceptable" and the ranking hides a listing as soon as the portal explicitly confirms that property (Flatfox's own field for "temporary", for instance).
A listing that says nothing at all about it is not excluded. If no field and no text says anything about a fixed term, a swap or furnishing, that counts as unknown, not as "no". Anything else would favour a landlord who simply omits the field over one who honestly ticks "temporary". Only a confirmed fact excludes a listing; silence never does.
The shared-room preference has one exception, because no portal reports this structurally: with "no shared rooms" set, Zügle also drops a listing whose text clearly suggests a shared room ("looking for a flatmate" and similar) — here the plain text hint is allowed to exclude, because otherwise exactly the listings this setting exists for would never be filtered. The distinction still shows up in the ranking: a listing dropped on a text hint is counted as "shared-room suspected", not as a confirmed shared room.
What this setting doesn't check
- Whether a sublet actually has the main landlord's consent isn't stated by any listing
or checked by any Zügle setting — that can only be confirmed directly with the landlord or main tenant.
- Whether a shared-room hint in the text is accurate stays a guess based on the wording,
not a verified fact — read the whole listing before deciding. For more on how Zügle reads listing text in general and where its limits are, see Reading a listing critically.
- How long a sublet actually runs, or whether it gets extended, isn't in Zügle's data —
only the lease itself settles that.
- This page is not legal advice about your specific tenancy.
Try it with your own figures
Enter a listing with the settings that match your situation, and let Zügle show you whether — and with which caveat — it's comparable: